Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estrogen‐stimulation of postconfluent cell accumulation and foci formation of human MCF‐7 breast cancer cells

Foci, nodules of cellular overgrowth, that appear after confluence are an in vitro characteristic of malignant transformation. A well‐studied in vitro model of estrogen‐dependent tumors is the MCF‐7 cell line, derived from a pleural metastasis of a human breast adenocarcinoma. We report that cultivation of MCF‐7 cells, using routine methods, results in extensive estrogen‐stimulated postconfluent cell accumulation characterized by discrete three‐dimensional arrays. Side view Nomarski optical sections revealed these to be principally multicellular foci with occasional domes and pseudoacinar vacuoles. This effect on MCF‐7 cell growth occurs in media containing fetal bovine serum but not with calf serum or charcoal‐dextran‐treated fetal bovine serum unless supplemented with estrogens. Foci formation starts 5–6 days after confluence, and the number of foci generated is a function of the concentration of added estrogens. Foci formation is suppressed by the antiestrogens Tamoxifen and LY 156758. Addition of progesterone, testosterone, or dexamethasone had little or no effect, while various estrogens (ethinyl estradiol, diethylstilbestrol, and moxestrol) induced foci development. Clones derived from single cells of the initial MCF‐7 population revealed a wide variance in estrogen‐induced foci formation, demonstrating heterogeneity of this tumor cell line. The postconfluent cell growth of the estrogen receptor‐deficient cell line, MDA‐MB‐231, contrasted with MCF‐7 by developing an extensive multilayer morphology devoid of discrete structures. The tumorigenic potential of the MCF‐7 cells used in our experiments was confirmed by their estrogen‐dependent growth in immunosuppressed male BDF1 mice.
Workplace bullying and psychological health at work: The mediating role of satisfaction of needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate how exposure to workplace bullying undermines psychological health at work. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study proposes and tests a model in which the experience of workplace bullying predicts poor psychological health at work (higher burnout and lower work engagement) through lack of satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness). The results of this study, conducted among 1179 nurses in Quebec, Canada, provide support for the model. Workplace bullying negatively predicted work engagement through employees' unsatisfied needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Workplace bullying also positively predicted burnout, via lack of satisfaction of employees' need for autonomy. Invariance analysis also confirmed the robustness of the model across gender and job status. Implications for workplace bullying research and managerial practices are discussed.
HSP27 but not HSP70 has a potent protective effect against α‐synuclein‐induced cell death in mammalian neuronal cells

α‐Synuclein is a neuronally expressed protein which is mutated in familial Parkinson's disease. We have previously shown that disease‐associated mutants of α‐synuclein cause enhanced neuronal cell death in response to a variety of stimuli, whereas wild‐type α‐synuclein has a protective effect against some stimuli, whilst enhancing the death response to others. We demonstrate, for the first time, that over‐expression of the heat shock protein HSP27 has a potent protective anti‐apoptotic effect against the damaging effects of wild‐type and particularly of mutant α‐synuclein. In contrast, HSP70 has some protective effect against the damaging effect of the wild‐type protein, but has no effect against the mutant proteins, whilst HSP56 has no protective effect in this system. Our results indicate that disease‐associated mutants of α‐synuclein enhance its death‐inducing properties and lead to increased apoptosis, which can be mitigated by either the use of specific caspase inhibitors or HSP27 over‐expression. This potent protective effect of HSP27 against the mutant and wild‐type proteins may be of potential therapeutic importance.
Sin1 binds to both ATF‐2 and p38 and enhances ATF‐2‐dependent transcription in an SAPK signaling pathway

Yeast Sin1 binds to the Sty1 kinase, a member of the stress‐activated kinases (SAPKs), and is required for stress‐induced phosphorylation and activation of the transcription factor Atf1, a homolog of the vertebrate‐activating transcription factor‐2 (ATF‐2). Here we report that mammalian Sin1 plays an important role in the SAPK signaling pathway by binding to both ATF‐2 and p38. In response to stress, ATF‐2, a member of the ATF/cAMP response element‐binding protein family, is phosphorylated by p38/Jun NH2‐terminal protein kinase and activates the transcription of apoptosis‐related genes. In contrast, in response to serum stimulation, ATF‐2 is phosphorylated via the Ras effector pathway and leads to the induction of growth‐related genes. We found that Sin1 binds directly to both ATF‐2 and p38. Sin1 over‐expression enhanced osmotic stress‐induced phosphorylation of ATF‐2 and ATF‐2‐mediated transcription, whereas knockdown of Sin1 expression by siRNA suppressed these responses. Moreover, a reduction in Sin1 expression suppressed osmotic stress‐induced apoptosis and the expression of Gadd45β, one of the ATF‐2 target genes that is correlated with apoptosis. Decreased Sin1 expression, however, did not affect the serum stimulation‐induced phosphorylation of ATF‐2. Sin1 may contribute to ATF‐2 signaling specificity by acting as a nuclear scaffold.
Interaction of fluorescently-labeled contractile proteins with the cytoskeleton in cell models

