Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conditional Activation of Bmi1 Expression Regulates Self‐renewal, Apoptosis, and Differentiation of Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells In Vitro and In Vivo

The Polycomb group protein Bmi1 is a key regulator of self‐renewal of embryonic and adult central nervous system stem cells, and its overexpression has been shown to occur in several types of brain tumors. In a Cre/LoxP‐based conditional transgenic mouse model, we show that fine‐tuning of Bmi1 expression in embryonic neural stem cell (NSC) is sufficient to increase their proliferation and self‐renewal potential both in vitro and in vivo. This is linked to downregulation of both the ink4a/ARF and the p21/Foxg1 axes. However, increased and ectopic proliferation induced by overexpression of Bmi1 in progenitors committed toward a neuronal lineage during embryonic cortical development, triggers apoptosis through a survivin‐mediated mechanism and leads to reduced brain size. Postnatally, however, increased self‐renewal capacity of neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPC) is independent of Foxg1 and resistance to apoptosis is observed in neural progenitors derived from NSC‐overexpressing Bmi1. Neoplastic transformation is absent in mice‐overexpressing Bmi1 aged up to 20 months. These studies provide strong evidence that fine tuning of Bmi1 expression is a viable tool to increase self‐renewal capacity of NSCs both in vitro and in vivo without eliciting neoplastic transformation of these cells. STEM Cells 2011;29:700–712
A Generalization of the {\L}o\'s-Tarski Preservation Theorem over Classes of Finite Structures

We investigate a generalization of the {\L}o\'s-Tarski preservation theorem via the semantic notion of \emph{preservation under substructures modulo $k$-sized cores}. It was shown earlier that over arbitrary structures, this semantic notion for first-order logic corresponds to definability by $\exists^k\forall^*$ sentences. In this paper, we identify two properties of classes of finite structures that ensure the above correspondence. The first is based on well-quasi-ordering under the embedding relation. The second is a logic-based combinatorial property that strictly generalizes the first. We show that starting with classes satisfying any of these properties, the classes obtained by applying operations like disjoint union, cartesian and tensor products, or by forming words and trees over the classes, inherit the same property. As a fallout, we obtain interesting classes of structures over which an effective version of the {\L}o\'s-Tarski theorem holds.
A ‘Terror of Tyrannosaurs’: The First Trackways of Tyrannosaurids and Evidence of Gregariousness and Pathology in Tyrannosauridae

The skeletal record of tyrannosaurids is well-documented, whereas their footprint record is surprisingly sparse. There are only a few isolated footprints attributed to tyrannosaurids and, hitherto, no reported trackways. We report the world’s first trackways attributable to tyrannosaurids, and describe a new ichnotaxon attributable to tyrannosaurids. These trackways are from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian - Maastrichtian) of northeastern British Columbia, Canada. One trackway consists of three tridactyl footprints, and two adjacent trackways consist of two footprints each. All three trackways show animals bearing southeast within an 8.5 meter-wide corridor. Similarities in depth and preservation of the tyrannosaurid tracks indicate that these three trackways were made by track-makers walking concurrently in the same direction. These trackways add significantly to previous osteology-based hypotheses of locomotion and behavior in Tyrannosauridae by providing ichnologic support for gregariousness in tyrannosaurids, and the first record of the walking gait of tyrannosaurids.
From Chaos to Cooperation: Teaching Analytic Evaluation with LINK-UP

