Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consequences of microhabitat selection for reproductive success in the parasitic copepod Neobrachiella spinicephala (Lernaeopodidae)

SUMMARY Narrow site specificity in parasites is assumed to be associated with fitness benefits, such as higher reproductive success, although this is never quantified. We linked the body mass and combined mass of egg sacs of female copepods, Neobrachiella spinicephala, parasitic on the sandperch, Pinguipes brasilianus, to attachment sites on the host. Adult females attach permanently either on the lips, the margins of the operculum, or the base of pectoral or pelvic fins. In addition to influences of sampling site, season and host body length, our analyses revealed important fitness effects. First, attachment site significantly influenced copepod body mass; independent of other factors, copepods at the base of fins were 32% larger than those on the lips or operculum. Second, the mass of egg sacs was almost always greater if the copepod was attached at the base of fins rather than to the lip or operculum. Thus, a female weighing 6 mg would, on average, produce 40% larger egg sacs if attached to the base of fins. However, copepods were much more likely to attach at the base of fins on small fish, and on either the lip or the operculum on large fish. We propose that constraints varying with fish size account for the shift from optimal to suboptimal attachment sites as a function of increasing host size. By measuring differences in fitness components between attachment sites, our approach allows hypothesis testing regarding microhabitat selection.
An Incremental Hausdorff Distance Calculation Algorithm

The Hausdorff distance is commonly used as a similarity measure between two point sets. Using this measure, a set X is considered similar to Y iff every point in X is close to at least one point in Y. Formally, the Hausdorff distance HausDist(X, Y) can be computed as the Max-Min distance from X to Y, i.e., find the maximum of the distance from an element in X to its nearest neighbor (NN) in Y. Although this is similar to the closest pair and farthest pair problems, computing the Hausdorff distance is a more challenging problem since its Max-Min nature involves both maximization and minimization rather than just one or the other. A traditional approach to computing HausDist(X, Y) performs a linear scan over X and utilizes an index to help compute the NN in Y for each x in X. We present a pair of basic solutions that avoid scanning X by applying the concept of aggregate NN search to searching for the element in X that yields the Hausdorff distance. In addition, we propose a novel method which incrementally explores the indexes of the two sets X and Y simultaneously. As an example application of our techniques, we use the Hausdorff distance as a measure of similarity between two trajectories (represented as point sets). We also use this example application to compare the performance of our proposed method with the traditional approach and the basic solutions. Experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms all competitors by one order of magnitude in terms of the tree traversal cost and total response time.
MicroRNA‐194 is a Marker for Good Prognosis in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most prevalent adult kidney cancer. Prognostic markers are needed to guide patient management toward aggressive versus more conservative approaches, especially for small tumors ≤4 cm. miR‐194 was reported to be downregulated in several cancers and is involved in epithelial to mesenchymal transition. We evaluated miR‐194 as a prognostic marker in ccRCC. In a cohort of 234 patients with primary ccRCC, we correlated miR‐194 expression level with multiple clinicopathological features including disease‐free and overall survival, tumor size, clinical stage, and histological grade. Our results shows a stepwise decrease in miR‐194 expression from normal kidney to primary ccRCC (P = 0.0032) and a subsequent decrease from primary to metastatic lesions. Additionally, patients with higher miR‐194 expression has significantly longer disease‐free survival (P = 0.041) and overall survival (P = 0.031) compared to those with lower expression. In multivariate analysis, miR‐194‐positive tumors retain significance in disease‐free survival and overall survival, suggesting miR‐194 is an independent marker for good prognosis in ccRCC. Moreover, miR‐194 is a marker for good prognosis for patients with small renal masses (P = 0.014). These findings were validated on an independent data set from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We also compared miR‐194 expression between RCC subtypes. ccRCC had the highest levels, whereas chromophobe RCC and oncocytoma had comparable lower levels. Target prediction coupled with pathway analysis show that miR‐194 is predicted to target key molecules and pathways involved in RCC progression. miR‐194 represents a prognostic biomarker in ccRCC.
Antigen recognition by cloned cytotoxic T lymphocytes follows rules predicted by the altered-self hypothesis

