Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mfn2 is critical for brown adipose tissue thermogenic function

Mitochondrial fusion and fission events, collectively known as mitochondrial dynamics, act as quality control mechanisms to ensure mitochondrial function and fine‐tune cellular bioenergetics. Defective mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) expression and enhanced mitochondrial fission in skeletal muscle are hallmarks of insulin‐resistant states. Interestingly, Mfn2 is highly expressed in brown adipose tissue (BAT), yet its role remains unexplored. Using adipose‐specific Mfn2 knockout (Mfn2‐adKO) mice, we demonstrate that Mfn2, but not Mfn1, deficiency in BAT leads to a profound BAT dysfunction, associated with impaired respiratory capacity and a blunted response to adrenergic stimuli. Importantly, Mfn2 directly interacts with perilipin 1, facilitating the interaction between the mitochondria and the lipid droplet in response to adrenergic stimulation. Surprisingly, Mfn2‐adKO mice were protected from high‐fat diet‐induced insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis. Altogether, these results demonstrate that Mfn2 is a mediator of mitochondria to lipid droplet interactions, influencing lipolytic processes and whole‐body energy homeostasis.
Modified Lipoproteins in Diabetic Retinopathy: A Local Action in the Retina

Clinical epidemiological studies have revealed relatively weak, yet statistically significant, associations between dyslipidemia/dyslipoproteinemia and diabetic retinopathy (DR). Recent large interventional studies, however, demonstrated an unexpectedly robust efficacy of fenofibrate on the development of DR, possibly independent of plasma lipids. To unify the apparent discrepancies, we hypothesize that plasma lipoproteins play an indirect but important role in DR, contingent on the integrity of the blood-retina-barrier (BRB). In retinas with an intact BRB, plasma lipoproteins may be largely irrelevant; however, important effects become operative after the BRB is impaired in diabetes, leading to lipoprotein extravasation and subsequent modification, hence toxicity to the neighbouring retinal cells. In this hypothesis, BRB leakage is the key, plasma lipoprotein concentrations mainly modulate its consequences, and fenofibrate has intra-retinal actions. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the direct effects and mechanisms of modified lipoproteins on retinal cells and their potential contribution to the pathogenesis of DR.
Expression of TNF-Alpha-Dependent Apoptosis-Related Genes in the Peripheral Blood of Malagasy Subjects with Tuberculosis

The majority of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infections remain asymptomatic with only up to 10% progressing to clinical tuberculosis. However, the constituents of the effective “protective immunity” against tuberculosis responsible for containing most infections remain unknown. Evaluating gene transcriptional profiles in tuberculosis clinical cohorts is one approach to understanding the spectrum of tuberculosis progression. It is clear that apoptosis plays a role in the control of tuberculosis but the utility of apoptosis-related genes as surrogate markers of protection against tuberculosis has not been well investigated. To characterize potential surrogate markers that could discriminate different phases of the clinical tuberculosis spectrum, we investigated gene expression of several TNF-alpha dependent apoptotic genes (TNFR1, TNFR2, FLICE, FLIPs) by real-time RT-PCR of peripheral blood cells from cohorts of individuals with active tuberculosis or potential exposure to tuberculosis. Newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients (n = 23), their close household contacts (n = 80), and community controls (n = 46) were tested at intervals over a period of up to two years. Latent infection or previous Mtb contact was assessed by ELISPOT and TST and complete blood counts were performed during the follow up. Results showed significant upregulation of FLIPs expression by infected individuals regardless of clinical status at entry to the study. A higher percentage of lymphocytes was found in the infected household contacts that remained healthy. In contrast, in individuals with active TB, a significant upregulation of TNFR2 expression, a significantly higher percentage of monocytes and a significantly decreased lymphocyte count were seen, compared to subjects that remained healthy. Moreover, the household contacts who subsequently developed signs of TB also had a significantly high number of monocytes. These data suggest tuberculosis may be associated with decreased T-cell survival (perhaps due to apoptosis) while inhibition of apoptosis in monocytes could lead to a relative increase in these cells: a situation predicted to favour Mtb.
Stereo mosaicking and 3D-video for singleview HDTV aerial sequences using a low bit rate ROI coding framework