Our work seeks to design and develop a tool to enable the learning of human-computer interaction while contributing to a growing and evolving development environment. This paper focuses on teaching students about analytic evaluations, a popular evaluation method that can be conducted rapidly and inexpensively. With our module, designers and evaluators can debate claims about the interface being developed, helping to discover problems with a design—shown in our usability evaluation of the module. We discuss how the module can support design reuse and speculate on broader applications for this type of learning and development environment.
The impact of a decade of changing treatment on rates of severe hypoglycemia in a population-based cohort of children with type 1 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of changes to treatment on the incidence of severe hypoglycemia and its risk factors in a large population-based cohort of children with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The cohort consisted of 1,335 children (age at entry 9.5 +/- 4.3 years [mean +/- SD], range 0-18), yielding 6,928 patient-years of data. The mean follow-up period was 4.7 +/- 3.1 years (range 0-10.7). Prospective assessment of severe hypoglycemia (an event leading to loss of consciousness or seizure) and associated clinical factors and outcomes was made between 1992 and 2002. Patients were reviewed every 3 months. Data were analyzed using the negative binomial regression model. RESULTS A total of 944 severe events were recorded. The incidence of severe hypoglycemia increased significantly by 29% per year for the first 5 years but appeared to plateau over the last 5 years. The overall average HbA1c significantly decreased (by 0.2% per year) over the whole follow-up period. An increased risk of severe hypoglycemia was associated with lower HbA1c, younger age, higher insulin dose, male sex, and lower parental socioeconomic status. Of insulin therapies, only pump treatment was associated with reduced rates of severe hypoglycemia. CONCLUSIONS Severe hypoglycemia remains a major problem for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Recent approaches to therapy may be allowing a degree of improved control without the expected increased risk of severe hypoglycemia but further monitoring will be important.
From a Phylogenetic Tree to a Reticulated Network

In many phylogenetic problems, assuming that species have evolved from a common ancestor by a simple branching process is unrealistic. Reticulate phylogenetic models, however, have been largely neglected because the concept of reticulate evolution have not been supported by using appropriate analytical tools and software. The reticulate model can adequately describe such complicated mechanisms as hybridization between species or lateral gene transfer in bacteria. In this paper, we describe a new algorithm for inferring reticulate phylogenies from evolutionary distances among species. The algorithm is capable of detecting contradictory signals encompassed in a phylogenetic tree and identifying possible reticulate events that may have occurred during evolution. The algorithm produces a reticulate phylogeny by gradually improving upon the initial solution provided by a phylogenetic tree model. The new algorithm is compared to the popular SplitsGraph method in a reanalysis of the evolution of photosynthetic organisms. A computer program to construct and visualize reticulate phylogenies, called T-Rex (Tree and Reticulogram Reconstruction), is available to researchers at the following URL: www.fas. umontreal.ca/biol/casgrain/en/labo/t-rex.
Association of latent cellulase activity with plasma membranes from kidney bean abscission zones.

Membranes isolated from abscission zones of Phaseolus vulgaris L. , cv. Red Kidney, contained cellulase activity. This particulate activity was enhanced 10- to 20-fold by treatment with Triton X-100. Sucrose density gradient analyses of cell fractions showed that the membranes with which cellulase was associated had a peak equilibrium density of 1.16 to 1.17 g/cm(3) which coincided with that of ion-activated ATPase, a marker for plasma membranes. The membrane fraction having the highest cellulase activity also contained a high proportion of plasma membranes as shown by electron microscopy of sucrose density gradient fractions after staining by periodic acid-chromic acid-phosphotungstic acid. It was concluded that the particulate cellulase was associated with the plasma membrane.
Banknote Paper Deterioration Factors: Circulation Simulator Method

The processes of banknote deterioration in circulation and the factors causing this wear have been analyzed to determine the main factors in the process of banknote deterioration in real life circulation and to ascertain which of these factors could be simulated in the process of simulated circulation. The factors that should be taken into consideration during simulated circulation are systematic mechanical and chemical influences on a banknote. The developed Circulation Simulator Method was used to evaluate Ukrainian hryvnia banknotes to obtain artificially deteriorated banknote samples whose optical properties, weight change, air permeability, bursting strength, and stiffness were within the range of corresponding parameter changes for bank notes in actual circulation. The designed method consisted of multiple mechanical damages to tested banknotes by means of centrifugally rotating them within a closed container containing a wearing agent in the presence of a soiling mixture, which imitates the typical composition of soil in banknote circulation within Eastern Europe. The proposed method can be used to determine the durability of materials and to develop manufacturing processes for banknote production.
Optimal overload response in sensor networks

