Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
VE-Cadherin–Mediated Epigenetic Regulation of Endothelial Gene Expression

Rationale: The mechanistic foundation of vascular maturation is still largely unknown. Several human pathologies are characterized by deregulated angiogenesis and unstable blood vessels. Solid tumors, for instance, get their nourishment from newly formed structurally abnormal vessels which present wide and irregular interendothelial junctions. Expression and clustering of the main endothelial-specific adherens junction protein, VEC (vascular endothelial cadherin), upregulate genes with key roles in endothelial differentiation and stability. Objective: We aim at understanding the molecular mechanisms through which VEC triggers the expression of a set of genes involved in endothelial differentiation and vascular stabilization. Methods and Results: We compared a VEC-null cell line with the same line reconstituted with VEC wild-type cDNA. VEC expression and clustering upregulated endothelial-specific genes with key roles in vascular stabilization including claudin-5, vascular endothelial-protein tyrosine phosphatase (VE-PTP), and von Willebrand factor (vWf). Mechanistically, VEC exerts this effect by inhibiting polycomb protein activity on the specific gene promoters. This is achieved by preventing nuclear translocation of FoxO1 (Forkhead box protein O1) and &bgr;-catenin, which contribute to PRC2 (polycomb repressive complex-2) binding to promoter regions of claudin-5, VE-PTP, and vWf. VEC/&bgr;-catenin complex also sequesters a core subunit of PRC2 (Ezh2 [enhancer of zeste homolog 2]) at the cell membrane, preventing its nuclear translocation. Inhibition of Ezh2/VEC association increases Ezh2 recruitment to claudin-5, VE-PTP, and vWf promoters, causing gene downregulation. RNA sequencing comparison of VEC-null and VEC-positive cells suggested a more general role of VEC in activating endothelial genes and triggering a vascular stability-related gene expression program. In pathological angiogenesis of human ovarian carcinomas, reduced VEC expression paralleled decreased levels of claudin-5 and VE-PTP. Conclusions: These data extend the knowledge of polycomb-mediated regulation of gene expression to endothelial cell differentiation and vessel maturation. The identified mechanism opens novel therapeutic opportunities to modulate endothelial gene expression and induce vascular normalization through pharmacological inhibition of the polycomb-mediated repression system.
Oxidative Activity of Ammonium Persulfate Salt on Mast Cells and Basophils: Implication in Hairdressers’ Asthma

Background: Persulfate salts are components of bleaching powders widely used by hairdressers during hair-bleaching procedures. Hairdressers are at high risk for occupational asthma and rhinitis, and ammonium persulfate is the main etiologic agent. Objective: To explore the effects of ammonium persulfate on human albumin, mast cells, and basophils in order to evaluate a possible effect of ammonium persulfate oxidizing activity in the mechanism of ammonium persulfate-induced occupational asthma. Methods: High-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry was performed on ammonium persulfate-incubated human albumin. The activation of LAD2 human mast cell and KU812 human basophil cell lines incubated with ammonium persulfate was evaluated. CD63 expression on persulfate-in-vitro-incubated blood basophils from nonexposed healthy controls (n = 31) and hairdressers with work-related respiratory symptoms (n = 29) was assessed by flow cytometry. Results: No persulfate-albumin conjugate was found. An oxidative process on tryptophan and methionine was detected. Ammonium persulfate induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and the degranulation of LAD2 and KU812 cells. Human basophils from healthy controls, incubated in vitro with ammonium persulfate, showed increased CD63 expression and ROS production. In hairdressers with ammonium persulfate-caused occupational asthma (positive persulfate challenge), basophil-CD63 expression was higher than in those with a negative challenge and in healthy controls. Conclusions: Ammonium persulfate incubated with human albumin did not generate any adduct but oxidized some amino acids. This oxidizing activity induced human mast cell and basophil activation which might be crucial in the mechanism of persulfate-induced occupational asthma and rhinitis.
Gender-related differences in lateralization of hippocampal activation and cognitive strategy

Gender-related differences in brain activation patterns and their lateralization associated with cognitive functions have been reported in the field of language, emotion, and working memory. Differences have been hypothesized to be due to different cognitive strategies. The aim of the present study was to test whether lateralization of brain activation in the hippocampi during memory processing differs between the sexes. We acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging data from healthy female and male study participants performing a spatial memory task and quantitatively assessed the lateralization of hippocampal activation in each participant. Hippocampal activation was significantly more left lateralized in women, and more right lateralized in men. Correspondingly, women rated their strategy as being more verbal than men did.
Inactivation of the very strong HCMV immediate early promoter by DNA CpG methylation in vitro.

