Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elevated acute-phase protein in stunted Nepali children reporting low morbidity: different rural and urban profiles

This study examined the associations between severity of stunting, plasma protein concentrations and morbidity of 104 Nepali boys, aged 10-14 years, living in contrasting environments. Boys from a remote village were compared with three similarly aged urban groups: poor squatters, homeless street children, and middle-class schoolchildren. All but the middle-class group were stunted, particularly village boys whose mean height-for-age z-score (-2.97, SD 0.82) indicates severe growth retardation. Stunting was significantly associated with increased plasma levels of the acute-phase protein alpha1-antichymotrypsin itself inversely related to plasma levels of albumin. Plasma ACT levels of village children (mean 1.52 g/l, SD 0.43) were three to four times higher than those of squatters and homeless street children, and five times higher than those of middle-class boys. Despite being the most severely stunted and having the most abnormal plasma protein values, village children reported the lowest burden of disease, a contradiction which may reflect exposure to sub-clinical infections or habituation to illness and low expectation of treatment. This study draws attention to the strikingly high levels of ACT and of stunting in the rural sample, and cautions on the use of uncorroborated morbidity reports across different epidemiological and socio-ecological environments. Possible mechanisms to explain the impact of illness and inflammation on growth faltering are discussed.
Two-bit gates are universal for quantum computation.

A proof is given, which relies on the commutator algebra of the unitary Lie groups, that quantum gates operating on just two bits at a time are sufficient to construct a general quantum circuit. The best previous result had shown the universality of three-bit gates, by analogy to the universality of the Toffoli three-bit gate of classical reversible computing. Two-bit quantum gates may be implemented by magnetic resonance operations applied to a pair of electronic or nuclear spins. A ``gearbox quantum computer'' proposed here, based on the principles of atomic-force microscopy, would permit the operation of such two-bit gates in a physical system with very long phase-breaking (i.e., quantum-phase-coherence) times. Simpler versions of the gearbox computer could be used to do experiments on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen states and related entangled quantum states.
Electroacupuncture Alleviates the Inflammatory Response via Effects on M1 and M2 Macrophages after Spinal Cord Injury

Background Macrophages/microglia are important effector cells at the site of spinal cord injury (SCI). M1-type macrophages facilitate innate immunity to remove foreign microbes and wound debris from the injury site. M2-type macrophages exhibit tissue repair properties and attenuate production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Regulation of the polarisation of M1/M2 macrophages may affect the inflammatory response in SCI and may be related to neurotrophin-3 (NT-3). Electroacupuncture (EA) at GV acupuncture points can be used as an adjuvant therapy for SCI. Aim To investigate the effects of EA on Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) functional evaluation and inflammatory cytokines (tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and IL-10), and on the proportions of M1/M2 macrophages, and to provide a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying the potential clinical treatment of SCI. Methods A rat SCI model was induced by spinal segment transection at T10 in 16 Sprague-Dawley rats. A further eight rats were included as a Control group. Ten surviving SCI model rats were divided into two groups (n=5 each): an SCI group that remained untreated; and an SCI+EA group that received EA at GV6 and GV9. Results EA improved BBB scores, inhibited the proportion of M1 macrophages and TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 levels, and downregulated the M1 marker CD86. By contrast, EA enhanced IL-10, the proportion of M2 macrophages and upregulated the M2 marker CD206 and NT-3 expression. Conclusions EA had a positive impact on SCI model rats. This may be related to the neuroprotective effect of NT-3, which may increase the polarisation of M2 microglia/macrophages.
A Study on the Mechanical and Forming Performance of Oil Palm Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite

Background: Composite materials have steadily gained recognition worldwide for its uses in various sectors such as aerospace, infrastructures and automotive industries. Natural fibers are gaining recognition as a substitute to synthetic fibers due to its recyclability and abundance. Palm fiber reinforced polypropylene composite panels have potential to be stamp formed in order to build complex geometries. In stamp forming the most sensitive feature is elastic recovery during unloading. This phenomenon will affect the net dimension of the final product. Objective: To identify the effects of forming rate, tool radius, temperature and ratio of fiber to polypropylene on the spring-back of palm fiber composite. To deduce an empirical model in predicting spring-back. To investigate the effect of fiber composition on its tensile strength. Results: Statistical analysis conducted shows all the studied parameters gives significant effect towards spring-back. The higher the temperature, feed rate and fiber composition (up to 30wt %) the smaller the spring-back and it is vice versa for tool radius. An empirical model was formulated to predict the spring-back angle. 30wt% of fiber composition was found to give the highest tensile strength. Conclusion: The suggested temperature, fiber composition, tool radius and feed rate to get the smallest spring-back angle in the current study are 150 °C, 30wt%, 2mm and 500mm/min. While the fiber composition of 30wt% shows the highest tensile strength.
Forced externalization of control in people with diabetes: a qualitative exploratory study.

AIM The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the patients' perceptions of the Diabetic Disease State and its complications using an ethnographic method. BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus is an extensively researched and studied disease, however, relatively little attention has been given to the lived experience of chronic illness. METHODS A purposive sample of 18 people with diabetes was derived from a diabetes register database. Data were collected by semistructured interviews, which were tape-recorded and transcribed. The transcripts were analysed together with the researchers' observational notes, using open coding procedures to identify main categories. Discussion of the results is made in the theoretical context of the locus of control (LOC) framework. FINDINGS Three main categories emerged from the data: information-knowledge of illness; the psychological burden of diabetes; rationalizing. A further subcategory, reality avoidance, was identified. The findings showed that these people with diabetes experience and describe complex psychological effects and coping mechanisms in having a chronic illness. CONCLUSIONS The findings also suggested that participants in this study might have felt that the control of their chronic condition had been externalized to the health care professionals responsible for their care.
Use of the tendon of the palmaris longus muscle in surgical procedures: study on cadavers

Objective Demonstrate that the tendon of palmar long can be estimated in relation to its length and width before using it as a graft in surgical procedure. Methods There were examined 60 forearms of 30 corpses of black ethnicity; measure the length and width of the tendon of the palmaris longus muscle and compared the length of the forearm. Results There are notes their absence unilateral right in two female corpses. The medium length and width were more or less respectively 11.9, 15.2 mm and 4.1 + 1.5 mm. The total average forearm length of 275.4 was more or less 17.9 mm. Conclusion There is a significant relationship between the length of the tendon and the length of the forearm; so we can evaluate the size of the tendon of the palmaris longus muscle when it is necessary to use it for grafts. Levels of Evidence IV, Case series.
XRD and Infrared Spectroscopic Validation of Weathering Surfaces from Ultramafic and Mafic Lithologies Examined using Hyperspectral Imagery, Cross Lake Area, Cape Smith Belt, Northern Quebec, Canada

The study area is located at the tectonic boundary between the Povungnituk and Chukotat Groups in the Early Proterozoic Cape Smith Belt near Cross Lake, in northern Quebec. This zone is characterized by elongate intrusive bodies of mafic-ultramafic rocks which have been interpreted as co-magmatic with the Fe- and Mg-rich basalts of the lower Chukotat Group. Such ultramafic sills are often Ni-Cu-PGE bearing in the area. Probe-1 Hyperspectral imagery is being used to differentiate the lithologies in the study area. In an applied field setting such imagery records the spectrum of the surface weathering product rather than the signal from a fresh rock surface. The objective of this investigation was to generate a calibrated database of the hyperspectral signatures of the surficial weathering products of each of the local lithologies. Validation of lithologies and surficial weathering characteristics was carried out during two field campaigns, as well as in subsequent laboratory evaluation using infrared spectroscopy and mineralogical analyses. Field ground-truthing indicated significant visual compositional and textural differences between surficial weathering products for study area lithologies, found to be related to their composition, grain size and most commonly associated vegetation (lichen). In-situ and subsequent laboratory and powdered sample infrared analyses of fresh and weathered surfaces confirmed that infrared absorption features observed in hyperspectral imagery signatures for the lithologies was solely associated with the weathered mineral oxides.
Synergy between Individual TNF-Dependent Functions Determines Granuloma Performance for Controlling Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection1