A single commodity network that models the information flow in an arbitrary topology sensor field that collects and forwards information to a backbone through certain designated gateway nodes is considered. Resilient operation in overload stress situations caused by unpredictable traffic or topology variations is investigated. That amounts to studying the network in instability mode, where the traffic load distribution is outside the throughput region. A fluid model is adopted where superflows model traffic forwarding and backlog formations at the network level. Quantitative performance metrics of the overload including throughput, lexicographic minimization, most balanced allocation, and amount of lost traffic due to buffer overflow are considered to capture the information loss process due to overflow in the network. Optimal superflows with respect to these metrics are characterized and a distributed asynchronous algorithm that computes such superflows is given. The characterization of the optimal superflow amounts to obtaining a structural decomposition of the network in a sequence of disjoint subregions with decreasing overload such that traffic flows only from regions of higher overload to regions of lower overload. The optimal superflow represents the smoothest trajectory to overflow, followed by the network in case of instability.
Tumor necrosis factor/cachectin plays a key role in bleomycin-induced pneumopathy and fibrosis

The role of TNF-alpha/cachectin in the pneumopathy elicited by bleomycin has been investigated. After a single intratracheal bleomycin instillation, an increase of the lung TNF-alpha mRNA level was evident, from days 5 to 15, as shown by Northern gel analysis of whole lung RNA. In contrast, lung IL-1-alpha and GM-CSF mRNA were not detectable. In mice passively immunized with rabbit anti-mouse TNF-alpha IgG, the bleomycin-induced collagen deposition, evaluated by the total lung hydroxyproline assay on day 15, was prevented. Depletion of the CD4 and CD8 T lymphocytes by an in vivo treatment with mAb prevented the bleomycin-induced increase of TNF mRNA level and fibrosis. After an administration of bleomycin in continuous intraperitoneal perfusion, the diffuse alveolar damage observed by light and electron microscopy was almost completely prevented by anti-TNF antibody. These results indicate that in response to bleomycin, the T lymphocytes induce, by an undefined mechanism, an increase of the pulmonary TNF production, which leads to alveolar damage, growth of fibroblast, and collagen deposition.
NEUROPROTECTIVE EFFECT OF TERMINALIA CHEBULA EXTRACTS AND ELLAGIC ACID IN PC12 CELLS

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the common neurodegenerative disorders among elderly. The purpose of this study was to determine the neuroprotective effect and mechanisms of action underlying the Terminalia chebula extracts and ellagic acid by using beta-amyloid25-35 (Aβ25-35)-induced cell toxicity in an undifferentiated pheochromocytoma (PC12) cell line. Materials and Methods: The T. chebula extracts were prepared using the methanol, water, and 95% ethanol. Specifically, the ellagic acid was obtained in our laboratory. Assays including cell toxicity and changes in intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and calcium level were evaluated to examine the neuroprotective effects and mechanisms of the T. chebula extracts and ellagic acid. Results: The methanolic and water extracts of T. chebula and ellagic acid exhibited the strongest neuroprotective activity against Aβ25-35-induced PC12 cell damages at 0.5–5.0 μg/ml. The ellagic acid also exhibited partial neuroprotective activity against H2O2-induced PC12 cell damages at 0.5–5.0 μg/ml. The methanolic and water extracts of T. chebula and ellagic acid protected PC12 cells from Aβ25-35-mediated cell damages and enhanced cell viability thorough two key mechanisms by: (1) inhibiting ROS production and (2) reducing calcium ion influx. Conclusion: The T. chebula represents a promising plant-source as medicine in the application for the treatment of AD. Further investigation focusing on the active component of T. chebula extracts e.g., ellagic acid is crucial to verify the neuroprotective efficacy and mechanisms in vivo.
Proximodistal subdivision of Drosophila legs and wings: the elbow-no ocelli gene complex