The influence of DNA methylation in vitro on the activity of the very strong human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) major immediate early (IE) modulator/enhancer/promoter region was investigated by transient transfection experiments of premonocytic HL-60 cells. While sequence-specific methylation of the major IE enhancer and/or modulator with the cytosine methyl-transferases FnuDII, HhaI and HaeIII had no significant effect, the promoter activity was completely repressed by methylation of the cytosine in 5'-CpG sites with the Spiroplasma methyltransferase SssI. Addition of TNF-alpha or PMA which are strong stimulators of HCMV major IE enhancer/promoter activity in premonocytic HL-60 cells had no effect on repression. Inactivation of the IE enhancer/promoter via methylation by M.SssI could be partially alleviated by co-transfection with an excess of untranscribable highly methylated DNA. These results indicate that a methyl-CpG binding factor is involved as mediator in the inhibitory effect of HCMV enhancer/promoter methylation. Taken together, the HCMV major IE enhancer/ promoter has been shown to be susceptible to transcriptional inactivation by methylation of the cytosines in CpG dinucleotides, a process that is proposed to play a modulatory role in viral latency.
Mechanical efficiency improvement in relation to metabolic changes in sedentary obese adults

Purpose Mechanical efficiency (ME) refers to the ability of an individual to transfer energy consumed by external work. This performance indicator is impaired by obesity and is associated with decreased high-intensity exercise performance. However, it is unclear if ME may be improved in response to high intensity training (HIT). This study aimed to determine if ME increases in response to HIT in obese adults and to identify the factors associated with these changes. Methods 24 obese adults (body mass index=∼33 kg/m2) were randomised into control (n=12) and trained (n=12) groups. Following baseline metabolic, anthropometric, fitness and ME measurements, the participants completed a 6-week exercise intervention that included 18 sessions of six repeats of 6 s supramaximal sprints on an electromagnetically braked cycle ergometer. The metabolic, anthropometric and fitness assessments were repeated postintervention. ME (expressed as a %) was calculated during an incremental maximal cycling test at stages of 25, 50, 75, 100 and 125 W. Results ME did not differ across the groups at 25 and 50 W. Following HIT, ME increased significantly at 75, 100 and 125 W (p<0.01, respectively) compared with the control group (p<0.01, respectively). Although no changes in fat-free mass were observed following HIT, the increases in ME at 75, 100 and 125 W correlated positively with both homeostasis model assessment-estimated insulin resistance index decreases (r=0.9; r=0.89 and r=0.88, p<0.01, respectively) and peak power increases (r=0.87, r=0.88 and r=0.9, p<0.01, respectively). Conclusions Although there were no changes in the participants’ anthropometric variables, HIT improved ME in obese adults, an enhancement that appears to be related to increases in muscle strength and metabolic adaptations.
S100B Serum Levels Predict Treatment Response in Patients with Melancholic Depression

