Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Autologous Cord Blood Infusion on Motor Function and Brain Connectivity in Young Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Randomized, Placebo‐Controlled Trial

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a condition affecting young children that causes lifelong disabilities. Umbilical cord blood cells improve motor function in experimental systems via paracrine signaling. After demonstrating safety, we conducted a phase II trial of autologous cord blood (ACB) infusion in children with CP to test whether ACB could improve function (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01147653; IND 14360). In this double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, crossover study of a single intravenous infusion of 1–5 × 107 total nucleated cells per kilogram of ACB, children ages 1 to 6 years with CP were randomly assigned to receive ACB or placebo at baseline, followed by the alternate infusion 1 year later. Motor function and magnetic resonance imaging brain connectivity studies were performed at baseline, 1, and 2 years post‐treatment. The primary endpoint was change in motor function 1 year after baseline infusion. Additional analyses were performed at 2 years. Sixty‐three children (median age 2.1 years) were randomized to treatment (n = 32) or placebo (n = 31) at baseline. Although there was no difference in mean change in Gross Motor Function Measure‐66 (GMFM‐66) scores at 1 year between placebo and treated groups, a dosing effect was identified. In an analysis 1 year post‐ACB treatment, those who received doses ≥2 × 107/kg demonstrated significantly greater increases in GMFM‐66 scores above those predicted by age and severity, as well as in Peabody Developmental Motor Scales‐2 Gross Motor Quotient scores and normalized brain connectivity. Results of this study suggest that appropriately dosed ACB infusion improves brain connectivity and gross motor function in young children with CP. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2017;6:2071–2078
Low intensity ultrasound-induced apoptosis in human gastric carcinoma cells.

AIM To investigate the low intensity ultrasound (US)-induced apoptosis in human gastric carcinoma cells and its potential mechanism and to suggest a new therapeutic approach to gastric carcinoma. METHODS Human SGC-7901 gastric carcinoma cells were cultured in vitro and irradiated by low intensity US for 10 min at different intensities with different incubation times after irradiation. Morphologic changes were examined under microscope with trypan blue staining and then the percentage of early apoptotic cells was detected by flow cytometry (FCM) with double staining of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-Annexin V/propidium iodide (PI). Two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) was used to get the protein profile and some proteins differently expressed after US irradiation were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Functional analysis was performed to investigate the mechanism of US-induced cell apoptosis. RESULTS The percentage of apoptotic cells increased about 10% after US irradiation (12.0 W/cm(2), 12 h culture). The percentage of early apoptosis and secondary necrosis in the US-irradiated cells increased with the increased US intensity. Moreover, apoptotic cells increased with the increased culture time after US irradiation and reached its maximum at about 12 h. Several new proteins appeared after US irradiation and were up or down regulated more than 2 times. Some heat shock proteins (HSPs) were found to be associated with the signal process simulating the apoptosis of cells. CONCLUSION Low intensity US could induce apoptosis in human gastric carcinoma cells. US-induced apoptosis is related to US intensity/culture time. US-induced apoptosis may be caspases-dependent and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-triggered apoptosis may also contribute to it. Proteomic experimental system is useful in finding the protein alteration in carcinoma cells after US irradiation, helping to develop a new cancer therapy.
Kalman Filter Based Secure State Estimation and Individual Attacked Sensor Detection in Cyber-Physical Systems

In this paper we propose two real-time attack detection and secure state estimation algorithms, namely Rolling Window Detector (RWD) and Novel Residual Detector (NRD). These algorithms are basically developed based on Kalman state estimation. In the former, we present a statistical testing approach which is handled over a finite time horizon $T$ to detect individual attacked sensors. The latter extends the X2-detector to be able to detect individual compromised sensors. Both methods then will be employed together with a modified version of Kalman filter to perform a secure state estimation with a relatively low estimation error. Efficiency of the algorithms will be assessed in both unstealthy and stealthy scenarios. Productivity of the methods will be underlined in the stealthy case, which is of much more significance among cyber-security challenges. Simulation results on an IEEE 14-bus power grid test system along with a comprehensive comparison between the performance of RWD and NRD with a recently introduced tool, which is the only other method that tries to detect individual attacked sensors, proves the effectiveness of the algorithms.
High-Level Diversity of Tailed Phages, Eukaryote-Associated Viruses, and Virophage-Like Elements in the Metaviromes of Antarctic Soils

