Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Tripeptide Diapin Effectively Lowers Blood Glucose Levels in Male Type 2 Diabetes Mice by Increasing Blood Levels of Insulin and GLP-1

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) is rapidly increasing worldwide. Effective therapies, such as insulin and Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), require injections, which are costly and result in less patient compliance. Here, we report the identification of a tripeptide with significant potential to treat T2D. The peptide, referred to as Diapin, is comprised of three natural L-amino acids, GlyGlyLeu. Glucose tolerance tests showed that oral administration of Diapin effectively lowered blood glucose after oral glucose loading in both normal C57BL/6J mice and T2D mouse models, including KKay, db/db, ob/ob mice, and high fat diet-induced obesity/T2D mice. In addition, Diapin treatment significantly reduced casual blood glucose in KKay diabetic mice in a time-dependent manner without causing hypoglycemia. Furthermore, we found that plasma GLP-1 and insulin levels in diabetic models were significantly increased with Diapin treatment compared to that in the controls. In summary, our findings establish that a peptide with minimum of three amino acids can improve glucose homeostasis and Diapin shows promise as a novel pharmaceutical agent to treat patients with T2D through its dual effects on GLP-1 and insulin secretion.
Molecular phylogenetic evidence that the phylum Haplosporidia has an alveolate ancestry.

The phylogenetic position of the phylum Haplosporidia among other protists was investigated with the complete 16S-like rRNA gene sequences from two species in the phylum: Haplosporidium nelsoni, a parasite of oysters, and Minchinia teredinis, a parasite of shipworms. Because the lack of obvious morphological homologies with other protists hampered decisions regarding taxonomic composition for sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis, the complete sequences for these two haplosporidians were directed as search queries to the blast/ncbi.nlm. nih.gov electronic mail server. The results of this heuristic similarity search provided a basis for constructing a preliminary higher-taxonomic-level analysis comparing the haplosporidians with species from the slime molds, fungi, algae, amoebae, ciliates, dinoflagellates, and apicomplexans. Maximum parsimony yielded equivocal results, whereas transversionally weighted parsimony suggested an affinity with the alveolates (i.e., the ciliates, dinoflagellates, and apicomplexans). Multiple alignment of the two haplosporidian sequences against 17 taxa in a secondary analysis focusing on the alveolates and subsequent parsimony analysis placed the phylum Haplosporidia as a monophyletic group within the Alveolata and as a taxon of equal rank with the other three alveolate phyla. The precise placement within the Alveolata was sensitive to weighting.
Thermotoga neapolitana bglB gene, upstream of lamA, encodes a highly thermostable beta-glucosidase that is a laminaribiase.