Low bit rate coding systems for the transmission of high quality aerial surveillance videos captured from UAVs are of high interest. One way to achieve high quality low bit rate video is to assume a planar surface of the earth, which is valid for sequences captured at high flight altitudes. Those systems only transmit the area of the current frame not contained in the previous frames (New Area) and reconstruct the already known areas by means of Global Motion Compensation (GMC) at decoder side. Although the bit rate can be reduced significantly compared to standardized video coders, no reconstruction of stereo video is possible at the decoder since each image pixel is transmitted only once and thus no motion parallax of objects can be observed in the reconstructed video. In this paper we present a coding system for stereo video reconstruction at very low bit rates. On-board the UAV we employ the camera path estimated from the image data to create a second view of a virtual camera. We derive convenient baseline distances and demonstrate the resulting perceptively good stereo impression for different test sequences. Similar to the coding concept introduced above we transmit a second New Area 2 in addition to the New Area already introduced. By doubling the bit rate to about 2 Mbit/s for a reasonable video quality of more than 38 dB, still saving more than 85% BD-rate compared to common HEVC coding, we are able to reconstruct a full HDTV (30 fps) stereo video at the decoder.
On light logics, uniform encodings and polynomial time

Light affine logic is a variant of linear logic with a polynomial cut-elimination procedure. We study the extensional expressive power of light affine logic with respect to a general notion of encoding of functions in the setting of the Curry–Howard correspondence. We consider light affine logic with both fixpoints of formulae and second-order quantifiers, and analyse the properties of polytime soundness and polytime completeness for various fragments of this system. In particular, we show that the implicative propositional fragment is not polytime complete if we place some reasonable conditions on the encodings. Following previous work, we show that second order leads to polytime unsoundness. We then introduce simple constraints on second-order quantification and fixpoints, and prove that the fragments obtained are polytime sound and complete.
Quantitative Modeling of User Preferences for Plan Recognition

Plan recognition is an important task whenever a system has to take into account an agent’s actions and goals in order to be able to react adequately. Most plan recognizers work by merely maintaining a set of equally plausible plan hypotheses each of which proved compatible with recent observations without taking into account individual preferences of the currently observed agent. Such additional information provides a basis for ranking the hypotheses so that the “best” one can be selected whenever the system is forced to react (e.g., to provide help to the user of a software system to accomplish his goals). Furthermore, hypotheses with low valuations can be excluded from considerations at an early stage. In this paper, an approach to the quantitative modeling of the required agent-related data and their use in plan recognition is presented. It relies on the Dempster-Shafer Theory and provides mechanisms for the initialization and update of corresponding numerical values.
Movement in Cluttered Virtual Environments

Imagine walking around a cluttered room but then having little idea of where you have traveled. This frequently happens when people move around small virtual environments (VEs), searching for targets. In three experiments, participants searched small-scale VEs using different movement interfaces, collision response algorithms, and fields of view. Participants' searches were most efficient in terms of distance traveled, time taken, and path followed when the simplest form of movement (view direction) was used in conjunction with a response algorithm that guided (slipped) them around obstacles when collisions occurred. Unexpectedly, and in both immersive and desktop VEs, participants often had great difficulty finding the targets, despite the fact that participants could see the whole VE if they stood in one place and turned around. Thus, the trivial real-world task used in the present study highlights a basic problem with current VE systems.
Control Rights In Complex Partnerships

