Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of Tumor Vasculogenic Mimicry and Prolongation of Host Survival in Highly Aggressive Gallbladder Cancers by Norcantharidin via Blocking the Ephrin Type a Receptor 2/Focal Adhesion Kinase/Paxillin Signaling Pathway

Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is a newly-defined tumor microcirculation pattern in highly aggressive malignant tumors. We recently reported tumor growth and VM formation of gallbladder cancers through the contribution of the ephrin type a receptor 2 (EphA2)/focal adhesion kinase (FAK)/Paxillin signaling pathways. In this study, we further investigated the anti-VM activity of norcantharidin (NCTD) as a VM inhibitor for gallbladder cancers and the underlying mechanisms. In vivo and in vitro experiments to determine the effects of NCTD on tumor growth, host survival, VM formation of GBC-SD nude mouse xenografts, and vasculogenic-like networks, malignant phenotypes i.e., proliferation, apoptosis, invasion and migration of GBC-SD cells. Expression of VM signaling-related markers EphA2, FAK and Paxillin in vivo and in vitro were examined by immunofluorescence, western blotting and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respectively. The results showed that after treatment with NCTD, GBC-SD cells were unable to form VM structures when injecting into nude mouse, growth of the xenograft was inhibited and these observations were confirmed by facts that VM formation by three-dimensional (3-D) matrix, proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, migration of GBC-SD cells were affected; and survival time of the xenograft mice was prolonged. Furthermore, expression of EphA2, FAK and Paxillin proteins/mRNAs of the xenografts was downregulated. Thus, we concluded that NCTD has potential anti-VM activity against human gallbladder cancers; one of the underlying mechanisms may be via blocking the EphA2/FAK/Paxillin signaling pathway.
Anti-gingivitis efficacy of a stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice.

OBJECTIVE Stannous fluoride is a broad-spectrum anti-microbial agent that has been used in dentistry as a chemical adjunct to prevent dental caries and gingivitis. The objective of this study was to assess the anti-gingivitis efficacy of a stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice relative to a negative control. METHODS This was a randomized, 6-month, double-blind, parallel-group gingivitis study conducted according to the guidelines for evaluating chemotherapeutic products for the control of gingivitis outlined by the American Dental Association. A stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice was tested against a commercially available negative control dentifrice. Following baseline measurements, subjects received a dental prophylaxis. Subjects were then instructed to brush twice daily for 60 s using their assigned product. Oral soft-hard-tissue examinations and clinical examinations using the Modified Gingival Index, Gingival Bleeding Index, and the Turesky modification of the Quigley-Hein Plaque Index were performed at baseline, 3 and 6 months post-treatment. RESULTS A total of 143 subjects were enrolled and 130 of them completed the 6-month study. After 6 months of product usage, the experimental group had 21.7% less gingivitis (p<0.001), 57.1% less bleeding (p<0.001), and 6.9% less plaque (p=0.01) on average compared with the negative control group. No adverse oral soft-hard-tissue effects or extrinsic tooth staining was observed in the study. CONCLUSION The results demonstrate that use of the stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice over a 6-month period provided statistically significant reductions in gingivitis, gingival bleeding, and plaque when compared with a negative control dentifrice.
Role satisfaction and entrepreneurship

Purpose – It has been believed that entrepreneurship involves a lot of risk nowadays, yet it is assumed that not being entrepreneurial can be a bigger risk. Enhancement in entrepreneurial behaviour can improve performance of the individual as well as that of the organization. This paper aims to propose a conceptual model that empirically examines the relationship of role satisfaction and its dimensions with entrepreneurial behaviour in an Indian context. Design/methodology/approach – Three hundred and thirty three executives/managers from many organizations in India were approached. Cronbach's α, factor analysis, correlation and regression analyses were applied to check the research hypotheses. Findings – It was found that most of the variables in the study were having significant relationship. All the hypotheses were supported. Furthermore, achievement, influence, control and affiliation were found to be important predictors of entrepreneurial behaviour. Research limitations/implications – This paper wou.
Adult readers' eye movements during the production of oral miscues