The gene for thermostable 1,3-beta-glucosidase BglB was cloned from the chromosome of Thermotoga neapolitana and its primary sequence was determined. The purified recombinant beta-glucosidase B had a monomer molecular mass of 81 kDa in accordance with the amino acid sequence predicted from the nucleotide sequence of clone pTT51. It was a member of glycosylhydrolase family 3 and belonged to enzyme class EC 3.2. 1.21. beta-Glucosidase B had a specific activity of 255 U mg-1 on 4-nitrophenyl(PNP)-beta-glucoside at the optima of pH (5.5) and temperature (90 degrees C), and K(m) values of 0.1, 10 and 50 mM for PNP-beta-glucoside, laminaribiose and cellobiose, respectively. The gene bglB was located immediately upstream of the laminarinase gene lamA. Both genes were transcribed from the same DNA strand and were not separated by a palindromic transcription terminator. The two purified enzymes 1,3-beta-glucosidase BglB (laminaribiase) and 1,3-beta-glucanase LamA (laminarinase) were together capable of completely degrading laminarin to glucose.
DISCERN: an instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a short instrument, called DISCERN, which will enable patients and information providers to judge the quality of written information about treatment choices. DISCERN will also facilitate the production of new, high quality, evidence-based consumer health information. DESIGN: An expert panel, representing a range of expertise in consumer health information, generated criteria from a random sample of information for three medical conditions with varying degrees of evidence: myocardial infarction, endometriosis, and chronic fatigue syndrome. A graft instrument, based on this analysis, was tested by the panel on a random sample of new material for the same three conditions. The panel re-drafted the instrument to take account of the results of the test. The DISCERN instrument was finally tested by a national sample of 15 information providers and 13 self help group members on a random sample of leaflets from 19 major national self help organisations. Participants also completed an 8 item questionnaire concerning the face and content validity of the instrument. RESULTS: Chance corrected agreement (weighted kappa) for the overall quality rating was kappa = 0.53 (95% CI kappa = 0.48 to kappa = 0.59) among the expert panel, kappa = 0.40 (95% CI kappa = 0.36 to kappa = 0.43) among information providers, and kappa = 0.23 (95% CI kappa = 0.19 to kappa = 0.27) among self help group members. Higher agreement levels were associated with experience of using the instrument and with professional knowledge of consumer health information. Levels of agreement varied across individual items on the instrument, reflecting the need for subjectivity in rating certain criteria. The trends in levels of agreement were similar among all groups. The final instrument consisted of 15 questions plus an overall quality rating. Responses to the questionnaire after the final testing revealed the instrument to have good face and content validity and to be generally applicable. CONCLUSIONS: DISCERN is a reliable and valid instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information. While some subjectivity is required for rating certain criteria, the findings demonstrate that the instrument can be applied by experienced users and providers of health information to discriminate between publications of high and low quality. The instrument will also be of benefit to patients, though its use will be improved by training.
Automatically Extracting Polarity-Bearing Topics for Cross-Domain Sentiment Classification

Joint sentiment-topic (JST) model was previously proposed to detect sentiment and topic simultaneously from text. The only supervision required by JST model learning is domain-independent polarity word priors. In this paper, we modify the JST model by incorporating word polarity priors through modifying the topic-word Dirichlet priors. We study the polarity-bearing topics extracted by JST and show that by augmenting the original feature space with polarity-bearing topics, the in-domain supervised classifiers learned from augmented feature representation achieve the state-of-the-art performance of 95% on the movie review data and an average of 90% on the multi-domain sentiment dataset. Furthermore, using feature augmentation and selection according to the information gain criteria for cross-domain sentiment classification, our proposed approach performs either better or comparably compared to previous approaches. Nevertheless, our approach is much simpler and does not require difficult parameter tuning.
Clinicopathological Implications of Mitochondrial Genome Alterations in Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Background To the best of our knowledge, the association between pediatric AML and mitochondrial aberrations has not been studied. We investigated various mitochondrial aberrations in pediatric AML and evaluated their impact on clinical outcomes. Methods Sequencing, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number determination, mtDNA 4,977-bp large deletion assessments, and gene scan analyses were performed on the bone marrow mononuclear cells of 55 pediatric AML patients and on the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 55 normal controls. Changes in the mitochondrial mass, mitochondrial membrane potential, and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels were also examined. Results mtDNA copy numbers were about two-fold higher in pediatric AML cells than in controls (P<0.0001). Furthermore, a close relationship was found between mtDNA copy number tertiles and the risk of pediatric AML. Intracellular ROS levels, mitochondrial mass, and mitochondrial membrane potentials were all elevated in pediatric AML. The frequency of the mtDNA 4,977-bp large deletion was significantly higher (P< 0.01) in pediatric AML cells, and pediatric AML patients harboring high amount of mtDNA 4,977-bp deletions showed shorter overall survival and event-free survival rates, albeit without statistical significance. Conclusions The present findings demonstrate an association between mitochondrial genome alterations and the risk of pediatric AML.
A dynamical model of cancer chemotherapy with disturbance

