Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
STAT3 and HIF1α Signaling Drives Oncogenic Cellular Phenotypes in Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors

Therapeutic options are limited for neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)-associated malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST) and clinical trials using drug agents have so far been unsuccessful. This lack of clinical success is likely attributed to high levels of intratumoral molecular heterogeneity and variations in signal transduction within MPNSTs. To better explore the variance of malignant signaling properties within heterogeneous MPNSTs, four MPNST cell lines (ST8814, S462, S1844.1, and S1507.2) were used. The data demonstrate that small-molecule inhibition of the MET proto-oncogene and mTOR had variable outcome when preventing wound healing, cell migration, and invasion, with the S462 cells being highly resistant to both. Of interest, targeted inhibition of the STAT3 transcription factor suppressed wound healing, cell migration, invasion, and tumor formation in all four MPNST lines, which demonstrates that unlike MET and mTOR, STAT3 functions as a common driver of tumorigenesis in NF1-MPNSTs. Of clinical importance, STAT3 knockdown was sufficient to block the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)1α, HIF2α, and VEGF-A in all four MPNST lines. Finally, the data demonstrate that wound healing, cell migration, invasion, and tumor formation through STAT3 are highly dependent on HIF signaling, where knockdown of HIF1α ablated these oncogenic facets of STAT3. Implications: This research reveals that aberrant STAT3 and HIF1a activity drives tumor progression in MPNSTs, indicating that inhibition of the STAT3/HIF1α/VEGF-A signaling axis is a viable treatment strategy. Mol Cancer Res; 13(7); 1149–60. ©2015 AACR.
The evolution of an ancient technology

We investigate pattern and process in the transmission of traditional weaving cultures in East and Southeast Asia. Our investigation covers a range of scales, from the experiences of individual weavers (‘micro’) to the broad-scale patterns of loom technologies across the region (‘macro’). Using published sources, we build an empirical model of cultural transmission (encompassing individual weavers, the household and the community), focussing on where cultural information resides and how it is replicated and how transmission errors are detected and eliminated. We compare this model with macro-level outcomes in the form of a new dataset of weaving loom technologies across a broad area of East and Southeast Asia. The lineages of technologies that we have uncovered display evidence for branching, hybridization (reticulation), stasis in some lineages, rapid change in others and the coexistence of both simple and complex forms. There are some striking parallels with biological evolution and information theory. There is sufficient detail and resolution in our findings to enable us to begin to critique theoretical models and assumptions that have been produced during the last few decades to describe the evolution of culture.
Subthreshold Level Shifter With Self-Controlled Current Limiter by Detecting Output Error

A new subthreshold level shifter capable of converting an input signal from a deep subthreshold voltage to an above-threshold voltage is presented in this brief. The circuit utilizes a self-controlled current limiter to implement level shifting by detecting output error. Owing to to this technique, measured results from a 65-nm test chip demonstrate that it can realize a robust voltage conversion from 0.1 to 1.2 V with limited static power and energy consumption. At the target voltage of 0.2 V, the level converter could operate reliably at a maximum input frequency of 254 kHz.
Resilience in the transition to adulthood

Abstract The emerging adulthood years, commonly defined as the late teens and twenties, represent a period of significant variability and change for much of the population. Thus, it is important for the field to consider pathways of at-risk youth as they move through this key window of development. We review research on positive outcomes in the transition to adulthood following a history of experienced adversity, including both investigations focused on resilience in diverse specific populations as well as broader longitudinal studies. There is compelling evidence for major protective and promotive factors identified in younger age periods continuing to exert an influence at this stage of development, along with evidence for new factors unique to this developmental time and/or to specific populations. We conclude by noting recommendations for future work in this area, emphasizing Garmezy's call for the testing of competing models.
POLICY SYNTHESIS for Cooperating USAID Offices and Country Missions

BACKGROUND: In 1998, the Malian Ministry of Health adopted a ten-year health and social development plan (PDDSS) and initiated a five-year operational program (PRODESS) aimed at improving the availability and quality of health services in Mali. The health sector reforms have focused on extending health coverage through the establishment of a decentralized network of community health centers (CSCOM), offering a minimum package of essential health services (PMA) to populations living within a 15-kilometer radius of the clinic. PRODESS also set a specific goal to reduce protein-energy malnutrition in children under 5 years of age by 30%.
Participatory design in education materials in a health care context

