Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ ligand-induced growth inhibition of human hepatocellular carcinoma

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) ligands have been implicated in the growth inhibition and differentiation of certain human cancers with diverse tissue origin. In this study, expression of PPARγ in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the effect of PPARγ ligands on HCC cells were investigated in vitro using Hep G2, HuH-7, KYN-1 and KYN-2 cell lines. All cell lines were found to express functionally active PPARγ and a marked growth inhibition was induced by thiazolidinedione ligands troglitazone, and pioglitazone as well as with its natural ligand 15-deoxy-Δ12,14-prostaglandin J2. The growth inhibitory effect was associated with a dose-dependent inhibition of DNA synthesis, cell cycle progression and α fetoprotein expression. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com
Trouble with Polymer Physics: Development of “Sustained Orientation” Contradicts the Current Understanding of the Liquid State of Polymers

Recent research on the stability of entanglements of polymer melts and on the correlation between viscosity improvement during processing and entanglement stability led to the discovery of a new property of the liquid state of polymers which is not explained by the current models in polymer physics: it is called “sustained orientation. ” In simple terms, by manipulation of the stability of entanglements, it is possible to create and maintain quasi-stable at high temperature in an amorphous polymeric melt (say 120°C above Tg) a certain state of orientation that was induced by a mechanical deformation. The manipulation of entanglements was done by Rheo-Fluidification. In our experiments, the viscosity of a melt (e.g., PMMA) was measured at the exit of a Rheo-Fluidification treatment where the melt was submitted to a combination of shear thinning and strain softening via the use of cross-lateral shear vibration superposed on pressure flow (originated by an extruder feed). The exiting melt was frozen into pellets and the rheological properties of those pellets were studied. Under certain Rheo-Fluidification processing conditions, the viscosity reduction of the melt induced by the combination of shear thinning and strain softening could be preserved in the pellets granulated at the exit of the disentangling processor. These “treated” pellets displayed sustained orientation, i.e., a lower viscosity when they were reheated in a melt flow indexer, or in a dynamic rheometer after they had been compressed into disks. Yet, the molecular weight, Mw, was hardly changed (∼3%) to justify the viscosity reduction, and it was also observed that the viscosity only gradually (sometimes over periods of hours) returned to the value it should have at the corresponding temperature (the Newtonian value), indicating that the changes were reversible. These results suggest that the classical concept of Me to describe entanglements is too simplistic and its usefulness is probably limited to the linear range of viscoelasticity. We suggest that these type of experimental results, recently presented, have resonance in our fundamental understanding of the interactions between the macromolecules, inviting us to redefine the nature of entanglements, the nature of molecular motions and flow, and reformulate the equations underlying rheology, crystallization, glass formation, and the stability of the interactions at different temperatures and under stress. The whole description of polymer physics appears to be impacted by this new understanding of entanglements, and, to summarize the research objective ahead, we introduce the New School Polymer Physics which emerges from a new understanding of polymer interactions: “the grain-field statistics. ”
The role of bacteria and mycorrhiza in plant sulfur supply

Plant growth is highly dependent on bacteria, saprophytic, and mycorrhizal fungi which facilitate the cycling and mobilization of nutrients. Over 95% of the sulfur (S) in soil is present in an organic form. Sulfate-esters and sulfonates, the major forms of organo-S in soils, arise through deposition of biological material and are transformed through subsequent humification. Fungi and bacteria release S from sulfate-esters using sulfatases, however, release of S from sulfonates is catalyzed by a bacterial multi-component mono-oxygenase system. The asfA gene is used as a key marker in this desulfonation process to study sulfonatase activity in soil bacteria identified as Variovorax, Polaromonas, Acidovorax, and Rhodococcus. The rhizosphere is regarded as a hot spot for microbial activity and recent studies indicate that this is also the case for the mycorrhizosphere where bacteria may attach to the fungal hyphae capable of mobilizing organo-S. While current evidence is not showing sulfatase and sulfonatase activity in arbuscular mycorrhiza, their effect on the expression of plant host sulfate transporters is documented. A revision of the role of bacteria, fungi and the interactions between soil bacteria and mycorrhiza in plant S supply was conducted.
Alternatives to Autopsy for Fetal and Early Neonatal (Perinatal) Deaths: Insights from the Wisconsin Stillbirth Service Program.