This work proposes a controlled stochastic difference equation model of scheduling, with quadratic cost criteria, for cancer chemotherapy. By reducing the problem to quadratic control optimization and introducing a random search algorithm, we seek an optimal chemotherapy schedule. Our ultimate goal is to provide more realistic solutions than previous models. To reach this goal, our model ideally kills the maximum number of cancer cells to eradicate the disease while preserving the number of normal cells. Our results show the proposed model works well for cancer chemotherapy. Our algorithm is fast and helps produce practical schedules.
Identification of Multiple Binding Sites for Substrate Transport in Bovine Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptide 1a2

Organic anion transporting polypeptides (OATP) have been extensively recognized as key determinants of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of various drugs because of their broad substrate specificity, wide tissue distribution, and the involvement of drug-drug interaction. As the first cloned human OATP, OATP1A2 has been found to transport a wide spectrum of endogenous and exogenous compounds. Bovine Oapt1a2 shared high homology with the human transporter and is considered as its functional ortholog. In the present study, we expressed bovine Oatp1a2 in human embryonic kidney 293 cells and found that, unlike human OATP1A2, the transport of estrone-3-sulfate (E-3-S) exhibited biphasic saturation kinetics. The Km values are 0.25 ± 0.08 and 46.6 ± 18.5 µM, and Vmax values were 24.5 ±4.4 and 375 ± 142 pmol/mg protein/min for high- and low-affinity sites, respectively, suggesting the presence of multiple binding sites. Further study on other Oatp1a2 substrates showed that the high affinity component for E-3-S is responsible for the interaction with taurocholate, bromsulphthalein, and rifampicin and is sensitive to proton concentration change, whereas the low affinity binding site is only involved in the binding of the antitumor drug methotrexate and had no response to change of pH.
Comparative usability evaluation

This paper reports on a study assessing the consistency of usability testing across organisations. Nine independent organisations evaluated the usability of the same website, Microsoft Hotmail. The results document a wide difference in selection and application of methodology, resources applied, and problems reported. The organizations reported 310 different usability problems. Only two problems were reported by six or more organizations, while 232 problems (75%) were uniquely reported, that is, no two teams reported the same problem. Some of the unique findings were classified as serious. Even the tasks used by most or all teams produced very different results – around 70% of the findings for each of these tasks were unique. Our main conclusion is that our simple assumption that we are all doing the same and getting the same results in a usability test is plainly wrong.
Impact of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in the Junior Secondary School Years: Objective Outcome Evaluation Based on Eight Waves of Longitudinal Data

To assess the effectiveness of the Tier 1 Program of the Project P.A. T.H. S. , a randomized group trial with eight waves of data collected was carried out. At the fifth year of data collection, 19 experimental schools (n = 2, 662 students) and 24 control schools (n = 3, 272 students) participated in the study. Analyses based on individual growth curve modeling showed that participants in the experimental schools displayed better positive youth development than did participants in the control schools in terms of different indicators derived from the Chinese Positive Youth Development Scale, including moral competence and behavioral competence and cognitive behavioral competencies. Significant results were also found when examining the trajectories of psychological development among control and experimental participants who perceived the program to be beneficial. Findings based on longitudinal objective outcome evaluation strongly suggest that the Project P.A. T.H. S. is effective in promoting positive development in Hong Kong secondary school students.
Synchronization for MIMO OFDM systems

This paper proposes a time and frequency synchronization technique for a Q transmit and L receive (Q/spl times/L), MIMO OFDM system. The synchronization is achieved using training symbols which are simultaneously transmitted from Q transmit antennas. The training symbols are directly modulatable orthogonal polyphase sequences. The synchronization algorithm shows satisfactory performance even at a low SNR and in a frequency selective channel. The training sequence structure is specialized such that channel parameters in terms of channel coefficients and noise variance can be estimated once synchronization is achieved.
S100B Interaction With the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE): A Novel Receptor-Mediated Mechanism for Myocyte Apoptosis Postinfarction