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the world’s most deadly human pathogens; an integrated understanding of how it successfully survives in its host is crucial to developing new treatment strategies. One notable characteristic of infection with M. tuberculosis is the formation of granulomas, aggregates of immune cells whose structure and function may reflect success or failure of the host to contain infection. One central regulator of host responses to infection, including granuloma formation, is the pleiotropic cytokine TNF-α. Experimental work has characterized roles for TNF in macrophage activation; regulation of apoptosis; chemokine and cytokine production; and regulation of cellular recruitment via transendothelial migration. Separating the effects of these functions is presently difficult or impossible in vivo. To this end, we applied a computational model to understand specific roles of TNF in control of tuberculosis in a single granuloma. In the model, cells are represented as discrete entities on a spatial grid responding to environmental stimuli by following programmed rules determined from published experimental studies. Simulated granulomas emerge as a result of these rules. After confirming the importance of TNF in this model, we assessed the effects of individual TNF functions. The model predicts that multiple TNF activities contribute to control of infection within the granuloma, with macrophage activation as a key effector mechanism for controlling bacterial growth. Results suggest that bacterial numbers are a strong contributing factor to granuloma structure with TNF. Finally, TNF-dependent apoptosis may reduce inflammation at the cost of impairing mycobacterial clearance.
A Cell-Based PDE4 Assay in 1536-Well Plate Format for High-Throughput Screening

The cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) are intracellular enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of 3,′5′-cyclic nucleotides, such as cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), to their corresponding 5′nucleotide monophosphates. These enzymes play an important role in controlling cellular concentrations of cyclic nucleotides and thus regulate a variety of cellular signaling events. PDEs are emerging as drug targets for several diseases, including asthma, cardiovascular disease, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Although biochemical assays with purified recombinant PDE enzymes and cAMP or cGMP substrate are commonly used for compound screening, cell-based assays would provide a better assessment of compound activity in a more physiological context. The authors report the development and validation of a new cell-based PDE4 assay using a constitutively active G-protein—coupled receptor as a driving force for cAMP production and a cyclic nucleotide—gated cation channel as a biosensor in 1536-well plates. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2008:609-618)
Poly(ethylene terephalate) prepolymer graft modification of nano-TiO2 and its effect on mechanical property of polycarbonate nanocomposites

Abstract Nano-TiO2 particles were modified by the poly(ethylene terephalate) prepolymer (pre-PET) via polycondensation. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that pre-PET was successfully grafted on the surface of the nano-TiO2 particles. Thermogravimetric analysis results indicated that the grafting efficiency depended on the vacuum degree. Compared to the original nano-TiO2, the grafted nano-TiO2 had better compatibility with the polycarbonate (PC) matrix and could be dispersed more homogeneously in PC. Hence, interfacial adhesion between TiO2 and PC was enhanced. The mechanical properties of the resultant PC/nano-TiO2 composites like tensile strength and notched impact strength were greatly improved. Calculated respectively from tensile yield stress PC/nano-TiO2 composites, the interfacial interaction parameter B was employed to quantitatively characterise the effective interfacial interaction between the nano-TiO2 and PC matrix. It demonstrated that the nano-TiO2 grafted with pre-PET had stronger effective interfacial interaction with PC matrix than original nano-TiO2.
The Alliance of Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Bone, and Diabetes