Radiation chimeras prepared by injecting H-2 heterozygous F1 stem cells into lethally irradiated parental hosts show a marked, but not absolute, preference for host-type H-2 antigens in the H-2-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response to minor histocompatibility (minor H) antigens. We have selected for the anti-minor HCTL that are restricted to the parental H-2 type absent from the chimeric host and found that in two out of eight cases, such CTL lysed target cells of either parental H-2 type. From one of these CTL populations that lysed H-2d and H-2k target cells expressing BALB minor H antigens, clones were derived and further analyzed. The results showed that: (a) lysis of both H-2d and H-2k target cells was H-2 restricted; (b) H-2d restriction mapped to Dd, and H-2k restriction mapped to Kk; (c) testing against various H-2d and H-2k strains of different and partially overlapping minor H backgrounds as well as against the appropriate F1 crosses revealed that in Dd- and Kk-restricted killing, different minor H antigens were recognized. In a second system, a CTL population was selected from normal (H-2d x H-2k)F1 mice that was specific for H-2d plus minor H antigens and for H-2k plus trinitrophenylated bovine serum albumin. We interpret these findings in terms of the altered-self hypothesis: The association of one H-2 antigen with one conventional antigen X may be recognized by the same T cell receptor specific for the complex formed by a different H-2 antigen in association with a second conventional antigen Y. The implications of these observations for the influence of self H-2 on the generation of the T cell receptor repertoire are discussed.
Purely Automated Attacks on PassPoints-Style Graphical Passwords

We introduce and evaluate various methods for purely automated attacks against PassPoints-style graphical passwords. For generating these attacks, we introduce a graph-based algorithm to efficiently create dictionaries based on heuristics such as click-order patterns (e.g., five points all along a line). Some of our methods combine click-order heuristics with focus-of-attention scan-paths generated from a computational model of visual attention, yielding significantly better automated attacks than previous work. One resulting automated attack finds 7%-16% of passwords for two representative images using dictionaries of approximately 226 entries (where the full password space is 243). Relaxing click-order patterns substantially increased the attack efficacy albeit with larger dictionaries of approximately 235 entries, allowing attacks that guessed 48%-54% of passwords (compared to previous results of 1% and 9% on the same dataset for two images with 235 guesses). These latter attacks are independent of focus-of-attention models, and are based on image-independent guessing patterns. Our results show that automated attacks, which are easier to arrange than human-seeded attacks and are more scalable to systems that use multiple images, require serious consideration when deploying basic PassPoints-style graphical passwords.
A Comparison of Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward Persons with Schizophrenia in Four Stakeholder Groups: Perceived Likelihood of Violence and Desire for Social Distance

Abstract This study compared four stakeholder groups regarding the presence of stigmatizing attitudes toward a hypothetical person diagnosed with schizophrenia. Participants included consumers with schizophrenia (n = 104), family members of those with schizophrenia or other severe mental illness (n = 83), mental health clinicians (n = 85), and members of the general public (n = 59); all participants resided in North Carolina. The purpose of the analyses was to investigate whether mental health stakeholder groups differed from the general public and from each other in terms of key attitudes associated with stigmatization of persons with schizophrenia, that is, perceived likelihood of violent behavior, the desire for social distance, and the causes of the illness. Analysis of variance results with follow-up Scheffé tests indicated no statistically significant differences between the mental health stakeholder groups and members of the general public in the likelihood of violence or the desire for social distance. However, there was more variation between both the mental health stakeholder groups and the general public and within the mental health stakeholder groups in the perceptions of the causes of the mental illness. Throughout the analyses, the consumers tended to have the most negative views of the illness. Implications for future stigma research and education are discussed.
C5 deficiency and C5a or C5aR blockade protects against cerebral malaria