Rationale: Post–myocardial infarction ventricular remodeling is associated with the expression of a variety of factors including S100B that can potentially modulate myocyte apoptosis. Objective: This study was undertaken to investigate the expression and function of S100B and its receptor, the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) in both postinfarction myocardium and in a rat neonatal myocyte culture model. Methods and Results: In a rat model of myocardial infarction following coronary artery ligation, we demonstrate in periinfarct myocytes, upregulation of RAGE, induction of S100B, and release into plasma with consequent myocyte apoptosis. Using a coimmunoprecipitation strategy, we demonstrate a direct interaction between S100B and RAGE. In rat neonatal cardiac myocyte cultures, S100B at concentrations ≥50 nmol/L induced myocyte apoptosis, as evidenced by increased terminal DNA fragmentation, TUNEL, cytochrome c release from mitochondria to cytoplasm, phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 and p53, increased expression and activity of proapoptotic caspase-3, and decreased expression of antiapoptotic Bcl-2. Transfection of a full-length cDNA of RAGE or a dominant-negative mutant of RAGE resulted in increased or attenuated S100B-induced myocyte apoptosis, respectively. Inhibition of ERK1/2 by U0126/PD-98059 or overexpression of a dominant negative p53 comparably inhibited S100B-induced myocyte apoptosis. Conclusions: These results suggest that interaction of RAGE and its ligand S100B after myocardial infarction may play a role in myocyte apoptosis by activating ERK1/2 and p53 signaling. This receptor-mediated mechanism is uniquely amenable to therapeutic intervention.
Capturing and indexing computer-based activities with virtual network computing

In this paper, we present a new technique to capture and index computer-based activities, without hindering natural humancomputer interactions. This technique is based on the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) technology, which is an ultra-thinclient/server computing model that separates the display interface from the application logic in windowing systems. The server executes all the applications and the client simply presents the frame buffer updates to the user and accepts user input. We record the frame buffer updates for work review, and store the user and system events as potential indices into the recording.
Uplink HARQ for Distributed and Cloud RAN via Separation of Control and Data Planes

The implementation of uplink HARQ in a Cloud- Radio Access Network RAN (C-RAN) architecture is constrained by the two-way latency on the fronthaul links connecting the Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) with the Baseband Units (BBUs) that perform decoding. To overcome this limitation, this work considers an architecture based on the separation of control and data planes, in which retransmission control decisions are made at the edge of the network, that is, by the RRHs or User Equipments (UEs), while data decoding is carried out remotely at the BBUs. This solution enables low-latency local retransmission decisions to be made at the RRHs or UEs, which are not subject to the fronthaul latency constraints, while at the same time leveraging the decoding capability of the BBUs. A system with BBU Hoteling system is considered first in which each RRH has a dedicated BBU in the cloud. For this system, the control-data separation leverages low-latency local feedback from an RRH to drive the HARQ process of a given UE. Throughput and probability of error of this solution are analyzed for the three standard HARQ modes of Type-I, Chase Combining and Incremental Redundancy over a general fading MIMO link. Then, novel user-centric low-latency feedback strategies are proposed and analyzed for the C-RAN architecture, with a single centralized BBU, based on limited "hard" or "soft" local feedback from the RRHs to the UE and on retransmission decisions taken at the UE. The analysis presented in this work allows the optimization of the considered schemes, as well as the investigation of the impact of system parameters such as HARQ protocol type, blocklength and number of antennas on the performance of low-latency local HARQ decisions in BBU Hoteling and C-RAN architectures.
Strategy as Action: From Porter to Anti-Porter

In the post-crisis era, new concepts are emerging, while some old and dysfunctional ones are being discarded. Strategy is about making series of decisions that drive corporate action under specific coupling with companyâ€™s environment and context. Because decisions are actions, the strategy itself is action, not just a description of action. In the world of traditional strategy, descriptions (information) have replaced action (knowledge), and talk has replaced walk. We start from the premise that strategy is what company does, and what company does is its strategy. One cannot run a company just on descriptions and framed mission statements. The role of customers is crucial: the customer shapes strategy and triggers corporate action. Without respecting the customer, there is no viable strategy. This is why we label the action-based strategic thinking as â€œAnti-Porterâ€ : consumers do not want tradeoffs and thus truly effective strategy cannot be rooted in Porterâ€™s tradeoffs.
Dimensional anxiety mediates linkage of GABRA2 haplotypes with alcoholism