ABSTRACT The metaviromes of two distinct Antarctic hyperarid desert soil communities have been characterized. Hypolithic communities, cyanobacterium-dominated assemblages situated on the ventral surfaces of quartz pebbles embedded in the desert pavement, showed higher virus diversity than surface soils, which correlated with previous bacterial community studies. Prokaryotic viruses (i.e., phages) represented the largest viral component (particularly Mycobacterium phages) in both habitats, with an identical hierarchical sequence abundance of families of tailed phages (Siphoviridae > Myoviridae > Podoviridae). No archaeal viruses were found. Unexpectedly, cyanophages were poorly represented in both metaviromes and were phylogenetically distant from currently characterized cyanophages. Putative phage genomes were assembled and showed a high level of unaffiliated genes, mostly from hypolithic viruses. Moreover, unusual gene arrangements in which eukaryotic and prokaryotic virus-derived genes were found within identical genome segments were observed. Phycodnaviridae and Mimiviridae viruses were the second-most-abundant taxa and more numerous within open soil. Novel virophage-like sequences (within the Sputnik clade) were identified. These findings highlight high-level virus diversity and novel species discovery potential within Antarctic hyperarid soils and may serve as a starting point for future studies targeting specific viral groups.
Abstract 4911: NSCLC cells demonstrate differential mode of cell death in response to the combined treatment of radiation and a DNA-PKcs inhibitor

Introduction: Lung cancers demonstrate the highest number of p53 mutations of any cancer with 70% of small cell lung cancers and 33% of adenocarcinomas containing a mutation. Loss of p53 function has been correlated with therapeutic resistance and poor clinical outcomes. Therefore, developing therapeutic strategies that specifically target p53 loss-of-function mutants is of the utmost importance. The purpose of this investigation is to explore whether p53 status has impact on the radio-sensitizing effect of a DNA-PKcs inhibitor (NU7441). Methods: Clonogenic surviving fraction analysis, DNA double strand break repair kinetics, cell cycle analysis, immunofluorescence, immunoblot, apoptosis and autophagy assays were used to investigate the mechanism of radiosensitization of NU7441 in NSCLC cell lines (A549, H1299, and H460) with differential levels of p53 expression. Results: NU7441 substantially inhibited the repair of IR-induced DNA double strand break (DSB) in all three cell lines. Clonogenic surviving fraction analysis reveals that NU7441 is a better radio-sensitizer in p53-deficient cells (H1299) when compared to p53-wild type cells (A549, H460). Combination of ionizing radiation (IR) and NU7441 leads to a more robust G2 arrest in A549 and H460 cells when compared to radiation treatment only. However, NU7441 and radiation preferentially induced mitotic arrest in H1299 consequently leading to a significant increase in mitotic catastrophe. Furthermore, NU7441 led to an increase in apoptosis rather than autophagy as the predominant cell death pathway in p53-deficient cells. Moreover, knockdown of p53 using siRNA sensitized A549 to NU7441+IR treatment. Conclusion: Our study clearly shows that NU7441, a novel DNA-PKcs inhibitor, is a potent radio-sensitizer in p53-dificient lung cancer cells and highlights the promise of NU7441 in targeted cancer treatment. Citation Format: Yu Lan, Zengfu Shang, Feng-Ming Hsu, Vasu Tumati, Benjamin P. Chen, Debabrata Saha. NSCLC cells demonstrate differential mode of cell death in response to the combined treatment of radiation and a DNA-PKcs inhibitor. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 4911. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-4911
C A ] 2 J ul 2 00 8 An isomonodromy interpretation of the elliptic Painlevé equation .

We construct a family of second-order linear difference equations parametrized by the hypergeometric solution of the elliptic Painlevé equation (or higher-order analogues), and admitting a large family of monodromy-preserving deformations. The solutions are certain semiclassical biorthogonal functions (and their Cauchy transforms), biorthogonal with respect to higher-order analogues of Spiridonov’s elliptic beta integral.
Digital deblurring of CMB maps: Performance and efficient implementation

Digital deblurring of images is an important problem that arises in multifrequency observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) where, because of the width of the point spread functions (PSF), maps at different frequencies suff er ad ifferent loss of spatial resolution. Deblurring is useful for various reasons: first, it helps to restore high frequency components lost through the smoothing effect of the instrument's PSF; second, emissions at various frequencies observed with different resolutions can be better studied on a comparable resolution; third, some map-based component separation algorithms require maps with similar level of degradation. Because of computational efficiency, deblurring is usually done in the frequency domain. But this approach has some limitations as it requires spatial invariance of the PSF, stationarity of the noise, and is not flexible in the selection of more appropriate boundary conditions. Deblurring in real space is more flexible but usually not used because of its high computational cost. In this paper (the first in a series on the subject) we present new algorithms that allow the use of real space deblurring techniques even for very large images. In particular, we consider the use of Tikhonov deblurring of noisy maps with applications to PLANCK. We provide details for efficient implementations of the algorithms. Their performance is tested on Gaussian and non-Gaussian simulated CMB maps, and PSFs with both circular and elliptical symmetry. Matlab code is made available.
Flextream: Adaptive Compilation of Streaming Applications for Heterogeneous Architectures