To determine if a living cell is necessary for the incorporation of actin, alpha-actinin, and tropomyosin into the cytoskeleton, we have exposed cell models to fluorescently labeled contractile proteins. In this in vitro system, lissamine rhodamine-labeled actin bound to attachment plaques, ruffles, cleavage furrows and stress fibers, and the binding could not be blocked by prior exposure to unlabeled actin. Fluorescently labeled alpha-actinin also bound to ruffles, attachment plaques, cleavage furrows, and stress fibers. The periodicity of fluorescent alpha-actinin along stress fibers was wider in gerbil fibroma cells than it was in PtK2 cells. The fluorescent alpha-actinin binding in cell models could not be blocked by the prior addition of unlabeled alpha-actinin suggesting that alpha-actinin was binding to itself. While there was only slight binding of fluorescent tropomyosin to the cytoskeleton of interphase cells, there was stronger binding in furrow regions of models of dividing cells. The binding of fluorescently labeled tropomyosin could be blocked by prior exposure of the cell models to unlabeled tropomyosin. If unlabeled actin was permitted to polymerize in the stress fibers in cell models, fluorescently labeled tropomyosin stained the fibers. In contrast to the labeled contractile proteins, fluorescently labeled ovalbumin and BSA did not stain any elements of the cytoskeleton. Our results are discussed in terms of the structure and assembly of stress fibers and cleavage furrows.
Antibodies to CD18 influence neutrophil migration through extracellular matrix

Mac‐1 (CD11b/CD18) is known to be involved in neutrophil (PMN) adhesion to endothelial cells and extracellular matrix. Although antibodies to CD18 are being tested for therapy in humans, their role in PMN migration through the extracellular matrix is unknown. We used direct visualization to quantify PMN motility through reconstituted, three‐dimensional gels of collagen type I. Gels were prepared with different concentrations of collagen (ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 mg/mL) and PMN migration was examined in the presence and absence of antibodies to CD18 (anti‐CD18), with and without stimulation by N‐formyl peptides. In low‐concentration gels (<0.6 mg/mL), anti‐CD18 had a significant influence on PMN migration, increasing motility in unstimulated PMN by 90% at 0.3 mg/mL collagen, and decreasing motility in N‐formyl‐methionyl‐leucyl‐phenylalanine (fMLP)‐stimulated PMN by 70% at 0.4 mg/mL collagen. But anti‐CD18 had no effect on the rate of cell migration through high‐concentration collagen gels (>0.6 mg/mL). PMN migration through collagen gels is CD18‐dependent but only under conditions of high hydration, suggesting that CD18‐mediated effects (e.g., adhesion to gel fibers) are only important when the fiber density is relatively low. Anti‐CD18 inhibited, but did not eliminate, the adhesion of fMLP‐stimulated PMN to the surface of collagen gels, suggesting that cells use multiple mechanisms for gaining traction within the gel. Because of the multiple modes of interaction between motile cells and the deformable fiber matrix, blockade of one component, such as CD18, can enhance the rate of cell migration under one set of conditions, and inhibit under another. J. Leukoc. Biol. 65: 356–363; 1999.
Changes in long jump take-off technique with increasingrun-up speed

Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the influence of run-up speed on take-off technique in the long jump. Seventy-one jumps by an elite male long jumper were recorded in the sagittal plane by a high-speed video camera. A wide range of run-up speeds was obtained using direct intervention to set the length of the athlete's run-up. As the athlete's run-up speed increased, the jump distance and take-off speed increased, the leg angle at touchdown remained almost unchanged, and the take-off angle and take-off duration steadily decreased. The predictions of two previously published mathematical models of the long jump take-off are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data.
What does ‘international university’ mean at a European bilingual university? The role of languages and culture

Internationalisation has brought about remarkable changes at universities all over the world. In the case of the University of the Basque Country (Spain) this is reflected in the increasing presence of English-medium instruction. This paper examines two issues: the university community's perception of (1) the term international university and its interaction with languages and culture; and (2) the effect of English on attitudes towards the minority language, Basque. The participants were 589 subjects (students, teachers, and administration personnel) whose views were sought by analysing their responses to two open questions. Results show that there is a strong association between the presence of different languages and cultures in the conceptualisation of an international university. As for the impact of English on Basque, international students and teachers were mainly positive, whereas local students and administration personnel harboured a more reluctant attitude. Finally, we conclude that it is essential to raise language and cultural awareness in the implementation of multilingualism in higher education.
Couples’ happiness and its relationship to functioning in everyday life after brain injury