Miscue analysis and eye-movement recording technology are combined In this dissertation to explore the reading processes o£ adult, skilled readers. The combination of approaches forms a new reading research methodology termed Eye Movement Miscue Analysis, or EMMA, that provides a powerful view of the reading process. Miscue analysis, the psychollngulstlc analysis of unexpected responses In a reader's oral text, provides a verbal dimension of data for reading research. Similarly, eye-movement recording, which shows precisely where In a text a reader looks, provides a visual dimension of data. When these two research approaches are combined, both verbal and visual data are analyzed, resulting In a powerful, multl-dimensional view of the reading process. This dissertation focuses on adult readers' eye movements made during the production of miscues and other oral reading phenomena. Patterns of eye movements relative to siibstltutlons, omissions. Insertions, partlals, and repetitions are described, analyzed, and compared. Results of the analysis are discussed In terms of whether current causal explanations of miscues are augmented or refuted. Original conceptions about the reading process formed as a
SENSE OF COHERENCE, RESILIENCE AND ALCOHOL USE AMONG SLOVAK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. A BRIEF UNIVERSAL DRUG USE PREVENTION PROGRAM

Oľga Orosová, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational Psychology and Health Psychology, olga.orosova@upjs.sk Anna Janovská, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational Psychology and Health Psychology, beata.gajdosova1@upjs.sk Beáta Gajdošová, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational Psychology and Health Psychology, anna.janovska@centrum.sk
Cholecystokinin Drives Descending Facilitation to Mediate Morphine-Induced Paradoxical "Pain" and Antinociceptive Tolerance

s for Scientific Meetings Xie, Y. , Ossipov, M.H. , Vanderah, T.W. , Lai, J., Porreca, F. , Cholecystokinin (CCK) in the Rostral Ventromedial Medulla (RVM) Drives Descending Facilitation to Mediate Morphineinduced Paradoxical Pain and Spinal Antinociceptive Tolerance, International Association for the Study of Pain, San Diego, CA, August 2002, presenter.
Linguistic-computing methods for analysing digital records of learning.

: Social scientists face an overload of digitized information. In particular, they must often spend inordinate amounts of time coding and analyzing transcribed speech. This paper describes a study, in the field of learning science, of the feasibility of semi-automatically coding and scoring verbal data. Transcripts from 48 individual learners comprising 2 separate data sets of 44,000 and 23,000 words were used as test domains for the investigation of three research questions: (1) how well can utterance-type codes assigned to text segments by humans be predicted from the linguistic characteristics of those text segments? (2) how well can learning outcomes be predicted from learners' verbalizations? (3) can the material students are learning from be identified from their language? Initial results indicate that the answers to the third question is yes; and that the answer to the first two questions is: well enough to warrant further development of the text-mining techniques so far employed.
The Default Effect in End-of-Life Medical Treatment Preferences

Background. Living wills are intended to preserve patient autonomy, but recent studies suggest that they do not always have their desired effect. One possible explanation is that living wills do not capture the authentic preferences of the patients who write them but instead reflect transient contextual effects on preferences. Purpose. Two experiments examined whether end-of-life treatment preferences expressed in a living will were influenced by the presence of default options. Method. College students participated in 2 Web-based questionnaire experiments (Ns = 182 and 51). Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 or 3 default conditions. Results. In experiment 1, participants expressed significantly different treatment preferences in 3 normatively equivalent, check box—formatted living wills that were either positively worded (“indicate medical treatments you would want administered”), negatively worded (“indicate treatments you would want withheld”), or of forced-choice format (P = 0.01). Participants expressed a stronger preference to receive treatment in the negatively worded document than in the positively worded document as a consequence of preferring the default option in both cases. Participants in experiment 2 were also influenced by the presence of a default option, but this time, while writing narrative living wills after viewing 1 of 2 sample living wills. In this experiment, the sample living will represented the default preference. The participants' own living wills tended to express preferences similar to those in the sample (P = 0.0005). Conclusion. The default manipulations in both experiments had potent but transient effects and influenced what participants wrote in their living wills but not their responses to later medical scenarios. Expression of end-of-life treatment preferences appears to be temporarily constructed from the decision-making context. These results have implications for surrogate decision making and the use of the living will as a tool to preserve patient autonomy.
Epistemic geographies of climate change : the IPCC and the spaces, boundaries and politics of knowing

Science, like other realms of human activity, has its geographies. It proceeds in and through space, and participates in the construction of the political and cultural geographies by which human interactions with the nonhuman come to be known, understood and governed. The phenomenon of climate change stands at this juncture of science, politics, and the elemental materiality of the nonhuman. High-profile controversies about the physical reality, effects and management of the changing climate point to more deep-seated contestations about the place of science in modern democratic societies. This thesis engages with literatures on the historical and cultural geographies of science in order to open-up questions about the situatedness of climate change knowledges, the contested boundaries between the scientific and the political, and the spatial politics of relating epistemic claims to normative interventions in the world. The thesis proceeds through a series of linked case studies which traverse a range of emergent transnational spaces of knowledge production. It begins inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and moves through the contested spaces of international climate diplomacy at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks and through diverse cultures of knowledge authorisation in Indian climate politics. The thesis develops the notions of ‘boundary spaces’ and ‘epistemic geographies’ to capture the emergence, conjuncture and contestation of different modes of knowing and governing climate change. By following the objects of climate change knowledges – like visualisations, numerical targets, simulation models and predictions – conceptual distinctions between the spaces of knowledge production and consumption break down. Instead, a picture emerges of travelling knowledges which emphasises mutability, interpretive flexibility, and the spatial and discursive co-production of the epistemic and the normative. It is argued that by moving from ‘geographies of science’ to ‘epistemic geographies’, the hybridity of science and politics can be more effectively written-in to our accounts of contemporary knowledge politics.
The Frequency of c.550delA Mutation of the CANP3 Gene in the Polish LGMD2A Population.

