Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Desmoglein 3: A Help or a Hindrance in Cancer Progression?

Desmoglein 3 is one of seven desmosomal cadherins that mediate cell-cell adhesion in desmosomes. Desmosomes are the intercellular junctional complexes that anchor the intermediate filaments of adjacent cells and confer strong cell adhesion thus are essential in the maintenance of tissue architecture and structural integrity. Like adherens junctions, desmosomes function as tumour suppressors and are down regulated in the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition and in tumour cell invasion and metastasis. However, recently several studies have shown that various desmosomal components, including desmoglein 3, are up-regulated in cancer with increased levels of expression correlating with the clinical stage of malignancy, implicating their potentiality to serve as a diagnostic and prognostic marker. Furthermore, in vitro studies have demonstrated that overexpression of desmoglein 3 in cancer cell lines activates several signal pathways that have an impact on cell morphology, adhesion and locomotion. These additional signalling roles of desmoglein 3 may not be associated to its adhesive function in desmosomes but rather function outside of the junctions, acting as a key regulator in the control of actin based cellular processes. This review will discuss recent advances which support the role of desmoglein 3 in cancer progression.
Designing Virus-Resistant, High-Performance Networks: A Game-Formation Approach

Designing an optimal network topology while balancing multiple, possibly conflicting objectives such as cost, performance, and resiliency to viruses is a challenging endeavor, let alone in the case of decentralized network formation. We, therefore, propose a game-formation technique where each player aims to minimize its cost in installing links, the probability of being infected by a virus, and the sum of hopcounts on its shortest paths to all other nodes. In this paper, we first determine the Nash equilibria and the price of anarchy (PoA) for our novel network formation game, second demonstrate that the PoA is usually low, which suggests that (near-)optimal topologies can be formed in a decentralized way, and third give suggestions for practitioners for those cases where the PoA is high and some centralized control/incentives are advisable.
An On-Line Computational Model of Human Sentence Interpretation

This dissertation presents a model of the human sentence interpretation process, which attempts to meet criteria of adequacy imposed by the different paradigms of sentence interpretation. These include the need to produce a high-level interpretation, to embed a linguistically motivated grammar, and to be compatible with psycholinguistic results on sentence processing. The model includes a theory of grammar called Construction-Based Interpretive Grammar (CIG) and an interpreter which uses the grammar to build an interpretation for single sentences. An implementation of the interpreter has been built called Sal. Sal is an on-line interpreter, reading words one at a time and updating a partial interpretation of the sentence after each constituent. This constituent-by-constituent interpretation is more fine-grained and hence more on-line than most previous models. Sal is strongly interactionist in using both bottom-up and top-down knowledge in an evidential manner to access a set of constructions to build interpretations. It uses a coherence-based selection mechanism to choose among these candidate interpretations, and allows temporary limited parallelism to handle local ambiguities. Sal's architecture is consistent with a large number of psycholinguistic results. The interpreter embodies a number of strong claims about sentence processing. One claim is uniformity, with respect to both representation and process. In the grammar, a single kind of knowledge structure, the grammatical construction, is used to represent lexical, syntactic, idiomatic, and semantic knowledge. CIG thus does not distinguish between the lexicon, the idiom dictionary, the syntactic rule base, and the semantic rule base. Uniformity in processing means that there is no distinction between the lexical analyzer, the parser, and the semantic interpreter. Because these kinds of knowledge are represented uniformly, they can be accessed, integrated, and disambiguated by a single mechanism. A second claim the interpreter embodies is that sentence processing is fundamentally knowledge-intensive and expectation-based. The representation and integration of constructions uses many diverse types of linguistic knowledge. Similarly, the access of constructions is sensitive to top-down and bottom-up, syntactic and semantic knowledge, and the selection of constructions is based on coherence with grammatical knowledge and the interpretation.
Association of genetic polymorphisms at 1q22 but not 10q23 with gastric cancer in a southern Chinese population.