Background: There is an ongoing search for biomarkers in psychiatry, for example, as diagnostic tools or predictors of treatment response. The neurotrophic factor S100 calcium binding protein B (S100B) has been discussed as a possible predictor of antidepressant response in patients with major depression, but also as a possible biomarker of an acute depressive state. The aim of the present study was to study the association of serum S100B levels with antidepressant treatment response and depression severity in melancholically depressed inpatients. Methods: After a wash-out period of 1 week, 40 inpatients with melancholic depression were treated with either venlafaxine or imipramine. S100B levels and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) scores were assessed at baseline, after 7 weeks of treatment, and after 6 months. Results: Patients with high S100B levels at baseline showed a markedly better treatment response defined as relative reduction in HAM-D scores than those with low baseline S100B levels after 7 weeks (P=.002) and 6 months (P=.003). In linear regression models, S100B was a significant predictor for treatment response at both time points. It is of interest to note that nonresponders were detected with a predictive value of 85% and a false negative rate of 7.5%. S100B levels were not associated with depression severity and did not change with clinical improvement. Conclusions: Low S100B levels predict nonresponse to venlafaxine and imipramine with high precision. Future studies have to show which treatments are effective in patients with low levels of S100B so that this biomarker will help to reduce patients’ burden of nonresponding to frequently used antidepressants.
A survey of adaptive sorting algorithms

The design and analysis of adaptive sorting algorithms has made important contributions to both theory and practice. The main contributions from the theoretical point of view are: the description of the complexity of a sorting algorithm not only in terms of the size of a problem instance but also in terms of the disorder of the given problem instance; the establishment of new relationships among measures of disorder; the introduction of new sorting algorithms that take advantage of the existing order in the input sequence; and, the proofs that several of the new sorting algorithms achieve maximal (optimal) adaptivity with respect to several measures of disorder. The main contributions from the practical point of view are: the demonstration that several algorithms currently in use are adaptive; and, the development of new algorithms, similar to currently used algorithms that perform competitively on random sequences and are significantly faster on nearly sorted sequences. In this survey, we present the basic notions and concepts of adaptive sorting and the state of the art of adaptive sorting algorithms.
Pharmacotherapy of cancer-related episodic pain

Episodic pain is a transient increase in pain intensity over background pain. Episodic pain occurs commonly in cancer patients; it is a heterogeneous phenomenon that is incapacitating, debilitating and can have a significant impact on quality of life. Episodic pain can be difficult to manage; it is often unpredictable, typically of fast onset, of short duration and feels similar to background pain except that it may be more severe. The successful management of episodic pain can only be achieved following a thorough assessment. The subsequent management usually involves both pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies integrated into the overall care and appropriate for the stage of the patient’s disease. Pharmacological management includes the implementation of primary therapies (e.g., chemotherapy for the underlying aetiology of the pain, optimising the scheduled medication (e.g., analgesics and adjuvant analgesics) and specific pharmacological interventions for the episodic pain (e.g., rescue medication).
Power Modeling for GPU Architectures Using McPAT

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are very popular for both graphics and general-purpose applications. Since GPUs operate many processing units and manage multiple levels of memory hierarchy, they consume a significant amount of power. Although several power models for CPUs are available, the power consumption of GPUs has not been studied much yet. In this article we develop a new power model for GPUs by utilizing McPAT, a CPU power tool. We generate initial power model data from McPAT with a detailed GPU configuration, and then adjust the models by comparing them with empirical data. We use the NVIDIA's Fermi architecture for building the power model, and our model estimates the GPU power consumption with an average error of 7.7% and 12.8% for the microbenchmarks and Merge benchmarks, respectively.
Portuguese Word Embeddings: Evaluating on Word Analogies and Natural Language Tasks

Word embeddings have been found to provide meaningful representations for words in an efficient way; therefore, they have become common in Natural Language Processing sys- tems. In this paper, we evaluated different word embedding models trained on a large Portuguese corpus, including both Brazilian and European variants. We trained 31 word embedding models using FastText, GloVe, Wang2Vec and Word2Vec. We evaluated them intrinsically on syntactic and semantic analogies and extrinsically on POS tagging and sentence semantic similarity tasks. The obtained results suggest that word analogies are not appropriate for word embedding evaluation; task-specific evaluations appear to be a better option.
Exploring the diversity of ERP systems - An empirical insight into system usage in academia