Experimental infection of mice with Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA) provides a powerful model to define genetic determinants that regulate the development of cerebral malaria (CM). Based on the hypothesis that excessive activation of the complement system may confer susceptibility to CM, we investigated the role of C5/C5a in the development of CM. We show a spectrum of susceptibility to PbA in a panel of inbred mice; all CM-susceptible mice examined were found to be C5 sufficient, whereas all C5-deficient strains were resistant to CM. Transfer of the C5-defective allele from an A/J (CM resistant) onto a C57BL/6 (CM-susceptible) genetic background in a congenic strain conferred increased resistance to CM; conversely, transfer of the C5-sufficient allele from the C57BL/6 onto the A/J background recapitulated the CM-susceptible phenotype. The role of C5 was further explored in B10.D2 mice, which are identical for all loci other than C5. C5-deficient B10.D2 mice were protected from CM, whereas C5-sufficient B10.D2 mice were susceptible. Antibody blockade of C5a or C5a receptor (C5aR) rescued susceptible mice from CM. In vitro studies showed that C5a-potentiated cytokine secretion induced by the malaria product P. falciparum glycosylphosphatidylinositol and C5aR blockade abrogated these amplified responses. These data provide evidence implicating C5/C5a in the pathogenesis of CM.
Thyroid hormone receptor β mediates thyroid hormone effects on bone remodeling and bone mass

Excess thyroid hormone (TH) in adults causes osteoporosis and increases fracture risk. However, the mechanisms by which TH affects bone turnover are not elucidated. In particular, the roles of thyroid hormone receptor (TR) isotypes in the mediation of TH effects on osteoblast‐mediated bone formation and osteoclast‐mediated bone resorption are not established. In this study we have induced experimental hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism in adult wild‐type, TRα‐ or TRβ‐deficient mice and analyzed the effects of TH status on the structure and remodeling parameters of trabecular bone. In wild‐type mice, excess TH decreased bone volume and mineralization. High TH concentrations were associated with a high bone‐resorption activity, assessed by increased osteoclast surfaces and elevated concentrations of serum bone‐resorption markers. Serum markers of bone formation also were higher in TH‐treated mice. TRα deficiency did not prevent TH action on bone volume, bone mineralization, bone formation, or bone resorption. In contrast, TRβ deficiency blocked all the early effects of excess TH observed in wild‐type mice. However, prolonged exposure to low or high TH concentrations of TRβ‐deficient mice induced mild modifications of bone structure and remodeling parameters. Together our data suggest that TRβ receptors mediate the acute effects produced by transient changes of TH concentrations on bone remodeling, whereas TRα receptors mediate long‐term effects of chronic alterations of TH metabolism. These data shed new light on the respective roles of TRs in the control of bone metabolism by TH. © 2011 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
Prediction Based User Selection in Time-Sensitive Mobile Crowdsensing

Mobile CrowdSensing is a new paradigm in which requesters launch tasks to the mobile users, who provide the sensing services. The tasks, in practice, often have various spatiotemporal requirements, which make it hard to select suitable user set to perform the tasks. In this paper, we use the mobility prediction model to deal with this challenge and then propose the user selection algorithm to solve the user selection problem. From the perspective of mobility, it is probabilistic that the timesensitive tasks will be done on time and we use the time-related Markov model to achieve the probabilities. Furthermore, we consider the different uploading ways and obtain the corresponding probabilities, which could be used to propose a greedy user selection algorithm to select the suitable user set under the budget constraint. Extensive simulations have been conducted over two real-life mobile traces and the results prove the efficiency of our proposed algorithm.
A Role for T-Lymphocytes in Human Breast Cancer and in Canine Mammary Tumors