OBJECTIVE Data from a recent genome-wide association studiesy of gastric cancer (GC) and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma in Chinese living in the Taihang Mountains of north-central China suggest that 1q22 and 10q23 are susceptibility-associated regions for GC. However, this has not been confirmed in southern Chinese populations. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these polymorphisms at 1q22 and 10q23 are associated with the risk of GC in a southern Chinese population. METHODS We selected seven top significant associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 1q22 and 10q23 and conducted a population-based case- control study in a southern Chinese population. Genotypes were determined using MassARRAYTM system (Sequenome, San Diego, CA). RESULTS Two SNPs at 1q22, rs4072037 and rs4460629, were significantly associated with a reduced risk of GC, best fitting the dominant genetic model. Logistic regression models adjusted for age and sex showed that rs4072037 AG and GG (OR=0.64, P=0.017, compared with AA) and rs4460629 CT and TT (OR=0.54, P=0.0016, compared with TT) significantly reduced the risk of GC. However, no significant results for the five SNPs at 10q23 were obtained in this study. CONCLUSION These outcomes indicate that 1q22 is associated with GC susceptibility in this southern Chinese population, while an association for the locus at 10q23 was not confirmed.
The impact of short night-time naps on performance, sleepiness and mood during a simulated night shift

ABSTRACT Short naps on night shift are recommended in some industries. There is a paucity of evidence to verify the sustained recovery benefits of short naps in the last few hours of the night shift. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the sustained recovery benefits of 30 and 10-min nap opportunities during a simulated night shift. Thirty-one healthy participants (18F, 21–35 y) completed a 3-day, between-groups laboratory study with one baseline night (22:00–07:00 h time in bed), followed by one night awake (time awake from 07:00 h on day two through 10:00 h day three) with random allocation to: a 10-min nap opportunity ending at 04:00 h, a 30-min nap opportunity ending at 04:00 h or no nap (control). A neurobehavioral test bout was administered approximately every 2 h during wake periods. There were no significant differences between nap conditions for post-nap psychomotor vigilance performance after controlling for pre-nap scores (p > 0.05). The 30-min nap significantly improved subjective sleepiness compared to the 10-min nap and no-nap control (p < 0.05). The 10-min nap significantly worsened negative mood compared to the 30-min nap and no-nap control (p < 0.01). Contrary to some evidence suggesting “power naps” can help to alleviate performance decrements, a 30-min nap opportunity at approximately 04:00 h was found to improve subjective, but not objective sleepiness. A 10-min nap may lead to increased negative mood in the hours following the nap due to a “short nap aversion” effect.
Overexpression of miR-10b in colorectal cancer patients: Correlation with TWIST-1 and E-cadherin expression

MicroRNAs are emergent players of epigenetics that function as oncogenes or tumor suppressors and that have been implicated in regulating diverse cellular pathways. MiR-10b is an oncogenic microRNA involved in tumor invasion and metastasis in various cancers. Our data have shown that miR-10b is overexpressed in colorectal cancer samples in comparison with non-tumorous adjacent mucosa (p = 0.0025) and that it is associated with severe features such as tumor size >5 cm (p = 0.023), distant metastasis (p = 0.0022), non-differentiated tumors (p = 0.016), and vascular invasion (p = 0.01). Regarding the regulation of its expression, positive correlation between the loss of miR-10b and aberrant DNA methylation (p = 0.02) as well as a loss of TWIST-1 messenger RNA (p = 0.018) have been observed. Furthermore, expression analysis of the downstream miR-10b targets has shown that there are associations between low HOXD10 messenger RNA and E-cadherin protein levels (p < 0.0001, p = 0.0008, respectively) and overexpression of miR-10b. Our data suggests that overexpression of miR-10b results from high levels of TWIST-1 and may induce a decrease of E-cadherin membranous protein levels, thus contributing to the acquisition of metastatic phenotypes in colorectal cancer.
Multiple Testing in Large-Scale Contingency Tables : Inferring PairWise Amino Acid Patterns in β-Sheets