BACKGROUND Although autopsy is a key component of the etiologic evaluation following fetal and early neonatal death, and traditionally has been the preferred method to determine the cause of death, an alternative may be suitable when traditional autopsy by a perinatal pathologist is not available or declined. METHODS Among 3137 cases evaluated through the Wisconsin Stillbirth Service Program (WiSSP), a community-based program for etiologic evaluation of second trimester miscarriage, stillbirth, and early neonatal death, most diagnoses are based on multiple types of data including placental pathology, clinical examination, photographs, maternal records, radiographs, and laboratory testing. RESULTS Cases in the WiSSP cohort without autopsy have nearly the same overall rate of diagnosis as those with traditional autopsy (56% vs. 58%). Review of the literature shows that although recent systematic protocols including autopsy, placental pathology and genetic studies yield a definite or probable diagnosis in 70% or more, both healthcare providers and families desire less invasive options. Several minimally invasive protocols substituting imaging, primarily MRI, for traditional autopsy have been proposed, but the numbers of deaths evaluated are still very small. CONCLUSION We join others who have promoted the benefits of a targeted or less invasive protocol to study perinatal deaths, and emphasize integration of clinical data, selective imaging, genetic testing, and parental counseling. Birth Defects Research 109:1430-1441, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A century of research on mammalian male germ cell meiotic differentiation in vitro.

Many germ cell studies over the last century have focused on testicular cell culture (Wolff and Haffen, 1965; Russell and Steinberger, 1989; Kierszenbaum, 1994). The first germ cell culture systems were directed at studying gonadal embryogenesis and male germ cell differentiation. Today’s culture systems are powerful tools that bring about new knowledge and applications to the study of spermatogenesis. The culture of Sertoli cells is mentioned only as a coculture process with germ cells. The main focus of this review is the differentiation of male germ cells, and more precisely, the meiotic step of that differentiation. The various studies can be divided into 3 main categories depending on the historical advancement (early attempts at gametogenesis in vitro, intermediate progress, and latest refinements). Examples highlighting the strong and weak points of each period are summarized in this review.
An Innovative Approach to Randomising Quasi-random Sequences and Its Application into Software Testing

Quasi-random sequences, which can evenly spread points across a hypercube, have been widely used in various areas. Recently, quasi-random testing technique, which makes use of quasi-random sequences to generate test cases, was proposed, and it normally has a higher failure-detection capability than pure random testing. However, there exist only a few distinct quasi-random sequences in the literature, and all these sequences are deterministic rather than random. Therefore, the applicability of quasi-random sequences in testing is restricted. In this paper, we propose a new approach to randomising quasi-random sequences. Out approach can generate many distinct randomised quasi-random sequences that have even distributions of points. The experimental results also show that these sequences can significantly enhance the effectiveness of random testing.
Morbidity Related to Smoking and other Risk Factors

In 1969 a cohort of 703 men born in 1914 was screened to determine the prevalence of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases among middle-aged men. Smoking habits and other cardiovascular risk factors were registered. Hypertension was treated. The disability pension rate among non-smokers was considerably lower than that for smokers. Also the proportion of individuals who had been admitted to hospital and the proportion of individuals who had reported sick was lower in non-smokers than in smokers. The ex-smokers showed an intermediate position both in terms of disability pension rate and in proportion of individuals admitted to hospital. High systolic blood pressure, high cholesterol level and high triglyceride values in 1969 were not associated with increased disability pension rate, hospitalization rate or with increased sick leave.
EXPRESSION OF CANNABINOID RECEPTOR 1 IN MOUSE TESTES

Marijuana smoke and cannabinoids adversely affect male reproductive function in human and rodent through the cannabinoid receptors. To understand the possible function of cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) in spermatogenesis, expression of CB1 in testis during the postnatal development was examined in mice. Semiquantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that testicular CB1 mRNA level was relatively high at 1 week post partum (p.p.). Following decrease during prepubertal development (2 weeks p.p.) and CB1 mRNA level re-increased during puberty (4 weeks p.p.) and reached the peak in adult testis. At 1 week p.p., some spermatogonia and Leydig cells showed strong immunoreactivity of CB1. At 2 weeks p.p., CB1 immunoreactivity was largely found in the primary spermatocytes as well as spermatogonia, and Leydig cells showed a weak signal. In adult testis, strong immunoreactivity was found in Leydig cells and luminal epithelia of seminiferous tubule. Germ cells including spermatozoa were positive for CB1 immunoreactivity. On Western blot, multiple forms of CB1 proteins were detected in testes, suggesting oligomerization of CB1. Ubiquitous, but spatiotemporal difference in expression of CB1 in soma and germ line during postnatal development of testis suggests functional involvement of CB1 signaling in steroidogenesis, spermatogenesis and fertilization.
Online end‐to‐end quality of service monitoring for service level agreement management