Chronic inflammation in the tumor microenvironment has a prominent role in carcinogenesis and benefits the proliferation and survival of malignant cells, promoting angiogenesis and metastasis. Mammary tumors are frequently infiltrated by a heterogeneous population of immune cells where T-lymphocytes have a great importance. Interestingly, similar inflammatory cell infiltrates, cytokine and chemokine expression in humans and canine mammary tumors were recently described. However, in both species, despite all the scientific evidences that appoint for a significant role of T-lymphocytes, a definitive conclusion concerning the effectiveness of T-cell dependent immune mechanisms has not been achieved yet. In the present review, we describe similarities between human breast cancer and canine mammary tumors regarding tumor T-lymphocyte infiltration, such as relationship of TILs and mammary tumors malignancy, association of ratio CD4+/ CD8+ T-cells with low survival rates, promotion of tumor progression by Th2 cells actions, and association of great amounts of Treg cells with poor prognostic factors. This apparent parallelism together with the fact that dogs develop spontaneous tumors in the context of a natural immune system highlight the dog as a possible useful biological model for studies in human breast cancer immunology.
Ecohydrology of an outbreak: mountain pine beetle impacts trees in drier landscape positions first

Vegetation pattern and landscape structure intersect to exert strong control over ecohydrological dynamics at the watershed scale. The hydrologic implications of vegetation disturbance (e.g. fire, disease) depend on the spatial pattern and form of environmental change. Here, we investigate this intersection at Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest (TCEF), Montana, with a focus on the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) epidemic currently affecting the Rocky Mountains. We calibrated QuickBird remote sensing imagery with a leaf‐level spectral library of local vegetation. We used this spectral library to determine diagnostic vegetation indices for differentiating stages of beetle infestation within the 37 km2 TCEF watershed. These indices formed the basis of a three‐component mixing model to establish the extent and magnitude of beetle infestation across the TCEF watershed. We compared disturbance patterns with spatially distributed topography and vegetation variables derived from a light detection and ranging‐based digital elevation model of TCEF. We determined that certain landscape characteristics (low vegetation density, south‐facing slopes, steep slopes, locations with small contributing areas and locations with lower values of the topographic wetness index) were significantly more likely to exhibit the effects of beetle infestation. Our efforts to monitor vegetation mortality across space and time provide a context for assessing landscape susceptibility to initial mountain pine beetle infestation and how outbreak (i.e. landscape scale infestation) patterns may affect watershed ecohydrology via altered water and biogeochemical cycles. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of Expandable Graphite on the Properties of Intumescent Flame-Retardant Polyurethane Foam

Water-blown rigid polyurethane foam (PUF) with two different particle sizes (180 and 300 μm) of expandable graphite (EG) as a flame-retardant additive were prepared, and the effects on the mechanical, morphological, water absorption, thermal conductivity, thermal, and flame-retardant properties were studied. In this investigation, EG content was varied from 5 to 50 php by weight. The mechanical properties of PUF decreased with increasing EG loading in both cases. The water absorption of the PUF increased with an increase in the EG loading mainly because of the collapse of foam cells, as evidenced from the scanning electron microscopy pictures. The thermal conductivity of the EG-filled PUF showed that the insulation properties decreased with EG loading. The flame-retardant properties (limiting oxygen index and char yield measurement) of the PUF improved with increasing EG loading. PUF filled with the higher particle size EG showed better mechanical properties and fire-retardant properties than the PUF filled with the lower particle size EG. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008
Effects of stretch on single myelinated nerve fibres