BACKGROUND Limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2A (LGMD2A) is the most frequent LGMD variant in the European population, representing about 40% of LGMD. The c.550delA mutation in the CANP3 (calcium activated neutral protease 3) gene is the most commonly reported mutation in LGMD2A. Prevalence of this mutation in the Polish population has not been previously investigated. The aim of this study was to identify and estimate the frequency of the c.550delA mutation in Polish LGMD2A patients. METHODS Polymerase chain reaction-sequencing analysis, restriction fragment length polymorphism polymerase chain reaction method. RESULTS We analyzed 76 families affected with LGMD and identified 62 probands with mutations in the CANP3 gene. C.550delA was the most common mutation identified, being found in 78% of the LGMD2A families. The remaining mutations observed multiple times were as follows: c.598-612del15ntd; c.2242C>T; c.418dupC; c.1356insT, listed in terms of decreasing frequency. Two novel variants in the CANP3 gene, that is, c.700G>A Gly234Arg and c.661G>A Gly221Ser were also characterized. Overall, mutations in the LGMD2A gene were estimated to be present in 81% of patients with the LGMD phenotype who were without sarcoglycans and dysferlin deficiency on immunocytochemical analysis. The frequency of the heterozygous c.550delA mutation in the healthy Polish population was estimated at 1/124. CONCLUSIONS The c.550delA is the most frequent CANP3 mutation in the Polish population, thus sequencing of exon 4 of this gene could identify the majority of LGMD2A patients in Poland.
Remote networking laboratory development

Having opportunities to practice basic computer systems and computer networking tasks are important for students to understand underlying concept and to develop the necessary skills. Remote Access Laboratories are a way to allow students off-site hardware access to systems and hardware. This paper introduces a basic networking remote laboratory experiment and related learning activities. It addresses technical implementation but more importantly also focuses on intended learning outcomes. In contrast to most published remotely accessible learning activities on networking, this project targets basic networking kills rather than advanced tasks such as backbone router configuration. The practical learning activities relate to an introductory computer systems and communication protocol course. The networking rig will be used in academic as well as practical laboratory classes. This paper introduces the system design and discusses the learning activities.
An Extended LTL for Inconsistency-Tolerant Reasoning with Hierarchical Information: Verifying Students' Learning Processes

—In this paper, a new extended linear-time temporal logic (LTL), called sequential paraconsistent LTL (SPLTL), is introduced for formalizing inconsistency-tolerant reasoning with hierarchical information. A theorem for embedding SPLTL into LTL is proved, and SPLTL is shown to be decidable. Some illustrative examples for verifying Students' learning processes are presented using SPLTL.
Immunohistochemical localization of transforming growth factor beta isoforms in asbestos-related diseases.

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta), a multifunctional cytokine and growth factor, plays a key role in scarring and fibrotic processes because of its ability to induce extracellular matrix proteins and modulate the growth and immune function of many cell types. These effects are important in inflammatory disorders with fibrosis and cancer. The asbestos-related diseases are characterized by fibrosis in the lower respiratory tract and pleura and increased occurrence of lung cancer and mesothelioma. We performed immunohistochemistry with isoform-specific antibodies to the three TGF-beta isoforms on 16 autopsy lungs from Quebec, Canada, asbestos miners and millers. There was increased immunolocalization of all three TGF-beta isoforms in the fibrotic lesions of asbestosis and pleural fibrosis. The hyperplastic type II pneumocytes contained all three isoforms. By contrast, there was differential spatial immunostaining for the TGF-beta isoforms in malignant mesothelioma, with TGF-beta 1 in the stroma but TGF-beta 2 in the tumor cells. These data are consistent with an important role for TGF-beta in accumulation of extracellular matrix and cell proliferation in asbestos-related diseases. ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2.Figure 3.Figure 4.Figure 5.Figure 6.Figure 7.Figure 8.Figure 9.
Kernel Methods for Accurate UWB-Based Ranging With Reduced Complexity