The objective of this survey was to identify couples’ joint perception of their satisfaction with life as a whole when one of the persons in the couple had acquired brain injury between one and five years earlier. The focus was on the influence that functioning and disability in everyday life have on the couple's joint life satisfaction after brain injury. The sample consisted of 55 couples, and the mean age of the brain-injured persons was 51 years. Both persons in the couple answered a mailed questionnaire encompassing questions concerning perceived impairments, activity limitations, participation restrictions, and life satisfaction. The results showed that in 16 of the 55 couples both partners were satisfied with life as a whole. The joint experience of life satisfaction was significantly related to the couple's functioning in everyday life, and specifically to perceived participation in leisure time and in their social life, and in their ability to wash clothes. Important implications from this study, showing that only one-third of the couples were satisfied, are that the partners should be included to a greater extent in the rehabilitation process and the couple's perspective of what they find difficult to deal with should serve as a guide during rehabilitation.
The Field of Educational Administration in England

ABSTRACT Based on over twenty years of empirical and intellectual work about knowledge production in the field of educational administration, I examine the origins and development of the canon, methodologies and knowledge workers in England. I focus on the field as being primarily concerned with professional activity and how and why this was established from the 1960s, and the way knowledge workers have variously positioned themselves over time and in context. Using a case study of knowledge production at the time of the New Labour governments (1997–2010) I show how the emphasis on activity has left the field vulnerable to colonisation by markets and private interests, but how policy studies continues not only to reveal this but also to provide a model for how engagement with the social sciences can be productive.
Screen detection and the WHO STEPwise approach to the prevalence and risk factors of arterial hypertension in Kinshasa

Background The trend of hypertension and other risk factors of cardiovascular disease is changing because of epidemiological, demographic and nutritional transitions in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence and risk factors of arterial hypertension in the Kinshasa region, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Design and methods Data were collected from random sample cross-sectional surveys of adult black Africans from Kinshasa, with the help of a structured questionnaire, physical examinations and blood samples, using the World Health Organisation (WHO) stepwise approach. Sex, age, place of residence (urban versus rural), psychosocial risk factors (socioeconomic status, stress), overweight status (BMI: 25–29.9 kg/m2), general obesity (BMI: ≥ 30 kg/m2), abdominal obesity (waist circumference: ≥ 94 cm) and diabetes mellitus were considered to be the potential risk factors for screen-detected hypertension. Results The weighted prevalences of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, overweight status, general obesity and abdominal obesity were 15.2, 140.2, 13.5, 4.8 and 7.5%, respectively. Blood pressure and the proportion of participants with hypertension increased with age and BMI group in the population, for both men and women. Age, rural residence, low socioeconomic status, high socioeconomic status, general obesity and abdominal obesity were the risk factors for hypertension. Women aged 55 years and above had higher levels of blood pressure and hypertension than men. Conclusion Absolute levels of hypertension, all types of obesity and diabetes mellitus are high risk factors in the army camps and semiurban extension cities; general obesity and abdominal obesity are the risk factors for detectable hypertension. Effective control of general obesity and abdominal obesity and psychosocial strategies that target both semirural and urban areas of the Kinshasa region have the potential to prevent much premature cardiovascular disease.
Airborne grass (Poaceae) pollen in southern Spain. Results of a 10‐year study (1987–96)

This work reports an exhaustive study of the aerobiology of the Gramineae in Seville, Spain, which is typical of coastal Mediterranean areas. Sampling was done with a Cour trap installed on the roof terrace of the School of Pharmacy, Seville, from 1987 to 1996, both inclusive. The climatic pattern of that period was characterized by two exceptionally wet years (1989 and 1996), between which were 5 consecutive years of drought (1990–5). This typieally Mediterranean climate affects grass aerobiology. The annual amounts of total grass pollen are low, never exceeding 25(X) grains/m3. The start, length, and intensity of the pollen season are significantly correlated with preseasonal meteorologic factors (precipitation and temperature), but intraseasonal meteorologic conditions have no effect on the three variables. The relationships are stated by three equations that, while further years of observations are anticipated, can be considered models to forecast the characteristics of the pollen season: the starting date depends on the mean temperatures of January and February, and the length and intensity of the season depend on the rainfall between the beginning of January and the starting date of the season. For the study period, the weekly concentrations (pollen curves) throughout the year showed no typical pattern of variation over the years, so that it was impossible to make mid‐ and long‐term forecasts of the variation in weekly concentration. The most noteworthy aspects of grass pollen curves are a long pollen season, which starts in February or March and lasts until September or October; peaks of higher concentration (>1(K) grains/m3) in May and June, associated with increases in temperature and absence of precipitation; and other peaks in the summer months that may be as high as the spring peaks.
Teamworking and Organizational Performance: A Review of Survey-Based Research

This paper presents a review of recent survey-based research looking at the contribution of teamwork to organizational performance. In particular, it focuses on empirical studies in which both teamwork and performance are directly measured in a quantitative way. The paper begins by identifying four interrelated dimensions of teamwork effectiveness: attitudinal, behavioural, operational and financial. The first two represent transmission mechanisms by which organizational performance can be improved. The latter two provide direct measures of organizational outcomes. The review shows that teamworking has a positive impact on all four dimensions of performance. It also reveals that, when teamwork is combined with structural change, performance can be further enhanced. The paper concludes by highlighting some important research gaps that future studies could address.
Self- and supervisory perspectives on age and work attitudes and performance.