One of the most common test procedures using two-way contingency tables is a test of independence between two categorizations. Current significant tests such as χ2 tests or likelihood ratio tests provide overall independency but bring limited information about the nature of the association in the contingency tables. This study examines the feasibility of using multiple testing procedures for an inference of independence of categories in each cell in contingency tables. In the simulation study, we compare the performance of various multiple testing procedures in a contingency table setup and demonstrate the relationship among the proportion of true null hypothesis, type I error, power, and false discovery rate. Finally, we apply the proposed methodology to identify the patterns of pair-wise associations of amino acids involved in β-sheet bridges in proteins. We identify a number of amino acid pairs that exhibit either strong or weak association. These patterns provide useful information for algorithms for predicting the secondary as well as tertiary structure of proteins.
A New Approach to Tractable Planning

We describe a restricted class of planning problems and polynomial time membership and plan existence decision algorithms for this class. The definition of the problem class is based on a graph representation of planning problems, similar to Petri nets, and the use of a graph grammar to characterise a subset of such graphs. Thus, testing membership in the class is a graph parsing problem. The planning algorithm also exploits this connection, making use of the parse tree. We show that the new problem class is incomparable with, i.e., neither a subset nor a superset of, previously known classes of tractable planning problems.
Comparison of manual and automated cell counts in EDTA preserved synovial fluids. Storage has little influence on the results

OBJECTIVE To determine the precision and agreement of synovial fluid (SF) cell counts done manually and with automated counters, and to determine the degree of variability of the counts in SF samples, kept in the tubes used for routine white blood cell (WBC) counts—which use liquid EDTA as anticoagulant—at 24 and 48 hours at 4°C, and at room temperature. METHODS To determine precision, cell counts were repeated 10 times—both manually and by an automated counter—in a SF sample of low, medium, and high cellularity. The variances were calculated to determine the interobserver variation in two manual (M1,M2) and two automated cell counts (C1,C2). The agreement between a manual (M1) and automated counter (C1) results, was analysed by the Bland and Altman method and the difference against the mean of the two methods was plotted. Then, the mean difference between the two methods was estimated and the standard deviation of the difference. To determine the effects of storage, SF samples were kept in a refrigerator at 4°C, and at room temperature; cell counts were done manually (M1) and automatically (C1) at 24 and 48 hours and the changes analysed by the Bland and Altman method. The variances were compared using an F test. RESULTS (1) Precision. With the manual technique, the coefficients of variation were 27.9%, 14%, and 10.7% when used for counting the SF with low (270), medium (6200), and high cellularities (25 000). With the automated technique the coefficients of variation were 20%, 3.4%, and 2.9% in the same SF samples. In the fluids of medium and high cellularity, the variances of the automated cell counts were significatively lower (F test, p<0.002) than those of the manual counts. (2) Interobserver variation. The variance between C1 and C2 (25 SF) was significatively lower (F test, p<0.002) than that of the manual counts (41 SF). (3) Agreement between the two techniques (100 SF). For cellularities above 2000 cells/mm3, the manual method gave results between +10% to −34% of the results obtained by the coulter. For cellularities below 2000 cells/mm3, manual cell counts were between +60 to −1280 cells/mm3 of those obtained by the automated counter. (4) Influence of storage. The coulter counts of SF samples preserved at 4°C showed less variance (F test, p<0.05) than the manual counts. The worst results were obtained in manual counts of SF samples kept at room temperature; these samples at 48 hours showed a variation between −47% to 42% of the initial results. CONCLUSIONS Automated cell count of the SF offers advantages: it gives higher precision and consumes less time. The stability of the samples preserved in the EDTA tubes used for routine WBC counts is of additional interest, because if delay cannot be avoided, the results of the WBC counts are still accurate at 24 and even at 48 hours, at least for clinical purposes.
The orderliness of the growth hormone (GH) release process and the mean mass of GH secreted per burst are highly conserved in individual men on successive days.