Written patient education material, for example, discharge-information is commonly used in hospital settings. Despite following guidelines on how to best present text and using patients as consultants, improvements can still be made from a patient’s perspective. Here, we describe the process of developing patient education material using a participatory design methodology, with patients, clinicians, researchers and designers working as co-designers following a structured process map. The method emphasises coping with conflicting interests and using this as a source of development. The philosophies behind action research and person-centred care were combined in a practical setting, enhancing both perspectives and generating actionable knowledge to be further used in patient involvement projects. The results reveal that predominant areas of tensions focused on power, organization, content and clinical usability. This study is one of the first to involve patients as co-designers of education materials in the health care context, and not only as consultants. Working as co-designers was found to be productive and in line with person-centred care philosophy, with focus on partnership and equality. The results of this study can therefore benefit both patients and other relevant stakeholders in the healthcare system in developing written patient education materials.
Combined effects of repeated oral hygiene motivation and type of toothbrush on orthodontic patients: a blind randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects on plaque index (PI) scores of manual or electric toothbrush with or without repeated oral hygiene instructions (OHI) and motivation on patients wearing fixed orthodontic appliances. MATERIALS AND METHODS One month after the orthodontic fixed appliance bonding on both arches, 60 patients were randomly assigned to four groups; groups E1 (n = 15) and E2 (n = 15) received a powered rotating-oscillating toothbrush, and groups M1 (n = 15) and M2 (n = 15) received a manual toothbrush. Groups E1 and M1 received OHI and motivation at baseline (T0) and after 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 weeks (T4, T8, T12, T16, and T20, respectively) by a Registered Dental Hygienist; groups E2 and M2 received OHI and motivation only at baseline. At each time point a blinded examiner scored plaque of all teeth using the modified Quigley-Hein PI. RESULTS In all groups the PI score decreased significantly over time, and there were differences among groups at T8, T12, T16, and T20. At T8, PI scores of group E1 were lower than those of group E2, and at T12, T16, and T20, PI scores of groups M1 and E1 were lower compared to those of groups M2 and E2. A linear mixed model showed that the effect of repeated OHI and motivation during time was statistically significant, independently from the use of manual or electric toothbrush. CONCLUSIONS The present results showed that repeated OHI and motivation are crucial in reducing PI score in orthodontic patients, independent of the type of toothbrush used.
Using the Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma to Strengthen Clinical Knowledge in Evidence-Based Practitioners

The high prevalence of trauma exposure in mental health service-seeking populations, combined with advances in evidence-based practice, competency-based training, common-elements research, and adult learning make this an opportune time to train the mental health workforce in trauma competencies. The Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma (CCCT) utilizes a five-tiered conceptual framework (comprising Empirical Evidence, Core Trauma Concepts, Intervention Objectives, Practice Elements, and Skills), coupled with problem-based learning, to build foundational trauma knowledge and clinical reasoning skills. We present findings from three studies: Study 1 found that social work graduate students’ participation in a CCCT course (N = 1,031) was linked to significant pre–post increases in self-reported confidence in applying core trauma concepts to their clinical work. Study 2 found significant pre–post increases in self-reported conceptual readiness (N = 576) and field readiness (N = 303) among social work graduate students participating in a “Gold Standard Plus” educational model that integrated classroom instruction in core trauma concepts, training in evidence-based trauma treatment (EBTT), and implementation of that EBTT in a supervised field placement. Students ranked the core concepts course as an equivalent or greater contributor to field readiness compared to standard EBTT training. Study 3 used qualitative methods to “distill” common elements (35 intervention objectives, 59 practice elements) from 26 manualized trauma interventions. The CCCT is a promising tool for educating “next-generation” evidence-based practitioners who possess competencies needed to implement modularized, individually tailored trauma interventions by strengthening clinical knowledge, clinical reasoning, and familiarity with common elements.
Concurrent Phosphorus Recovery and Energy Generation in Mediator-Less Dual Chamber Microbial Fuel Cells: Mechanisms and Influencing Factors

This study investigated the mechanism and key factors influencing concurrent phosphorus (P) recovery and energy generation in microbial fuel cells (MFC) during wastewater treatment. Using a mediator-less dual chamber microbial fuel cell operated for 120 days; P was shown to precipitate as struvite when ammonium and magnesium chloride solutions were added to the cathode chamber. Monitoring data for chemical oxygen demand (COD), pH, oxidation reduction potential (ORP) and aeration flow rate showed that a maximum 38% P recovery was achieved; and this corresponds to 1.5 g/L, pH > 8, −550 ± 10 mV and 50 mL/min respectively, for COD, pHcathode, ORP and cathode aeration flow rate. More importantly, COD and aeration flow rate were shown to be the key influencing factors for the P recovery and energy generation. Results further show that the maximum P recovery corresponds to 72 mW/m2 power density. However, the energy generated at maximum P recovery was not the optimum; this shows that whilst P recovery and energy generation can be concurrently achieved in a microbial fuel cell, neither can be at the optimal value.
Atrial Extracellular Matrix Remodeling and the Maintenance of Atrial Fibrillation