A major challenge in network and service level agreement (SLA) management is to provide Quality of Service (QoS) demanded by heterogeneous network applications. Online QoS monitoring plays an important role in the process by providing objective measurements that can be used for improving network design, troubleshooting and management. Online QoS monitoring becomes increasingly difficult and complex due to the rapid expansion of the Internet and the dramatic increase in the speed of network. Sampling techniques have been explored as a means to reduce the difficulty and complexity of measurement. In this paper, we investigate several major sampling techniques, i.e. systematic sampling, simple random sampling and stratified sampling. Performance analysis is conducted on these techniques. It is shown that stratified sampling with optimum allocation has the best performance. However, stratified sampling with optimum allocation requires additional statistics usually not available for real‐time applications. An adaptive stratified sampling algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. Both theoretical analysis and simulation show that the proposed adaptive stratified sampling algorithm outperforms other sampling techniques and achieves a performance comparable to stratified sampling with optimum allocation. A QoS monitoring software using the aforementioned sampling techniques is designed and tested in various real networks. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Muppets and Gazelles: Political and Methodological Biases in Entrepreneurship Research

Despite an almost universally accepted belief outside academia that entrepreneurial activity is a positive driving force in the economy, the accumulated evidence remains largely inconclusive. The paper positions the increased interest in entrepreneurship since the 1980s within its historical context and highlights the significant methodological problems with its analysis. Taking these problems into account it re-evaluates the performance of entrepreneurial firms in terms of innovation, job creation, economic growth, productivity growth, and happiness to show how both positive and negative interpretations can emerge. A pattern of increasingly positive interpretation is observed as one moves from analysis to policy. To address this bias, the paper suggests the single category ‘entrepreneurial firms’ be broken up along a continuum from the large number of economically marginal, undersized, poor performance enterprises to the small number of high performance “gazelles” that drive most positive impact on the economy. This would allow a more realistic evaluation of the impact of entrepreneurs by avoiding a composition fallacy that assigns the benefits of entrepreneurship to the average firm.
Implementation and evaluation of a voice codec for ZigBee

The Z-Phone project goal is to develop a low cost, ultra low-power, long range, ergonomic wireless headset using ZigBee Technology to transmit voice in full-duplex mode for use with leading PC VoIP programs, gaining significant communication autonomy and distance compared with Bluetooth, while DECT and WiFi consume much more power and cannot be integrated into small devices. This paper presents in a methodological way the details and performance of a voice codec implementation for Voice-over-ZigBee technology.
The Boosting Effect of Exploratory Behaviors

Active object exploration is one of the hallmarks of human and animal intelligence. Research in psychology has shown that the use of multiple exploratory behaviors is crucial for learning about objects. Inspired by such research, recent work in robotics has demonstrated that by performing multiple exploratory behaviors a robot can dramatically improve its object recognition rate. But what is the cause of this improvement? To answer this question, this paper examines the conditions under which combining information from multiple behaviors and sensory modalities leads to better object recognition results. Two different problems are considered: interactive object recognition using auditory and proprioceptive feedback, and surface texture recognition using tactile and proprioceptive feedback. Analysis of the results shows that metrics designed to estimate classifier model diversity can explain the improvement in recognition accuracy. This finding establishes, for the first time, an important link between empirical studies of exploratory behaviors in robotics and theoretical results on boosting in machine learning.
Validation of the e-AR Sensor for Gait Event Detection Using the Parotec Foot Insole with Application to Post-Operative Recovery Monitoring

The use of e-AR (ear-worn activity recognition) sensor for gait pattern estimation has shown promise for a range of health and wellbeing applications. To establish its more detailed quantitative accuracy, an in-shoe pressure measurement system (Parotec) has been used to validate the estimated gait events from the e-AR sensor. Ten healthy adults equipped with Parotec and e-AR systems walked in a corridor of about 15m. The sampling frequency of both systems was set at 100Hz and a manual synchronisation has been performed for subsequent error measurements. The gait events from the e-AR sensor are estimated by using a recently developed method based on singular spectrum analysis and longest common subsequence algorithms [1]. The corresponding gait events from the Parotec system are estimated using the ground reaction forces. The upper and lower limits of absolute errors using 95% confidence intervals for heel contact and toe off events obtained as 35.38±3.22ms and 73.05±7.24ms respectively. We further provide a preliminary patient study to demonstrate how the estimated gait events and the gait analysis platform can be used for assessing patients recovering after orthopaedic surgery inside the clinic.
Memory Dysfunction in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Correlates with Reduced Hippocampal CA1 and Subiculum Volumes