This paper develops a theory of the allocation of authority between two players who are in a “complex” partnership, that is, a partnership which produces impure public goods. We show that the optimal allocation depends on technological factors, the parties’ valuations of the goods produced, and the degree of impurity of these goods. When the degree of impurity is large, control rights should be given to the main investor, irrespective of preference considerations. There are some situations in which this allocation is optimal even if the degree of impurity is very low as long as one party’s investment is more important than the other party’s. If the parties’ investments are of similar importance and the degree of impurity is large, shared authority is optimal with a greater share going to the low-valuation party. If the importance of the parties’ investments is similar but the degree of impurity is neither large nor small, the low-valuation party should receive sole authority. We analyze an extension in which side payments are infeasible. We check for robustness of our results in several dimensions, such as allowing for multiple parties or for joint authority, apply our results to interpret a number of complex partnerships, including those involving schools and child custody. JEL Codes: D02 ; D23 ; H41 ; L31
Effect of Aerosol Age on the Infectivity of Airborne Pasteurella tularensis for Macaca mulatta and Man

Sawyer, William D. (U.S. Army Medical Unit, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md.), Joseph V. Jemski, Arthur L. Hogge, Jr., Henry T. Eigelsbach, Elwood K. Wolfe, Harry G. Dangerfield, William S. Gochenour, Jr., and Dan Crozier. Effect of aerosol age on the infectivity of airborne Pasteurella tularensis for Macaca mulatta and man. J. Bacteriol. 91:2180–2184. 1966. —In aging aerosols of Pasteurella tularensis SCHU-S4, the respiratory infectivity for man and Macaca mulatta decreased more rapidly than the viability of the organisms. Infectivity was diminished after 120 min, and was reduced 10-fold after 180 min. These findings confirmed previous observations made in mice and guinea pigs, and also revealed that smaller losses of infectivity were detectable in the primate hosts.
Dynamics and stability of the sampling distribution of particle swarm optimisers via moment analysis

For stochastic optimisation algorithms, knowing the probability distribution with which an algorithm allocates new samples in the search space is very important, since this explains how the algorithm really works and is a prerequisite to being able to match algorithms to problems. This is the only way to beat the limitations highlighted by the no-free lunch theory. Yet, the sampling distribution for velocity-based particle swarm optimisers has remained a mystery for the whole of the first decade of PSO research. In this paper, a method is presented that allows one to exactly determine all the characteristics of a PSO's sampling distribution and explain how it changes over time during stagnation (i.e., while particles are in search for a better personal best) for a large class of PSO's.
Better effectiveness of maize fertilization with nitrogen through additional application of magnesium and sulphur

Summary. Studies were carried out in order to investigate t he effect of maize fertilization with magnesium sulphate and elementary sulphur. No effect of fertilizer combinations was found on the quantitative status of plants after germination and before harvest, on grain moisture and on the assimilation surface area of a single plant and on the leaf area index (LAI). In result of maize fertilization with NPK and Mg plus S, a significant increase of maize yield was found in comparison with the object fertilized with NPK only. The f ertilization of maize with magnesium and sulphur increased the mass pf 1000 seeds and the nu mber of grains in one cob. Better nutrition of maize caused a significant increase of maize infest ation by frit fly and European corn borer.
The Place of RNA in the Origin and Early Evolution of the Genetic Machinery

The extant genetic machinery revolves around three interrelated polymers: RNA, DNA and proteins. Two evolutionary views approach this vital connection from opposite perspectives. The RNA World theory posits that life began in a cold prebiotic broth of monomers with the de novo emergence of replicating RNA as functionally self-contained polymer and that subsequent evolution is characterized by RNA → DNA memory takeover and ribozyme → enzyme catalyst takeover. The FeS World theory posits that life began as an autotrophic metabolism in hot volcanic-hydrothermal fluids and evolved with organic products turning into ligands for transition metal catalysts thereby eliciting feedback and feed-forward effects. In this latter context it is posited that the three polymers of the genetic machinery essentially coevolved from monomers through oligomers to polymers, operating functionally first as ligands for ligand-accelerated transition metal catalysis with later addition of base stacking and base pairing, whereby the functional dichotomy between hereditary DNA with stability on geologic time scales and transient, catalytic RNA with stability on metabolic time scales existed since the dawn of the genetic machinery. Both approaches are assessed comparatively for chemical soundness.
A TRPV2–PKA Signaling Module for Transduction of Physical Stimuli in Mast Cells