Bone fragility has emerged as a new complication of diabetes. Several mechanisms in diabetes may influence bone homeostasis by impairing the action between osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and osteocytes and/or changing the structural properties of the bone tissue. Some of these mechanisms can potentially alter the fate of mesenchymal stem cells, the initial precursor of the osteoblast. In this review, we describe the main factors that impair bone health in diabetic patients and their clinical impact.
A Provenance-Aware Policy Language (cProvl) and a Data Traceability Model (cProv) for the Cloud

Provenance plays a pivotal in tracing the origin of something and determining how and why something had occurred. With the emergence of the cloud and the benefits it encompasses, there has been a rapid proliferation of services being adopted by commercial and government sectors. However, trust and security concerns for such services are on an unprecedented scale. Currently, these services expose very little internal working to their customers, this can cause accountability and compliance issues especially in the event of a fault or error, customers and providers are left to point finger at each other. Provenance-based trace ability provides a mean to address part of this problem by being able to capture and query events occurred in the past to understand how and why it took place. However, due to the complexity of the cloud infrastructure, the current provenance models lack the expressibility required to describe the inner-working of a cloud service. For a complete solution, a provenance-aware policy language is also required for operators and users to define policies for compliance purpose. The current policy standards do not cater for such requirement. To address these issues, in this paper we propose a provenance (trace ability) model cProv, and a provenance-aware policy language (cProvl) to capture trace ability data, and express policies for validating against the model. For implementation, we have extended the XACML3.0 architecture to support provenance, and provided a translator that converts cProvl policy and request into XACML type.
Elligator: elliptic-curve points indistinguishable from uniform random strings

Censorship-circumvention tools are in an arms race against censors. The censors study all traffic passing into and out of their controlled sphere, and try to disable censorship-circumvention tools without completely shutting down the Internet. Tools aim to shape their traffic patterns to match unblocked programs, so that simple traffic profiling cannot identify the tools within a reasonable number of traces; the censors respond by deploying firewalls with increasingly sophisticated deep-packet inspection. Cryptography hides patterns in user data but does not evade censorship if the censor can recognize patterns in the cryptography itself. In particular, elliptic-curve cryptography often transmits points on known elliptic curves, and those points are easily distinguishable from uniform random strings of bits. This paper introduces high-security high-speed elliptic-curve systems in which elliptic-curve points are encoded so as to be indistinguishable from uniform random strings. At a lower level, this paper introduces a new bijection between strings and about half of all curve points; this bijection is applicable to every odd-characteristic elliptic curve with a point of order 2, except for curves of $j$-invariant 1728. This paper also presents guidelines to construct, and two examples of, secure curves suitable for these encodings.
Resistance Mutations outside the Integrase Coding Region Have an Effect on Human Immunodeficiency Virus Replicative Fitness but Do Not Affect Its Susceptibility to Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors

Most studies describing phenotypic resistance to integrase strand transfer inhibitors have analyzed viruses carrying only patient-derived HIV-1 integrase genes (INT-recombinant viruses). However, to date, many of the patients on INSTI-based treatment regimes, such as raltegravir (RAL), elvitegravir (EVG), and dolutegravir (DTG) are infected with multidrug-resistant HIV-1 strains. Here we analyzed the effect of drug resistance mutations in Gag (p2/NCp7/p1/p6), protease (PR), reverse transcriptase (RT), and integrase (IN) coding regions on susceptibility to INSTIs and viral replicative fitness using a novel HIV-1 phenotyping assay. Initial characterization based on site-directed mutant INSTI-resistant viruses confirmed the effect of a series of INSTI mutations on reduced susceptibility to EVG and RAL and viral replicative fitness (0.6% to 99% relative to the HIV-1NL4-3 control). Two sets of recombinant viruses containing a 3,428-bp gag-p2/NCp7/p1/p6/pol-PR/RT/IN (p2-INT) or a 1,088 bp integrase (INT) patient-derived fragment were constructed from plasma samples obtained from 27 virologic failure patients participating in a 48-week dose-ranging study of elvitegravir, GS-US-183-0105. A strong correlation was observed when susceptibility to EVG and RAL was assayed using p2-INT- vs. INT-recombinant viruses (Pearson coefficient correlation 0.869 and 0.918, P<0.0001 for EVG and RAL, respectively), demonstrating that mutations in the protease and RT have limited effect on susceptibility to these INSTIs. On the other hand, the replicative fitness of viruses harboring drug resistance mutations in PR, RT, and IN was generally impaired compared to viruses carrying only INSTI-resistance mutations. Thus, in the absence of drug pressure, drug resistance mutations in the PR and RT contribute to decrease the replicative fitness of the virus already impaired by mutations in the integrase. The use of recombinant viruses containing most or all HIV-1 regions targeted by antiretroviral drugs might be essential to understand the collective effect of epistatic interactions in multidrug-resistant viruses.
Proteinase-activated receptor 2 modulates neuroinflammation in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis

The proteinase-activated receptors (PARs) are widely recognized for their modulatory properties of inflammation and neurodegeneration. We investigated the role of PAR2 in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS) in humans and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in mice. PAR2 expression was increased on astrocytes and infiltrating macrophages in human MS and murine EAE central nervous system (CNS) white matter (P < 0.05). Macrophages and astrocytes from PAR2 wild-type (WT) and knockout (KO) mice exhibited differential immune gene expression with PAR2 KO macrophages showing significantly higher interleukin 10 production after lipopolysaccharide stimulation (P < 0.001). PAR2 activation in macrophages resulted in the release of soluble oligodendrocyte cytotoxins (P < 0.01). Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein–induced EAE caused more severe inflammatory gene expression in the CNS of PAR2 WT animals (P < 0.05), together with enhanced T cell proliferation and interferon γ production (P < 0.05), compared with KO littermates. Indeed, PAR2 WT animals showed markedly greater microglial activation and T lymphocyte infiltration accompanied by worsened demyelination and axonal injury in the CNS compared with their PAR2 KO littermates. Enhanced neuropathological changes were associated with a more severe progressive relapsing disease phenotype (P < 0.001) in WT animals. These findings reveal previously unreported pathogenic interactions between CNS PAR2 expression and neuroinflammation with ensuing demyelination and axonal injury.
Correction: PDGFRα depletion attenuates glioblastoma stem cells features by modulation of STAT3, RB1 and multiple oncogenic signals

Platelet derived growth factor receptors (PDGFRs) play an important role in tumor pathogenesis, and they are frequently overexpressed in glioblastoma (GBM). Earlier we have shown a higher protein expression of PDGFR isoforms (α and β) in peritumoral-tissue derived cancer stem cells (p-CSC) than in tumor core (c-CSC) of several GBM affected patients. In the current study, in order to assess the activity of PDGFRα/PDGF-AA signaling axis, we performed time course experiments to monitor the effects of exogenous PDGF-AA on the expression of downstream target genes in c-CSC vs p-CSC. Interestingly, in p-CSC we detected the upregulation of Y705phosphorylated Stat3, concurrent with a decrement of Rb1 protein in its active state, within minutes of PDGF-AA addition. This finding prompted us to elucidate the role of PDGFRα in self-renewal, invasion and differentiation in p-CSC by using short hairpin RNA depletion of PDGFRα expression. Notably, in PDGFRα-depleted cells, protein analysis revealed attenuation of stemness-related and glial markers expression, alongside early activation of the neuronal marker MAP2a/b that correlated with the induction of tumor suppressor Rb1. The in vitro reduction of the invasive capacity of PDGFRα-depleted CSC as compared to parental cells correlated with the downmodulation of markers of epithelial-mesenchymal transition phenotype and angiogenesis. Surprisingly, we observed the induction of anti-apoptotic proteins and compensatory oncogenic signals such as EDN1, EDNRB, PRKCB1, PDGF-C and PDGF-D. To conclude, we hypothesize that the newly discovered PDGFRα/Stat3/Rb1 regulatory axis might represent a potential therapeutic target for GBM treatment.