Because of the increasing importance of ERP systems and their educational value, as well as the rapidly changing ERP market, many universities use or want to use ERP systems for their courses. The aim of these courses is to teach and demonstrate different ERP related concepts and processes. To support these courses, some ERP manufacturers co-operate closely with universities and offer their systems and resources for academic teaching. However, there are hardly any empirical insights on system usage in academia. As an initial survey, we developed a questionnaire to determine the current status of ERP system usage and integration in courses at IS chairs of German-speaking research-oriented universities. Among 92 responding university chairs, 59 are teaching ERP topics. Of these 59 chairs, only 38 are teaching ERP systems practically. Almost every university chair (35 out of 38) that is providing practical courses for students is using SAP.
Culture of In Vitro-Produced Bovine Embryos with Vitamin E Improves Development In Vitro and After Transfer to Recipients1

Abstract Detrimental effects of oxygen-derived free radicals on embryos during culture have been demonstrated in several species. Vitamin E occurs naturally in cell membranes and protects cells from oxidative stress. Under some conditions, vitamin C acts synergistically to enhance the antioxidant effects of vitamin E, a benefit that may be further enhanced by EDTA. The present experiments concerned culture of bovine embryos derived from in vitro-matured, fertilized oocytes with vitamin E, vitamin C, and EDTA in a chemically defined culture medium + 0.2% BSA at 5% O2, 5% CO2, and 90% N2. In the first experiment, more zygotes developed to expanded blastocysts (17%, n = 224, P < 0.05) when culture medium contained 100 μM vitamin E than in control medium (11%, n = 234). Development to early, expanded, and hatched blastocysts was lower with vitamins E and C combined than with vitamin E alone (15%, 9%, and 2% vs. 24%, 17%, and 5%, respectively; P < 0.05), as was the mean number of cells per blastocyst (56 vs. 84, P < 0.05). Addition of EDTA (3 μM) failed to improve development over that in culture with vitamin E + vitamin C. In experiment 2, in vitro-produced embryos cultured 5.5 days in medium with or without 100 μM vitamin E were transferred nonsurgically to recipient cows and heifers and then collected nonsurgically 7 days later. Embryos cultured with vitamin E (n = 37) were approximately 63% larger in surface area than controls (1.16 mm2 vs. 0.71 mm2 surface area; n = 27, P < 0.04).
BLOTTO POLITICS

This paper considers abstract election games motivated by the United States Electoral College (USEC). There are two political parties, and the electoral votes in each state go to the party that spends the most money there, with an adjustment for a “head start” that one party or the other may have in that state. The states have unequal numbers of electoral votes, and elections are decided by majority rules. Each party has a known budget, and much depends on the information that informs how that budget is spent. Three situations are considered: (1) one party’s spending plan is known to the other, (2) spending is gradually revealed as the parties spend continuously in time, and (3) neither side knows anything about the other’s spending. The last situation resembles a Blotto game, hence the title.
IMPLEMENTATION OF AES AND BLOWFISH ALGORITHM

Small embedded devices (including smart cards, RFID, sensor nodes) are now deployed in many applications. They are usually characterized by strong cost constraints. Yet, as they may manipulate sensitive data, they also require cryptographic protection . As a result, many algorithms have been proposed in order to allow strong security at lower cost than standard solution and lack of comparative studies prevent a good understanding for these cryptographic algorithms. Thus in this thesis we study the cryptographic algorithms like AES and Blowfish and compare different parameters and then do further implementation as the implementation of encryption/decryption algorithm is the most essential part of the secure communication. The algorithms are further considered for VLSI implementation. The evaluation is performed in terms of encryption speed, the CPU utilization with time and the battery power consumption. The experimental results specify the efficiency of the algorithms.
trans-Interactions of Nectins Induce Formation of Filopodia and Lamellipodia through the Respective Activation of Cdc42 and Rac Small G Proteins*

Nectins and afadin constitute a novel cell-cell adhesion system that plays a cooperative role with cadherins in the organization of adherens junctions (AJs). Nectins are Ca2+-independent immunoglobulin-like cell-cell adhesion molecules, and afadin is a nectin- and actin filament-binding protein that connects nectins to the actin cytoskeleton. Rac and Cdc42 small G proteins have been implicated in the organization of AJs, but their modes of action remain unknown. The trans-interaction of E-cadherin has recently been shown to induce the activation of Rac, but not that of Cdc42. We show here that thetrans-interactions of nectins induce the formation of filopodia and lamellipodia through the respective activation of Cdc42 and Rac. The Cdc42 activation is necessary, but not sufficient, for the Rac-induced formation of lamellipodia, whereas the Rac activation is not necessary for the Cdc42-induced formation of filopodia. These effects of nectins require their cytoplasmic tail but not their association with afadin. We propose here the functional relationship between nectins and the small G proteins in the organization of AJs.
Temporal pattern of stimulation modulates reflex bladder activation by pudendal nerve stimulation