Appendages are thought to have arisen during evolution as outgrowths from the body wall of primitive bilateria. In Drosophila, subsets of body wall cells are set aside as appendage precursors through the action of secreted signaling proteins that direct localized expression of transcription factors. The Drosophila homeodomain protein Distal-less is expressed in the leg primordia and required for formation of legs, but not wings. The homeodomain protein Nubbin is expressed in the wing primordia and required for formation of wings, but not legs. Given that insect legs and wings have a common developmental and evolutionary origin, we sought to identify genes that underlie the specification of all appendage primordia. We present evidence that the zinc-finger proteins encoded by the elbow and no ocelli genes act in leg and wing primordia to repress body wall-specifying genes and thereby direct appendage formation.
Virtual routers on the move: live router migration as a network-management primitive

The complexity of network management is widely recognized as one of the biggest challenges facing the Internet today. Point solutions for individual problems further increase system complexity while not addressing the underlying causes. In this paper, we argue that many network-management problems stem from the same root cause---the need to maintain consistency between the physical and logical configuration of the routers. Hence, we propose VROOM (Virtual ROuters On the Move), a new network-management primitive that avoids unnecessary changes to the logical topology by allowing (virtual) routers to freely move from one physical node to another. In addition to simplifying existing network-management tasks like planned maintenance and service deployment, VROOM can also help tackle emerging challenges such as reducing energy consumption. We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of novel migration techniques for virtual routers with either hardware or software data planes. Our evaluation shows that VROOM is transparent to routing protocols and results in no performance impact on the data traffic when a hardware-based data plane is used.
The Sumatra subduction zone: A case for a locked fault zone extending into the mantle

[1] A current view is that the portion of the subduction interface that remains locked in the time interval between large interplate earthquakes, hereinafter referred to as the locked fault zone (LFZ), does not extend into the mantle because serpentinization of the mantle wedge would favor stable aseismic sliding. Here, we test this view in the case of the Sumatra subduction zone where the downdip end of the LFZ can be well constrained from the pattern and rate of uplift deduced from coral growth and from GPS measurements of horizontal deformation. These geodetic data are modeled from a creeping dislocation embedded in an elastic half-space and indicate that the LFZ extends 132 ± 10/7 km from the trench, to a depth between 35 and 57 km. By combining this information with the geometry of the plate interface as constrained from two-dimensional gravimetric modeling and seismicity, we show that the LFZ extends below the forearc Moho, which is estimated to lie at a depth of � 30 km, at a horizontal distance of 110 km from the trench. So, in this particular island arc setting, the LFZ most probably extends into the mantle, implying that either the mantle is not serpentinized, or that the presence of serpentine does not necessarily imply stable sliding. From thermal modeling, the temperature at the downdip end of the LFZ is estimated to be 260 ± 100� C. This temperature seems too low for thermally activated ductile flow, so that aseismic slip is most probably due to pressure and/ or temperature induced steady state brittle sliding, possibly favored by fluids released from the subducting slab. INDEX TERMS: 7223 Seismology: Seismic hazard assessment and prediction; 1206 Geodesy and Gravity: Crustal movements—interplate (8155); 1219 Geodesy and Gravity: Local gravity anomalies and crustal structure; 3902 Mineral Physics: Creep and deformation; KEYWORDS: locked fault zone, interseismic deformation, Sumatra
On the accuracy of (cid:96) 1 -ﬁltering of signals with block-sparse structure

We discuss new methods for the recovery of signals with block-sparse structure, based on (cid:96) 1 -minimization. Our emphasis is on the efﬁciently computable error bounds for the recovery routines. We optimize these bounds with respect to the method parameters to construct the estimators with improved statistical properties. We justify the proposed approach with an oracle inequality which links the properties of the recovery algorithms and the best estimation performance.
A Semantic Space for Music Derived from Social Tags