Impulses from those sensory receptors which respond to mechanical stimulation are probably initiated by some distortion ofthe terminations of the sensory axons (Katz, 1950; Gray & Sato, 1953). Furthermore, it appears possible that in some receptors, e.g. muscle spindles and Pacinian corpuscles (Adrian & Umrath, 1929), this distortion takes the form of stretching the axon. One explanation of the mechanism of such sensory receptors could be that the axon membrane of the sensory terminals is the same as that at other points on the axon, but that at the nerve ending the membrane is held under a suitable initial tension so that any movement stretches the nerve membrane. The nerve trunk, on the other hand, is well protected against stretch because the fibres zig-zag inside a strong connective tissue sheath; Schneider (1952) estimates that the length of a nerve trunk must be increased by more than 50% before the nerve fibres begin to stretch. If the axon membrane at sensory terminals and at other points on the axon are the same, stretching a node of Ranvier held under a suitable initial tension might have a result similar to stretching a sensory receptor. In the experiments described in the first section of the Results, single nodes of Ranvier held under varying degrees of tension were subjected to rapid stretching. These experiments were, for technical reasons, done on motor fibres; however, as the results were entirely negative, a few experiments on sensory fibres were attempted, but it was unfortunately not possible to get any results before the work had to be stopped. During the course of these experiments changes in the conducted impulse were noticed. These changes were associated with the length to which an axon had been stretched and some experiments designed to investigate these changes are reported.
Improved Solvers for Bounded-Suboptimal Multi-Agent Path Finding

Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) with the objective to minimize the sum of the travel times of the agents along their paths is a hard combinatorial problem. Recent work has shown that bounded-suboptimal MAPF solvers, such as Enhanced Conflict-Based Search or ECBS(w1) for short, run often faster than optimal MAPF solvers at the cost of incurring a suboptimality factor w1, that is due to using focal search. Other recent work has used experience graphs to guide the search of ECBS(w1) and speed it up, at the cost of incurring a separate suboptimality factor w2, that is due to inflating the heuristic values. Thus, the combination has suboptimality factor w1w2. In this first feasibility study, we develop a bounded-suboptimal MAPF solver, Improved-ECBS or iECBS(w1) for short, that has suboptimality factor w1 rather than w1w2 (because it uses experience graphs to guide its search without inflating the heuristic values) and can run faster than ECBS(w1). We also develop two first approaches for automatically generating experience graphs for a given MAPF instance. Finally, we observe heavy-tailed behavior in the runtimes of these MAPF solvers and develop a simple rapid randomized restart strategy that can increase the success rate of iECBS(w1) within a given runtime limit.
PI3K inhibition impairs BRCA1/2 expression and sensitizes BRCA-proficient triple-negative breast cancer to PARP inhibition.

UNLABELLED PARP inhibitors are active in tumors with defects in DNA homologous recombination (HR) due to BRCA1/2 mutations. The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway preserves HR steady state. We hypothesized that in BRCA-proficient triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), PI3K inhibition would result in HR impairment and subsequent sensitization to PARP inhibitors. We show in TNBC cells that PI3K inhibition leads to DNA damage, downregulation of BRCA1/2, gain in poly-ADP-ribosylation, and subsequent sensitization to PARP inhibition. In TNBC patient-derived primary tumor xenografts, dual PI3K and PARP inhibition with BKM120 and olaparib reduced the growth of tumors displaying BRCA1/2 downregulation following PI3K inhibition. PI3K-mediated BRCA downregulation was accompanied by extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation. Overexpression of an active form of MEK1 resulted in ERK activation and downregulation of BRCA1, whereas the MEK inhibitor AZD6244 increased BRCA1/2 expression and reversed the effects of MEK1. We subsequently identified that the ETS1 transcription factor was involved in the ERK-dependent BRCA1/2 downregulation and that knockdown of ETS1 led to increased BRCA1/2 expression, limiting the sensitivity to combined BKM120 and olaparib in 3-dimensional culture. SIGNIFICANCE Treatment options are limited for patients with TNBCs. PARP inhibitors have clinical activity restricted to a small subgroup of patients with BRCA mutations. Here, we show that PI3K blockade results in HR impairment and sensitization to PARP inhibition in TNBCs without BRCA mutations, providing a rationale to combine PI3K and PARP inhibitors in this indication. Our findings could greatly expand the number of patients with breast cancer that would benefit from therapy with PARP inhibitors. On the basis of our findings, a clinical trial with BKM120 and olaparib is being initiated in patients with TNBCs.