Increasing demand for performance and efficiency has driven the computer industry toward multicore systems. These systems have become the industry standard in almost all segments of the computer market from high-end servers to handheld devices. In order to efficiently use these systems, an extensive amount of research and industry support has been devoted to developing explicitly parallel programming paradigms, such as streaming models, and new compiler techniques. One important challenge that arises in multicore systems is the ability to dynamically adapt a running application to a target architecture in the face of changes in resource availability (e.g., number of cores, available memory or bandwidth). In this paper, we focus on the increasingly important area of streaming computing and introduce Flextream as a flexible compilation framework that can dynamically adapt applications to the changing characteristics of the underlying architecture. We believe this is an important contribution as software developers grapple with the details of parallelism in a rapidly changing architecture landscape. Flextream achieves its goals through a combination of static compilation and dynamic adaptation techniques. Our results indicate that Flextream’s approach can achieve high-performance resource allocations that are within an average of 9% of the optimal solution with low overhead for a wide range of streaming applications
Natural language processing to extract symptoms of severe mental illness from clinical text: the Clinical Record Interactive Search Comprehensive Data Extraction (CRIS-CODE) project

Objectives We sought to use natural language processing to develop a suite of language models to capture key symptoms of severe mental illness (SMI) from clinical text, to facilitate the secondary use of mental healthcare data in research. Design Development and validation of information extraction applications for ascertaining symptoms of SMI in routine mental health records using the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) data resource; description of their distribution in a corpus of discharge summaries. Setting Electronic records from a large mental healthcare provider serving a geographic catchment of 1.2 million residents in four boroughs of south London, UK. Participants The distribution of derived symptoms was described in 23 128 discharge summaries from 7962 patients who had received an SMI diagnosis, and 13 496 discharge summaries from 7575 patients who had received a non-SMI diagnosis. Outcome measures Fifty SMI symptoms were identified by a team of psychiatrists for extraction based on salience and linguistic consistency in records, broadly categorised under positive, negative, disorganisation, manic and catatonic subgroups. Text models for each symptom were generated using the TextHunter tool and the CRIS database. Results We extracted data for 46 symptoms with a median F1 score of 0.88. Four symptom models performed poorly and were excluded. From the corpus of discharge summaries, it was possible to extract symptomatology in 87% of patients with SMI and 60% of patients with non-SMI diagnosis. Conclusions This work demonstrates the possibility of automatically extracting a broad range of SMI symptoms from English text discharge summaries for patients with an SMI diagnosis. Descriptive data also indicated that most symptoms cut across diagnoses, rather than being restricted to particular groups.
ADOPTION OF IMPROVED MAIZE VARIETIES AMONG FARMERS IN BASSA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF PLATEAU STATE , NIGERIA

This study examined the adoption of improved maize varieties in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, Nigeria. Multistage –stage technique was used to collect data from a sample of 74 farmers. Descriptive Statistics, Adoption Index and Logit regression Model were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the mean age and farming experience of the respondent were 40 and 16.4 years respectively. It was revealed that local maize variety had a higher coefficient than the improved variety. The logit model showed that five of the variables were significant which include age, extension agents, fertilizer, cooperative membership and output. The study recommends that government and nongovernmental organizations should encourage increase of extension agents and membership in cooperative societies. Also agricultural inputs should be provided at the right time to the farmers at a subsidized rate.
Garnering Civic Hope: Social Studies, Expectations, and the Lost Civic Potential of Immigrant Youth

Abstract Social studies education is designed to provide a foundation for civic society. In this study we consider immigrant optimism theory within the context of U.S. secondary social studies to examine the civic potential of immigrant youth. Using a mixed-methods approach, we complement analyses of teacher and immigrant young adult interviews with national survey data to explore how adults’ expectations shape immigrant youths’ civic identity formation. Although immigrant parents consistently express high academic expectations of their children, teachers’ civic expectations emerged as a critical factor in immigrant youths’ civic development. While teachers and immigrant youth reported rich civic discourse in advanced social studies classes, we counter that limited social studies course taking may restrict exposure to teachers’ civic expectations, and result in the unrealized civic potential of immigrant youth. We close with a cautionary note regarding the limits of social studies to develop a transformative, emancipatory citizenry, especially among the increasingly diverse immigrant youth population.
A Proximal Centriole-Like Structure Is Present in Drosophila Spermatids and Can Serve as a Model to Study Centriole Duplication