In this paper we investigate social tags as a novel highvolume source of semantic metadata for music, using techniques from the fields of information retrieval and multivariate data analysis. We show that, despite the ad hoc and informal language of tagging, tags define a low-dimensional semantic space that is extremely well-behaved at the track level, in particular being highly organised by artist and musical genre. We introduce the use of Correspondence Analysis to visualise this semantic space, and show how it can be applied to create a browse-by-mood interface for a psychologically-motivated two-dimensional subspace representing musical emotion.
A Novel Efficient Technique for the Calculation of the Green's Functions in Rectangular Waveguides Based on Accelerated Series Decomposition

A new efficient technique for computing the Green's functions inside rectangular waveguides is presented. After a summary of the classical approaches and their difficulties, a new strategy is proposed, based on the decomposition of the main spectral series into simpler terms. Although the resulting series present better convergence rate, several acceleration techniques are combined to further improve the efficiency. Several results are presented to demonstrate the improvements in convergence rates obtained using the new decomposition.
Hippocampal sclerosis studied in identical twins

Objective: To test both the genetic and acquired hypotheses for the etiology of hippocampal sclerosis (HS) by studying with optimized and quantitative MRI three monozygous (MZ) twin pairs in which the index twin had temporal lobe epilepsy and HS. Background: There is conflicting evidence in the literature regarding whether HS is genetic or acquired prenatally, perinatally, or as a consequence of prolonged childhood seizures. Methods: We compared three MZ pairs with 30 age-matched control subjects who had no history of a neurologic disorder; we also used the twins as matched samples to assess subtle differences between the affected and unaffected twins. Results: All of the affected twins had prolonged seizures with fever in early childhood, which stood out as the unique factor common to all affected twins and was absent in all the unaffected twins. HS was present in all affected twins but was absent in the unaffected twin on visual, volumetric, and T2 relaxometry criteria. Comparison of the affected twin with the co-twin revealed that intracranial volume ipsilateral to the HS was relatively small in two of three affected twins. Conclusions: The absence of HS in the unaffected twin is strong evidence against a genetic hypothesis for HS. Neither perinatal problems nor birth order were factors in determining the presence of HS. This twin study supports the notion of HS as an acquired lesion secondary to prolonged seizures in early childhood and suggests that regional abnormalities of intracranial volume are associated with HS.
Towards Empirical Dialog-State Modeling and its Use in Language Modeling

Inspired by the goal of modeling the dialog state and the speaker’s mental state, moment by moment, we apply Principal Component Analysis to a vector of 76 prosodic features spanning 6 seconds of context. This gives a multidimensional representation of the current state. We find that word probabilities vary strongly with several of these dimensions, that the use of this information in a language model gives a 27% reduction in perplexity, and that many of the dimensions do relate to aspects of mental state and dialog state.
Improved lower bounds on the total variation distance and relative entropy for the Poisson approximation

New lower bounds on the total variation distance between the distribution of a sum of independent Bernoulli random variables and the Poisson random variable (with the same mean) are derived via the Chen-Stein method. Corresponding lower bounds on the relative entropy are derived, based on the lower bounds on the total variation distance and an existing distribution-dependent refinement of Pinsker's inequality. Two uses of these bounds are finally outlined. The full version for this shortened paper is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6811.
An Approach to Fixed/Mobile Converged Routing

We consider a family of routing protocols for networks in which the core topology is essentially fixed but where the end systems may be mobile. We refer to this form of routing as Fixed/Mobile Converged (FMC) routing. This is a mixture of the traditional prefix-routed scenario of the fixed Internet, and the classical edge mobility scenario that is today supported by cellular networks, primarily as part of the cellular technology elements (GSM, GPRS, etc). We outline a general architecture for the support of such edge mobility, and present an approach to FMC routing that fits within this architecture. We then present initial simulation results illustrating the potential scalability and routing efficiency of this approach.