Reflex bladder activation and inhibition by electrical stimulation of pudendal nerve (PN) afferents is a promising approach to restore control of bladder function in persons with lower urinary tract dysfunction caused by disease or injury. The objective of this work was to determine whether bladder activation evoked by pudendal afferent stimulation was dependent on the temporal pattern of stimulation, and whether specific temporal patterns of stimulation produced larger bladder contractions than constant frequency stimulation.
2‐Methoxyestradiol, a Promising Anticancer Agent

Estrogens occurring naturally in the body are metabolized to catecholestrogens (2‐ and 4‐hydroxyestradiol) by the cytochrome P450 enzymes. 2‐Hydroxy catecholestrogens are further metabolized by catechol‐O‐methyltransferase to 2‐methoxyestradiol, which is known to be protective against tumor formation. 2‐Methoxyestradiol exhibits potent apoptotic activity against rapidly growing tumor cells. It also possesses antiangiogenic activity through a direct apoptotic effect on endothelial cells. Other molecular mechanisms, including microtubule stabilization by inhibition of the colchicine‐binding site, have been reported. The exact mechanism of action of 2‐methoxyestradiol is still unclear, but it has been shown to be effective in preventing tumor growth in a variety of cell lines. 2‐Methoxyestradiol also possesses cardioprotective activity by inhibiting vascular smooth muscle cell growth in arteries. It has a lower binding affinity for estrogen receptor α compared with that of estradiol, and its affinity for estrogen receptor β is even lower than that of estrogen receptor α, thus it has minimal estrogenic activity. 2‐Methoxyestradiol is distinct because of its inability to engage estrogen receptors as an agonist, and its unique antiproliferative and apoptotic activities are mediated independently of estrogen receptors α and β. A phase I clinical trial of 2‐methoxyestradiol 200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 mg/day in 15 patients with breast cancer showed significant reduction in bone pain and analgesic intake in some patients, with no significant adverse effects. Another phase I study of 2‐methoxyestradiol 200–1000 mg/day in combination with docetaxel 35 mg/m2/week for 4–6 weeks performed in 15 patients with advanced refractory metastatic breast cancer showed no serious drug‐related adverse effects. A phase II randomized, double‐blind trial of 2‐methoxyestradiol 400 and 1200 mg/day in 33 patients with hormone‐refractory prostate cancer showed that it was well tolerated and showed prostate specific antigen stabilizations and declines. We have started a phase I clinical trial to explore dosages greater than 1000 mg/day.
Pre-provisioning of local protection for handling dual-failures in OpenFlow-based networks

An essential requirement in operating a carriergrade network (CGN) is ensuring the high availability and reliability. Software-defined networking (SDN) is expected to address such requirement while improving the network management. One challenging issue faced in the process of enhancing the reliability of SDN-enabled CGN is how to achieve rapid recovery with minimal effort. There are two well-known approaches to determine the failover scope: end-to-end (global) detouring and local detouring. Particularly, the local detouring approach provides an efficient means to achieve faster recovery, as it locally detours the disrupted flows around the failed network components using a preconfigured alternative path. However, it requires thousands of flow entries per switch to be configured. To address the technical challenges, we propose a fault-tolerant forwarding table design (FFTD), which groups the flows using group entries and aggregates the flows using a tagging mechanism for scalable and rapid recovery from the dual-failures of switches or links without overburdening the controller and the flow table's memory. Our extensive emulation results reveal that the proposed FFTD satisfies the CGN's 50 ms recovery requirement. Additionally, it reduces the alternate path flow storage requirement by up to 99%.