Cutaneous mast cell responses to physical (thermal, mechanical, or osmotic) stimuli underlie the pathology of physical urticarias. In vitro experiments suggest that mast cells respond directly to these stimuli, implying that a signaling mechanism couples functional responses to physical inputs in mast cells. We asked whether transient receptor potential (vanilloid) (TRPV) cation channels were present and functionally coupled to signaling pathways in mast cells, since expression of this channel subfamily confers sensitivity to thermal, osmotic, and pressure inputs. Transcripts for a range of TRPVs were detected in mast cells, and we report the expression, surface localization, and oligomerization of TRPV2 protein subunits in these cells. We describe the functional coupling of TRPV2 protein to calcium fluxes and proinflammatory degranulation events in mast cells. In addition, we describe a novel protein kinase A (PKA)–dependent signaling module, containing PKA and a putative A kinase adapter protein, Acyl CoA binding domain protein (ACBD)3, that interacts with TRPV2 in mast cells. We propose that regulated phosphorylation by PKA may be a common pathway for TRPV modulation.
Design of Polynomial Control Laws for Polynomial Systems Subject to Actuator Saturation

This paper presents results for the design of polynomial control laws for polynomial systems in global and regional contexts. The proposed stabilization conditions are based on inequalities which are affine in both the Lyapunov function coefficients and the controller gains. Input saturations are incorporated to the stability analysis and the design of polynomial controllers using a generalization of a sector condition. The polynomial constraints of the stability/stabilization conditions are relaxed to be sum-of-squares and formulated as semi-definite programs.
The CLEF 2011 Photo Annotation and Concept-based Retrieval Tasks

The ImageCLEF 2011 Photo Annotation and Concept-based Retrieval Tasks pose the challenge of an automated annotation of Flickr images with 99 visual concepts and the retrieval of images based on query topics. The participants were provided with a training set of 8,000 images including annotations, EXIF data, and Flickr user tags. The an- notation challenge was performed on 10,000 images, while the retrieval challenge considered 200,000 images. Both tasks dierentiate among ap- proaches that consider solely visual information, approaches that rely only on textual information in form of image metadata and user tags, and multi-modal approaches that combine both information sources. The relevance assessments were acquired with a crowdsourcing approach and the evaluation followed two evaluation paradigms: per concept and per example. In total, 18 research teams participated in the annotation chal- lenge with 79 submissions. The concept-based retrieval task was tackled by 4 teams that submitted a total of 31 runs. Summarizing the results, the annotation task could be solved with a MiAP of 0.443 in the multi- modal conguration, with a MiAP of 0.388 in the visual conguration, and with a MiAP of 0.346 in the textual conguration. The concept- based retrieval task was solved best with a MAP of 0.164 using multi- modal information and a manual intervention in the query formulation. The best completely automated approach achieved 0.085 MAP and uses solely textual information. Results indicate that while the annotation task shows promising results, the concept-based retrieval task is much harder to solve, especially for specic information needs.
Immunolocalization of muscarinic and VIP receptor subtypes and their role in stimulating goblet cell secretion.