Accurate and robust positioning in multipath environments can enable many applications, such as search-and-rescue and asset tracking. For this problem, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology can provide the most accurate range estimates, which are required for range-based positioning. However, UWB still faces a problem with non-line-of-sight (NLOS) measurements, in which the range estimates based on time-of-arrival (TOA) will typically be positively biased. There are many techniques that address this problem, mainly based on NLOS identification and NLOS error mitigation algorithms. However, these techniques do not exploit all available information in the UWB channel impulse response. Kernel-based machine learning methods, such as Gaussian process regression (GPR), are able to make use of all information, but they may be too complex in their original form. In this paper, we propose novel ranging methods based on kernel principal component analysis (kPCA), in which the selected channel parameters are projected onto a nonlinear orthogonal high-dimensional space, and a subset of these projections is then used as an input for ranging. We evaluate the proposed methods using real UWB measurements obtained in a basement tunnel, and found that one of the proposed methods is able to outperform state-of-the-art, even if little training samples are available.
Electrostatic contributions to protein–protein interactions: Fast energetic filters for docking and their physical basis

The methods of continuum electrostatics are used to calculate the binding free energies of a set of protein–protein complexes including experimentally determined structures as well as other orientations generated by a fast docking algorithm. In the native structures, charged groups that are deeply buried were often found to favor complex formation (relative to isosteric nonpolar groups), whereas in nonnative complexes generated by a geometric docking algorithm, they were equally likely to be stabilizing as destabilizing. These observations were used to design a new filter for screening docked conformations that was applied, in conjunction with a number of geometric filters that assess shape complementarity, to 15 antibody–antigen complexes and 14 enzyme‐inhibitor complexes. For the bound docking problem, which is the major focus of this paper, native and near‐native solutions were ranked first or second in all but two enzyme‐inhibitor complexes. Less success was encountered for antibody–antigen complexes, but in all cases studied, the more complete free energy evaluation was able to idey native and near‐native structures. A filter based on the enrichment of tyrosines and tryptophans in antibody binding sites was applied to the antibody–antigen complexes and resulted in a native and near‐native solution being ranked first and second in all cases. A clear improvement over previously reported results was obtained for the unbound antibody–antigen examples as well. The algorithm and various filters used in this work are quite efficient and are able to reduce the number of plausible docking orientations to a size small enough so that a final more complete free energy evaluation on the reduced set becomes computationally feasible.
The Effect of Learning on the Effective Use of Enterprise Systems

Enterprise systems must be used effectively to maximize their benefits. Given their complexity and integration of standard business processes, they pose significant challenges for employees’ learning. Users need to learn how to access a system and its data and how to leverage the information it provides to perform their daily tasks effectively. Based on a literature review, we identify three context-oriented forms of learning, which affect a user’s level of effective use: learning via training, self- learning, and learning via social interaction. We aim to conduct a longitudinal case study to explore learning during an implementation project and develop a research model to measure the effect of learning on individuals’ effective use of an enterprise system. The extension of the nomological network of the concept of effective use by an integration of the effect of different forms of learning will be the main contribution of our research.
Effect of Hypoxia on Ventilatory Control during Exercise in Children and Adults

ABSTRACT: Little is known about maturation of peripheral chemoreceptor tone (PCT) during growth. We recently demonstrated that the increase in PCT was 49% greater during hypoxic (15% O2) exercise in children compared to adults. As the PCT is a major determinant of ventilatory (VE) response at the onset of exercise (measured by the time constant γ), we hypothesized that hypoxia would affect γVE (and γVCO2) to a greater extent in children. Nine healthy children (6-10 y old) and nine healthy adults (18- 40 y old) performed multiple transitions from rest to constant work rate on the cycle ergometer. Studies were done breathing 21% O2 and 15% O2. Hypoxic breathing quickened the VE responses in all of the adults and children, but the magnitude of the hypoxic effect did not differ between the two groups (in children, γVE was 50.9 ± 9.9 s during 21% O2 breathing and 32.6 ± 6.9 s during hypoxia; in adults, γVE was 69.4 ± 17.6 s, which fell to 50.9 ± 18.4 s during hypoxia). The hypothesized greater ventilatory response to hypoxia in children compared to adults during exercise was not observed. During 21% O2 breathing, the data demonstrated that children stored relatively less CO2 (by 49%) than did adults in the transition between rest and exercise, possibly explaining the faster ventilatory kinetics. We speculate that there must be additional respiratory control differences between adults and children such that for a given increase in PCT-induced by hypoxia, the VE response at the onset of exercise is less in children than in adults.