Most animals have two centrioles in spermatids (the distal and proximal centrioles), but insect spermatids seem to contain only one centriole (Fuller 1993), which functionally resembles the distal centriole. Using fluorescent centriolar markers, we identified a structure near the fly distal centriole that is reminiscent of a proximal centriole (i.e., proximal centriole-like, or PCL). We show that the PCL exhibits several features of daughter centrioles. First, a single PCL forms near the proximal segment of the older centriole. Second, the centriolar proteins SAS-6, Ana1, and Bld10p/Cep135 are in the PCL. Third, PCL formation depends on SAK/PLK4 and SAS-6. Using a genetic screen for PCL defect, we identified a mutation in the gene encoding the conserved centriolar protein POC1, which is part of the daughter centriole initiation site (Kilburn et al. 2007) in Tetrahymena. We conclude that the PCL resembles an early intermediate structure of a forming centriole, which may explain why no typical centriolar structure is observed under electron microscopy. We propose that, during the evolution of insects, the proximal centriole was simplified by eliminating the later steps in centriole assembly. The PCL may provide a unique model to study early steps of centriole formation.
SIRT1 Is Essential for Normal Cognitive Function and Synaptic Plasticity

Conservation of normal cognitive functions relies on the proper performance of the nervous system at the cellular and molecular level. The mammalian nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide-dependent deacetylase SIRT1 impacts different processes potentially involved in the maintenance of brain integrity, such as chromatin remodeling, DNA repair, cell survival, and neurogenesis. Here we show that SIRT1 is expressed in neurons of the hippocampus, a key structure in learning and memory. Using a combination of behavioral and electrophysiological paradigms, we analyzed the effects of SIRT1 deficiency and overexpression on mouse learning and memory as well as on synaptic plasticity. We demonstrated that the absence of SIRT1 impaired cognitive abilities, including immediate memory, classical conditioning, and spatial learning. In addition, we found that the cognitive deficits in SIRT1 knock-out (KO) mice were associated with defects in synaptic plasticity without alterations in basal synaptic transmission or NMDA receptor function. Brains of SIRT1-KO mice exhibited normal morphology and dendritic spine structure but displayed a decrease in dendritic branching, branch length, and complexity of neuronal dendritic arbors. Also, a decrease in extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation and altered expression of hippocampal genes involved in synaptic function, lipid metabolism, and myelination were detected in SIRT1-KO mice. In contrast, mice with high levels of SIRT1 expression in brain exhibited regular synaptic plasticity and memory. We conclude that SIRT1 is indispensable for normal learning, memory, and synaptic plasticity in mice.
Hypoglycaemic effects of the aqueous seed extract of Hunteria umbellata in normoglycaemic and glucose-and nicotine-induced hyperglycaemic rats

Dry seeds of the plant, Hunteria umbellata K. Schum (family: Apocynaceae), are highly valued in African traditional medicine in the treatment of various human diseases, including diabetes mellitus and obesity. In the present study, the hypoglycaemic and weight loss effects of 50 200 mg/kg of the aqueous seed extract of Hunteria umbellata (HU) were investigated in normal and drug-induced hyperglycaemic rats. In addition, the acute oral toxicity using the preliminary and the main tests of the Up-and-Down Procedure according to OECD/OCDE Test Guidelines on Acute Oral Toxicity was conducted. Phytochemical analysis of the aqueous seed extract was also carried out. Results showed that HU caused progressive and significant (p<0.05, p<0.01 and p<0.001) dose-related reduction in the blood glucose concentrations in normal and drug-induced hyperglycaemic rats, an effect, which was more than that of glibenclamide and mediated via inhibition of intestinal glucose uptake and adrenergic homeostatic mechanisms. HU also caused significant (p<0.05 and p<0.01) dose-dependent reduction in the average body weight of treated rats when compared to untreated rats. The acute oral toxicity study showed that the plant extract had an LD50 of 1020 mg/kg and as such slightly toxic. Results of the phytochemical analysis of HU revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins and glycosides. Thus, the data generated in the present study has a strong positive correlation with its folkloric use in the treatment of suspected type 2 diabetic patients, although its use should be with great caution.
Sleep Related Conditions with Myasthenia Gravis: Evidence, Causes and Implications

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease caused mainly by antibodies against skeletal muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) at the postsynaptic membrane resulting in depletion of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Muscle fatigue is the cardinal symptom of MG. Respiratory muscle weakness and breathing problems are manifestations of MG even in mild stages of the disease resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. Also sleep related conditions are among the manifestations of MG which include sleep disordered breathing (SDB) [i.e. central (CSA) and obstructive (OSA) sleep apneas, hypoventilation or hypoxemic syndromes], reduced sleep efficiency and quality, increased number of nocturnal awakenings, excessive daytime sleepiness, reduced rapid eye movement sleep and altered sleep perception and dreaming. On the other hand, sleep abnormalities may result in lack of concentration, cognitive impairments and mood disturbances as depression and anxiety. Central and peripheral mechanisms have been suggested for the association between MG and central nervous system manifestations and sleep abnormalities. Neurologists and sleep medicine professionals should be aware of the associations between OSA/CSA, hypoventilation and other sleep related conditions with MG and consider systematic investigations including polysomnography and ventilatory support. This will reduce morbidity and mortality and improve quality of lives of patients with MG.