Background—Remodeling occurs in both ventricle and atrium in dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure. However, the alteration of atrial extracellular matrix components during remodeling and its effect on the electrical remodeling and atrial arrhythmia have never been explored. Methods and Results—Atrial tissue samples of 53 explanted hearts from patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and end-stage heart failure who underwent heart transplantation were examined. Nineteen patients had permanent atrial fibrillation (PmAF), 18 had persistent AF (PsAF), and 16 had no documented AF (NAF). Sixteen donor left atria (LA) were used as controls (CNs). Western Blot analysis revealed a selective downregulation of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-2 in PmAF and PsAF groups compared with the NAF and CN groups and an upregulation of atrial metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 that was most pronounced in the PmAF group followed by the PsAF and NAF groups. Immunofluorescent staining revealed that in the LA, type I collagen volume fraction (CVF-I) increased significantly in the PmAF group followed by the PsAF and NAF groups compared with that in CN. LA CVF-I significantly correlated with LA dimension and TIMP-2 to MMP-2 ratio. In the PsAF group, CVF-I/CVF-III ratio was significantly correlated with AF duration and the frequency of AF recurrence. Conclusions—Atrial extracellular matrix remodeling manifested by the selective downregulation of TIMP-2 along with upregulation of MMP-2 and CVF-I in the atrium is associated with the development of sustained atrial fibrillation in patients with cardiomyopathy and heart failure.
Audience selection for on-line brand advertising: privacy-friendly social network targeting

This paper describes and evaluates privacy-friendly methods for extracting quasi-social networks from browser behavior on user-generated content sites, for the purpose of finding good audiences for brand advertising (as opposed to click maximizing, for example). Targeting social-network neighbors resonates well with advertisers, and on-line browsing behavior data counterintuitively can allow the identification of good audiences anonymously. Besides being one of the first papers to our knowledge on data mining for on-line brand advertising, this paper makes several important contributions. We introduce a framework for evaluating brand audiences, in analogy to predictive-modeling holdout evaluation. We introduce methods for extracting quasi-social networks from data on visitations to social networking pages, without collecting any information on the identities of the browsers or the content of the social-network pages. We introduce measures of brand proximity in the network, and show that audiences with high brand proximity indeed show substantially higher brand affinity. Finally, we provide evidence that the quasi-social network embeds a true social network, which along with results from social theory offers one explanation for the increase in brand affinity of the selected audiences.
Participant roles and embedded interactions in online sports broadcasts

This paper applies and develops Goffman's notion of embedded interactions and their participant arrangements by identifying several distinct interactional frames found in modern media genres. Using data from online sports commentaries, the article documents how the individual frames of interaction are represented and linguistically reflected in the written text of the commentary and how the existence of such frames affects the participation framework of the entire communicative act. The analysis distinguishes between horizontal interactions, occurring on the level of the interactants within a specific frame, and vertical interactions, which cut across the boundaries of the communicative frames and which may be addressed to fictitious and non-present as well as real recipients.
Moral misfits: The role of moral judgments and emotions in derogating other groups

This dissertation investigates whether moral judgments regarding other groups’ character, behaviour, and attitudes affect prejudice and discriminatory intentions against these groups. Whether these relations are due to changes in moral emotions is also studied throughout this dissertation. The findings indicate that morality-related stereotypes have a strong impact on prejudice, social distance, and discriminatory intentions towards various groups: individuals infected with HIV, Muslims in the Netherlands, bankers, and Romanian migrant workers. These relations are mediated by moral emotions such as contempt and (decreased) pity. The focus on moral emotions also helped to explain the relation between attributions of blame and social rejection of obese individuals. A final line of studies investigated the role of value threats and moral value violations. Findings show that when people belief that other groups threaten or violate important moral values they are also likely to punish or exclude members of those groups. Again, these effects could be explained by the emotions people reported when thinking about those groups. This dissertation thus shows that the inclusion of moral judgments and moral emotions provides a better understanding of the processes that lead to rejection of stigmatized groups.
Calculating Model and Experimental Investigation of Gas Leakage