Background:Little attention has been paid to the role of subcortical deep gray matter (SDGM) structures in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)-induced cognitive impairment, especially hippocampal subfields. Our aims were to assess the in vivo volumes of SDGM structures and hippocampal subfields using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to test their associations with cognitive performance in T2DM. Methods:A total of 80 T2DM patients and 80 neurologically unimpaired healthy controls matched by age, sex and education level was enrolled in this study. We assessed the volumes of the SDGM structures and seven hippocampal subfields on MRI using a novel technique that enabled automated volumetry. We used Mini-Mental State Examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores as measures of cognitive performance. The association of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) with SDGM structures and neuropsychological tests and correlations between hippocampal subfields and neuropsychological tests were assessed by partial correlation analysis in T2DM. Results:Bilaterally, the hippocampal volumes were smaller in T2DM patients, mainly in the CA1 and subiculum subfields. Partial correlation analysis showed that the MoCA scores, particularly those regarding delayed memory, were significantly positively correlated with reduced hippocampal CA1 and subiculum volumes in T2DM patients. Additionally, higher HbA1c levels were significantly associated with poor memory performance and hippocampal atrophy among T2DM patients. Conclusions:These data indicate that the hippocampus might be the main affected region among the SDGM structures in T2DM. These structural changes in the hippocampal CA1 and subiculum areas might be at the core of underlying neurobiological mechanisms of hippocampal dysfunction, suggesting that degeneration in these regions could be responsible for memory impairments in T2DM patients.
Efficiency enhancement of permanent-magnet synchronous motor drives by online loss minimization approaches

In this paper, a new loss minimization control algorithm for inverter-fed permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs), which allows for the reduction of the power losses of the electric drive without penalty on its dynamic performance, is analyzed, experimentally realized, and validated. In particular, after a brief recounting of two loss minimization control strategies, namely, the "search control" and the "loss-model control," both a new modified dynamic model of the PMSM (which takes into account the iron losses) and an innovative "loss-model" control strategy are presented. Experimental tests on a specific PMSM drive employing the proposed loss minimization algorithm have been performed, aiming to validate the actual implementation. The main results of these tests confirm that the dynamic performance of the drive is maintained, and in small motors enhancement up to 3.5% of the efficiency can be reached in comparison with the PMSM drive equipped with a more traditional control strategy.
Encephalopathy and stroke after coronary artery bypass grafting: incidence, consequences, and prediction.

BACKGROUND In contrast to perioperative stroke, much less attention has been paid to those with evidence of diffuse brain encephalopathy, presenting as delirium, confusion, coma, and seizures in the immediate postoperative period. OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence, consequences, and predictive factors for encephalopathy and stroke following coronary artery bypass grafting. METHODS In a prospective evaluation of 2711 patients operated on between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2000, preoperative risk factors were obtained before surgery and postoperative outcomes, encephalopathy and stroke, were determined on a daily basis. All strokes were confirmed by neurologic consultation and, in most instances, by imaging. Logistic regression analyses were performed to determine risk factors for these outcomes. RESULTS The incidence of encephalopathy was 6.9% and of stroke, 2.7%. For patients without either of these outcomes, the average length of stay in the hospital was 6.6 days and the mortality was 1.4%. In contrast, patients with encephalopathy had a length of stay of 15.2 days and a mortality of 7.5%, and those with stroke, a length of stay of 17.5 days and a mortality of 22.0%. Predictive models were developed for encephalopathy involving 5 preoperative factors (age, past stroke, carotid bruit, hypertension, and diabetes) and 1 perioperative factor (time on cardiopulmonary bypass). The model for stroke involved only 3 preoperative risk factors (past stroke, hypertension, and diabetes). CONCLUSIONS Encephalopathy or stroke is associated with significant increases in length of stay and mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting. Patients at higher risk for these outcomes can be identified before surgery.
A Comparative Scanning Electron Microscope Investigation of Cleanliness of Root Canals Using Hand K-Flexofiles, Rotary Race and K3 Instruments

INTRODUCTION: The most important aims of root canal preparation are the removal of vital pulp tissue, remaining necrotic debris and infected dentin, eliminating the bulk of bacteria present in the root canal system. The aim of this study was to compare the cleaning efficacy of hand K-Flexofiles and rotary RaCe and K3 instruments in root canal preparation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 60 single rooted teeth with maximum curvature of <20º were selected and divided into three groups of 20 teeth each. Canals were prepared with K-Flexofiles, K3 and RaCe instruments using crown down preparation technique, up to size #30. After instrumentation, the root canals were flushed with 5 mL of 2.5 % NaOCl solution. The amount of debris and smear layer was quantified on the basis of Hulsmann method using a scanning electron microscope. The data were statistically analyzed with one-way ANOVA test at a significance level of P<0.05. RESULTS: None of the three groups achieved completely debrided root canals. In general, K-Flexofiles were able to achieve cleaner canals compared to K3 and RaCe instruments (P<0.05). There were no significant differences between three groups in smear layer removal throughout the root canal walls (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: K-Flexofiles group had less remained debris when compared to K3 and RaCe instruments.