The GABAAα2 receptor gene (GABRA2) modulates anxiety and stress response. Three recent association studies implicate GABRA2 in alcoholism, however in these papers both common, opposite‐configuration haplotypes in the region distal to intron3 predict risk. We have now replicated the GABRA2 association with alcoholism in 331 Plains Indian men and women and 461 Finnish Caucasian men. Using a dimensional measure of anxiety, harm avoidance (HA), we also found that the association with alcoholism is mediated, or moderated, by anxiety. Nine SNPs were genotyped revealing two haplotype blocks. Within the previously implicated block 2 region, we identified the two common, opposite‐configuration risk haplotypes, A and B. Their frequencies differed markedly in Finns and Plains Indians. In both populations, most block 2 SNPs were significantly associated with alcoholism. The associations were due to increased frequencies of both homozygotes in alcoholics, indicating the possibility of alcoholic subtypes with opposite genotypes. Congruently, there was no significant haplotype association. Using HA as an indicator variable for anxiety, we found haplotype linkage to alcoholism with high and low dimensional anxiety, and to HA itself, in both populations. High HA alcoholics had the highest frequency of the more abundant haplotype (A in Finns, B in Plains Indians); low HA alcoholics had the highest frequency of the less abundant haplotype (B in Finns, A in Plains Indians) (Finns: P = 0.007, OR = 2.1, Plains Indians: P = 0.040, OR = 1.9). Non‐alcoholics had intermediate frequencies. Our results suggest that within the distal GABRA2 region is a functional locus or loci that may differ between populations but that alters risk for alcoholism via the mediating action of anxiety. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Model of Cancer Stem Cells Derived from Mouse Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are capable of continuous proliferation and self-renewal and are proposed to play significant roles in oncogenesis, tumor growth, metastasis and cancer recurrence. CSCs are considered derived from normal stem cells affected by the tumor microenvironment although the mechanism of development is not clear yet. In 2007, Yamanaka's group succeeded in generating Nanog mouse induced pluripotent stem (miPS) cells, in which green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been inserted into the 5′-untranslated region of the Nanog gene. Usually, iPS cells, just like embryonic stem cells, are considered to be induced into progenitor cells, which differentiate into various normal phenotypes depending on the normal niche. We hypothesized that CSCs could be derived from Nanog miPS cells in the conditioned culture medium of cancer cell lines, which is a mimic of carcinoma microenvironment. As a result, the Nanog miPS cells treated with the conditioned medium of mouse Lewis lung carcinoma acquired characteristics of CSCs, in that they formed spheroids expressing GFP in suspension culture, and had a high tumorigenicity in Balb/c nude mice exhibiting angiogenesis in vivo. In addition, these iPS-derived CSCs had a capacity of self-renewal and expressed the marker genes, Nanog, Rex1, Eras, Esg1 and Cripto, associated with stem cell properties and an undifferentiated state. Thus we concluded that a model of CSCs was originally developed from miPS cells and proposed the conditioned culture medium of cancer cell lines might perform as niche for producing CSCs. The model of CSCs and the procedure of their establishment will help study the genetic alterations and the secreted factors in the tumor microenvironment which convert miPS cells to CSCs. Furthermore, the identification of potentially bona fide markers of CSCs, which will help the development of novel anti-cancer therapies, might be possible though the CSC model.
Performance of the LHCb muon system

The performance of the LHCb Muon system and its stability across the full 2010 data taking with LHC running at root s = 7 TeV energy is studied. The optimization of the detector setting and the time calibration performed with the first collisions delivered by LHC is described. Particle rates, measured for the wide range of luminosities and beam operation conditions experienced during the run, are compared with the values expected from simulation. The space and time alignment of the detectors, chamber efficiency, time resolution and cluster size are evaluated. The detector performance is found to be as expected from specifications or better. Notably the overall efficiency is well above the design requirements.