Fan Zhen Lecture Cryogenic Division In this paper, a new mathematical model to calculate gas leakage in small clearance is established. In the model, viscous force and inertia force are considered at the same time. Theoratical analysis and experimental results show that the calcuating results coincide well ·with the experimental results.
The outcomes of SILS cholecystectomy in comparison with classic four-trocar laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Introduction General approval of laparoscopy as well as persistent urge to minimize operative trauma with still existing difficulties in putting natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) into practice have contributed to the introduction of laparoscopic operations through one incision in the umbilicus named single incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS). Aim The main aim of this study was to assess the benefits to patients of applying SILS cholecystectomy as a method of gallbladder removal based on the comparison with classic four-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Material and methods Between 18.03. 2009 and 09.12. 2009, 100 patients were included in the study and they underwent elective gallbladder removal by applying the laparoscopic technique. All patients were divided into two equal groups: qualified for SILS cholecystectomy (group I) and qualified for classic four-trocar laparoscopic cholecystectomy (group II), whose ASA physical status was I and II. BMI was limited to 35 kg/m2. Outcome measures included operative time, intensity of postoperative pain and consumption of painkillers, hospital stay, need for conversion, complications, and cosmetic effects. Results Mean operating time in group I was 66 min and in group II 47.2 min. Intensity of pain evaluated by using the visual analogue scale (VAS) 6 h after the operation in group I was 3.49 and in group II 4.53, whereas 24 h after the operation in group I it was 1.18 and in group II 1.55. The painkiller requirement in group I was smaller than in group II. Mean hospital stay after the operation in group I was 1.33 days and in group II 1.96 days. There were 4 conversions in group I and one conversion in group II. Among the complications in group I there were noted 2 cases of right pneumothorax, 1 case of choleperitonitis and 4 complications connected with wound healing. There was one injury of the duodenum and one wound infection in group II. Conclusions Single-incision laparoscopic surgery cholecystectomy can be an alternative to classic laparoscopic cholecystectomy, especially with reference to young people with body mass index less than 35 kg/m2, without serious systemic diseases, operated on electively due to benign gallbladder diseases.
Parental perceptions surrounding polio and self-reported non-participation in polio supplementary immunization activities in Karachi, Pakistan: a mixed methods study.

OBJECTIVE To assess parent's knowledge and perceptions surrounding polio and polio vaccination, self-reported participation in polio supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) targeting children aged < 5 years, and reasons for non-participation. METHODS The mixed methods study began with a cross-sectional survey in Karachi, Pakistan. A structured questionnaire was administered to assess parental knowledge of polio and participation in polio SIAs conducted in September and October 2011. Additionally, 30 parents of Pashtun ethnicity (a high-risk group) who refused to vaccinate their children were interviewed in depth to determine why. Descriptive and bivariate analyses by ethnic and socioeconomic group were performed for quantitative data; thematic analysis was conducted for qualitative interviews with Pashtun parents. FINDINGS Of 1017 parents surveyed, 412 (41%) had never heard of polio; 132 (13%) did not participate in one SIA and 157 (15.4%) did not participate in either SIA. Among non-participants, 34 (21.6%) reported not having been contacted by a vaccinator; 116 (73.9%) reported having refused to participate, and 7 (4.5%) reported that the child was absent from home when the vaccinator visited. Refusals clustered in low-income Pashtun (43/441; 9.8%) and high-income families of any ethnic background (71/153; 46.4%). Low-income Pashtuns were more likely to not have participated in polio SIAs than low-income non-Pashtuns (odds ratio, OR: 7.1; 95% confidence interval, CI: 3.47-14.5). Reasons commonly cited among Pashtuns for refusing vaccination included fear of sterility; lack of faith in the polio vaccine; scepticism about the vaccination programme, and fear that the vaccine might contain religiously forbidden ingredients. CONCLUSION In Karachi, interruption of polio transmission requires integrated and participatory community interventions targeting high-risk populations.
Angiotensin‐II type 1 receptor interaction is a major regulator for liver fibrosis development in rats

The renin‐angiotensin system (RAS) is frequently activated in patients with chronic liver diseases. Angiotensin‐II (AT‐II) has been suggested to play an important role in liver fibrogenesis. It induces hepatic stellate cell (HSC) proliferation and up‐regulates the transforming growth factor β1 (TGF‐β1) expression via AT‐II type 1 receptor (AT1‐R) in vitro. The aim of the present study was to examine the in vivo effect of candesartan (CA), a clinically used AT1‐R blocker (ARB), and perindopril (PE), an angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor (ACE‐I), on pig serum‐induced liver fibrosis development in rats. The clinically available comparable doses of CA and PE significantly attenuated the fibrosis development. These inhibitory effects of PE and CA were also found in the on‐going liver fibrosis model. The hepatic hydroxyproline and serum fibrosis markers were significantly suppressed by CA and PE treatment. Furthermore, the α smooth muscle actin (α‐SMA) positive cells in number were markedly suppressed by CA and PE treatment. Similarly, the hepatic TGF‐β1 protein and messenger RNA (mRNA) levels were significantly suppressed. Our in vitro study showed that AT‐II increased the TGF‐β1 mRNA expression in the activated HSCs, and this effect was totally blocked by CA. These results suggested that the RAS, especially AT‐II and AT1‐R interaction plays a pivotal role in liver fibrosis development through HSC activation. Because both CA and PE are widely used in clinical practice without serious side effects, these drugs may provide an effective new strategy for anti–liver fibrosis therapy.