PURPOSE To determine the subtypes of cholinergic muscarinic receptors and receptors for vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) present in rat conjunctival goblet cells and whether cholinergic agonists and VIP stimulate goblet cell secretion. METHODS Immunofluorescence studies were performed using antibodies against the m1, m2, and m3 muscarinic receptor subtypes and VIP receptors 1 and 2 (VIPR1 and VIPR2). The lectin Ulex europeus agglutinin I was used to measure glycoconjugate secretion, the index of secretion, from goblet cells in an enzyme-linked lectin assay. In this assay, pieces of conjunctiva were placed on filter paper and incubated for 15 to 120 minutes, with or without increasing concentrations of the cholinergic agonist carbachol or VIP. The muscarinic antagonist atropine and the muscarinic receptor-subtype-selective antagonists pirenzepine (M1), gallamine (M2), and 4-4-diphenylacetoxy-N-(2-chloroethyl)-piperidine hydrochloride (4-DAMP mustard; M3) were incubated with carbachol to determine specificity of receptor activation. RESULTS Immunoreactivity to M2 and M3 receptors was found on goblet cell membranes subjacent to the secretory granules. Immunoreactivity to M1 receptor was not on goblet cells but was on the stratitfied squamous cells. Immunoreactivity to VIPR2 was found on goblet cells with a localization similar to that of the M2 and M3 receptors. VIPR1 was not found on goblet cells or on the stratified squamous cells. Carbachol and VIP induced a time- and concentration-dependent stimulation of glycoconjugate secretion. Carbachol, at 10(-4) M, induced a threefold increase in glycoconjugate secretion, which was completely inhibited by atropine (10(-5) M). Carbachol-induced secretion was inhibited 54% +/- 8% by pirenzepine (10(-5) M), 69% +/- 14% by gallamine (10(-5) M), and 72% +/- 11% by 4-DAMP mustard (10(-5) M). A twofold increase in glycoconjugate secretion was obtained with VIP at 10(-8) M. CONCLUSIONS Cholinergic agonists, through M2 and/or M3 muscarinic receptors, and VIP, through VIPR2, regulate conjunctival goblet cell secretion, suggesting that goblet cell secretion in vivo is under the control of parasympathetic nerves.
Does Postthyroidectomy Syndrome Really Exist Following Thyroidectomy? Prospective Comparative Analysis of Open vs. Endoscopic Thyroidectomy

Objectives This study prospectively evaluated postthyroidectomy syndrome (PTS) through objective and subjective voice changes following thyroidectomy of open vs. endoscopic thyroidectomy. Methods A prospective clinical trial (SCHBC IRB 09 26) was performed from Jan 2008 to Aug 2010 to compare the open thyroidectomy (OPEN group) and endoscopic thyroidectomy (ENDO group). Of the 110 patients, 75 completed the evaluation before and 1 and 6 months after surgery. Subjective parameters included perceptual analysis (GRBAS [grade, roughness, breathiness, asthenia, and strain] scale), stroboscopic or flexible fiberscopic analysis, voice handicap index, and 5-point visual analog scales for vocal fatigue, singing difficulty, difficulty with high-pitch phonation, and neck discomfort. Objective parameters included acoustic, aerodynamic analysis and the electroglottograph. Results For the ENDO group (n=36), the operation time was longer than in the OPEN group (n=39; P<0.01). For the OPEN group, two objective and five subjective parameters were worse 1 month postoperatively; of these, two subjective parameters persisted for 6 months (P<0.05). For the ENDO group, three objective and six subjective parameters were worse 1 month postoperatively, and three of the subjective parameters persisted 6 months postoperatively (P<0.05). Conclusion PTS really exists following simple thyroidectomy and are very common for both OPEN and ENDO groups. Most of the parameters improved gradually over time, but some subjective changes persisted 6 months postoperatively.
A New S-Box Structure Based on Graph Isomorphism

In the original algebraic expression of AES SBox, S-Box is a combination of a power function and an affine surjection. This S-Box provides optimum cryptographic properties. However, the original AES S-Box till has undesired property of simple description in the Galois field GF(2^8). It algebraic expression is spare with only nine non-zero terms which leads to concern of algebraic and interpolation attacks. In this paper, we use graph isomorphism to increase the complexity of algebraic and size of S-Box. The S-Box that is generated by proposed way inherits all good cryptographic characteristics of the original AES S-Box.