Endocrine glands signal their remote target tissues via physiologically pulsatile release of regulatory molecules. A cardinal assumption of most pathophysiological experiments is that discrete attributes of pulsatile hormone secretion are stable over successive untreated observation intervals; i.e. repeated measurements show serial within-subject reproducibility. To test this hypothesis in the GH axis, we sampled blood every 10 min for 48 h in 14 healthy men (age range, 29-77 yr; body mass index, 21-51 kg/m2). The 2 consecutive 24-h serum profiles were subjected to ultrasensitive GH chemiluminescence assay (sensitivity, 0.002 micrograms/L) with a new dose-dependent variance model to estimate within-assay precision. We then applied deconvolution analysis to estimate the number, mass, amplitude, and duration of underlying GH secretory bursts as well as simultaneously calculate the apparent GH half-life and any concurrent basal hormone secretion. Test-retest consistency was assessed by the Pearson correlation coefficient, and differences were determined by paired nonparametric (Wilcoxon) testing. Comparing successive 24-h profiles, no significant differences existed in any of the foregoing secretion or half-life measures or in a novel estimate of the relative disorderliness of hormone release, namely approximate entropy. Correlation was minimal for secretory burst amplitude and half-duration. In contrast, the calculated mean mass of GH secreted per burst was highly conserved across sessions within subjects, with an r value of 0.932 (P < 10(-6). This correlation equaled or exceeded that of mean and integrated serum GH concentrations on consecutive days (r = 0.920; P = 0.00003). The calculated daily GH production rate was also strongly reproduced (r = 0.784; P = 0.0009). Moreover, the within-subject GH half-life and GH secretory burst frequency estimates were well correlated on successive days (P = 0.034-0.004; r = 0.568-0.711). Approximate entropy values were consistent at r = 0.837 (P = 0.0019). In addition, basal GH secretion rates correlated at r = 0.622 (P = 0.0176). We conclude that homeostatic control mechanisms within the GH-insulin-like growth factor I axis strongly preserve the day to day mean mass of GH secreted per burst and the serial orderliness of the GH release process in individual healthy men across a wide span of ages and body compositions.
Association between the oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism (rs53576) and bulimia nervosa.

OBJECTIVE Oxytocin circuits are implicated in the regulation of appetite and weight. Variants in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene have been associated with bulimic behaviour. This study aimed to investigate the association between the OXTR gene and eating disorders. METHOD We genotyped six single nucleotide polymorphisms, rs53576, rs237879, rs2228485, rs13316193, rs2254298 and rs1042778, located within the OXTR gene in Korean patients with eating disorders using the single-base extension method. We studied a total of 262 women, including 69 patients with anorexia nervosa, 90 patients with bulimia nervosa (BN), and 103 healthy women. RESULTS We found a positive association between the G allele of OXTR rs53576 and BN. In the BN group, the G carriers showed a high score on the behavioural inhibition system. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest the involvement of the oxytocinergic system in the mechanism that underlies BN.
[Sotos syndrome in discordant, dizygotic twins].

Les examens de laboratoire montrent des taux normaux d'hormone de croissance, un caryotype normal, des aminoacides plasmatiques normaux, une augmentation de l'excretion de tyrosine et de treonine dans l'urine. L'âge osseux est accelere et l'EEG est anormal
Modelling temperature acclimation effects on the carbon dynamics of forest ecosystems in the conterminous United States

ABSTRACT The projected rise in temperature in the 21st century will alter forest ecosystem functioning and carbon dynamics. To date, the acclimation of plant photosynthesis to rising temperature has not been adequately considered in earth system models. Here we present a study on regional ecosystem carbon dynamics under future climate scenarios incorporating temperature acclimation effects into a large-scale ecosystem model, the terrestrial ecosystem model (TEM). We first incorporate a general formulation of the temperature acclimation of plant photosynthesis into TEM, and then apply the revised model to the forest ecosystems of the conterminous United States for the 21st century under the future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) climate scenarios A1FI, A2, B1 and B2. We find that there are significant differences between the estimates of carbon dynamics from the previous and the revised models. The largest differences occur under the A1FI scenario, in which the model that considers acclimation effects predicts that the region will act as a carbon sink, and that cumulative carbon in the 21st century will be 35 Pg C higher than the estimates from the model that does not consider acclimation effects. Our results further indicate that in the region there are spatially different responses to temperature acclimation effects. This study suggests that terrestrial ecosystem models should take temperature acclimation effects into account so as to more accurately quantify ecosystem carbon dynamics at regional scales.
A Survey on Software Fault Localization