Person- and context-oriented definitions of age were used to predict three sets of work outcomes: work attitudes, performance ratings, and reports of developmental practices. The five age measures included employee chronological age, employee subjective age (i.e., self-perceptions of age), and social age (i.e., others' perceptions of age), as well as self- and supervisors' perceptions of the employee's relative age (i.e., compared with the employee's work group). The study assessed (a) the relationships among the age measures, (b) the additive relationships among the age measures that predicted work outcomes, and (c) the interactive relationships among the age measures that predicted work outcomes. Each prediction received some support except for (b). Furthermore, many of the age--work-outcome relationships were replicated in the managerial sample. Implications for the use of alternative age measures are discussed.
Identification and analysis of flagellar coexpressed determinants (Feds) of Campylobacter jejuni involved in colonization

The flagellum of Campylobacter jejuni provides motility essential for commensal colonization of the intestinal tract of avian species and infection of humans resulting in diarrhoeal disease. Additionally, the flagellar type III secretion system has been reported to secrete proteins such as CiaI that influence invasion of human intestinal cells and possibly pathogenesis. The flagellar regulatory system ultimately influences σ28 activity required for expression of the FlaA major flagellin and other flagellar filament proteins. In this work, we discovered that transcription of ciaI and four genes we propose annotating as feds (for flagellar coexpressed determinants) is dependent upon σ28, but these genes are not required for motility. Instead, the Feds and CiaI are involved in commensal colonization of chicks, with FedA additionally involved in promoting invasion of human intestinal cells. We also discovered that the major flagellin influences production, stability or secretion of σ28‐dependent proteins. Specific transcriptional and translational mechanisms affecting CiaI were identified and domains of CiaI were analysed for importance in commensalism or invasion. Our work broadens the genes controlled by the flagellar regulatory system and implicates this system in co‐ordinating production of colonization and virulence determinants with flagella, which together are required for optimal interactions with diverse hosts.
Context-specific microRNA analysis: identification of functional microRNAs and their mRNA targets

MicroRNAs (miRs) function primarily as post-transcriptional negative regulators of gene expression through binding to their mRNA targets. Reliable prediction of a miR’s targets is a considerable bioinformatic challenge of great importance for inferring the miR’s function. Sequence-based prediction algorithms have high false-positive rates, are not in agreement, and are not biological context specific. Here we introduce CoSMic (Context-Specific MicroRNA analysis), an algorithm that combines sequence-based prediction with miR and mRNA expression data. CoSMic differs from existing methods—it identifies miRs that play active roles in the specific biological system of interest and predicts with less false positives their functional targets. We applied CoSMic to search for miRs that regulate the migratory response of human mammary cells to epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulation. Several such miRs, whose putative targets were significantly enriched by migration processes were identified. We tested three of these miRs experimentally, and showed that they indeed affected the migratory phenotype; we also tested three negative controls. In comparison to other algorithms CoSMic indeed filters out false positives and allows improved identification of context-specific targets. CoSMic can greatly facilitate miR research in general and, in particular, advance our understanding of individual miRs’ function in a specific context.
A High-Capacity Image Data Hiding Scheme Using Adaptive LSB Substitution

Many existing steganographic methods hide more secret data into edged areas than smooth areas in the host image, which does not differentiate textures from edges and causes serious degradation in actual edge areas. To avoid abrupt changes in image edge areas, as well as to achieve better quality of the stego-image, a novel image data hiding technique by adaptive Least Significant Bits (LSBs) substitution is proposed in this paper. The scheme exploits the brightness, edges, and texture masking of the host image to estimate the number k of LSBs for data hiding. Pixels in the noise non-sensitive regions are em- bedded by a k-bit LSB substitution with a lager value of k than that of the pixels in noise sensitive regions. Moreover, an optimal pixel adjustment process is used to enhance stego-image visual quality obtained by simple LSB substi- tution method. To ensure that the adaptive number k of LSBs remains unchanged after pixel modification, the LSBs number is computed by the high-order bits rather than all the bits of the image pixel value. The theoretical analyses and experiment results show that the proposed method achieves higher embedding capacity and better stego- image quality compared with some existing LSB methods.