Software fault localization, the act of identifying the locations of faults in a program, is widely recognized to be one of the most tedious, time consuming, and expensive - yet equally critical - activities in program debugging. Due to the increasing scale and complexity of software today, manually locating faults when failures occur is rapidly becoming infeasible, and consequently, there is a strong demand for techniques that can guide software developers to the locations of faults in a program with minimal human intervention. This demand in turn has fueled the proposal and development of a broad spectrum of fault localization techniques, each of which aims to streamline the fault localization process and make it more effective by attacking the problem in a unique way. In this article, we catalog and provide a comprehensive overview of such techniques and discuss key issues and concerns that are pertinent to software fault localization as a whole.
In Vitro and In Vivo Biological Activities of Cissus adnata (Roxb.)

This study was conducted to evaluate the in vitro polyphenol content, antioxidant, cytotoxic, antibacterial, anthelmintic properties, and in vivo antinociceptive activity of the ethanol extract of Cissus adnata leaves (EECA) in different experimental models. Polyphenol contents were investigated using spectrophotometric techniques. Antioxidant activity was determined by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) radical-scavenging, ferric reducing power, and total antioxidant capacity assays. Cytotoxicity was determined by brine shrimp lethality bioassay and disc diffusion method was used for the antibacterial activity. Anthelmintic activity was studied using aquarium worm (Tubifex tubifex) whereas antinociceptive activity was evaluated in mice by acetic acid and formalin test. Phytochemical screening of EECA revealed the presence of alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, phenols, terpenoids, saponins, and tannins. EECA showed strong antioxidant activity with high polyphenol contents. It was observed that EECA possessed significant antibacterial activity with a low toxicity profile. EECA also demonstrated dose-dependent and statistically significant anthelmintic and antinociceptive activities. Our study shows that ethanol extract of C. adnata leaves possess strong antioxidant, antibacterial, anthelmintic and antinociceptive activities with lower toxicity. Further studies are needed to identify bioactive phytomolecules and to understand the mechanism of such actions better.
Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion for Management of Recurrent Lumbar Disc Herniation

Study Design Retrospective study. Purpose To study the surgical outcome of transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) combined with trans-pedicular screws fixation for management of selected cases of recurrent lumbar disc herniation. Overview of Literature Recurrent lumbar disc herniation is a major cause of surgical failure, occurring in 5%–11% of cases. The optimal technique for treatment is controversial. Some authors believe that repeated simple discectomy is the treatment of choice, but approach-related complications can be considerable. Other surgeons prefer more removal of posterior elements (as lamina and facet joints) with posterior fusion. Methods The study included 15 patients who presented with symptomatic recurrent lumbar disc herniation who underwent reoperation through posterior trans-pedicular screws and TLIF in our department from April 2008 to May 2010, with a 24-month follow-up. Japanese Orthopedic Association Scale (JOA) was used for low back pain. The results of surgery were also evaluated with the MacNab classification. Results The mean JOA score showed significant improvement, increasing from 9.5 before surgery to 24.0 at the end of follow-up (p<0.001). Clinical outcome was excellent in 7 patients (46% of cases), good in 6 patients (40%) and fair in only 2 patients (14%). There was a significant difference (p<0.05) between patients presenting with recurrent disc at the ipsilateral side and those at the contralateral side. Conclusions In spite of the small number of patients and the short follow-up period, the good clinical and radiological outcome achieved in this study encourage the belief that TLIF is an effective option for the treatment of selected cases of recurrent lumbar disc herniation.