Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Common Genetic Variations in the NALP3 Inflammasome Are Associated with Delayed Apoptosis of Human Neutrophils

Background Neutrophils are key-players in the innate host defense and their programmed cell death and removal are essential for efficient resolution of inflammation. These cells recognize a variety of pathogens, and the NOD-like receptors (NLRs) have been suggested as intracellular sensors of microbial components and cell injury/stress. Some NLR will upon activation form multi-protein complexes termed inflammasomes that result in IL-1β production. NLR mutations are associated with auto-inflammatory syndromes, and our previous data propose NLRP3 (Q705K)/CARD-8 (C10X) polymorphisms to contribute to increased risk and severity of inflammatory disease by acting as genetic susceptibility factors. These gene products are components of the NALP3 inflammasome, and approximately 6.5% of the Swedish population are heterozygote carriers of these combined gene variants. Since patients carrying the Q705K/C10X polymorphisms display leukocytosis, the aim of the present study was to find out whether the inflammatory phenotype was related to dysfunctional apoptosis and impaired clearance of neutrophils by macrophages. Methods and Findings Patients carrying the Q705K/C10X polymorphisms displayed significantly delayed spontaneous as well as microbe-induced apoptosis compared to matched controls. Western blotting revealed increased levels and phosphorylation of Akt and Mcl-1 in the patients' neutrophils. In contrast to macrophages from healthy controls, macrophages from the patients produced lower amounts of TNF; suggesting impaired macrophage clearance response. Conclusions The Q705K/C10X polymorphisms are associated with delayed apoptosis of neutrophils. These findings are explained by altered involvement of different regulators of apoptosis, resulting in an anti-apoptotic profile. Moreover, the macrophage response to ingestion of microbe-induced apoptotic neutrophils is altered in the patients. Taken together, the patients display impaired turnover and clearance of apoptotic neutrophils, pointing towards a dysregulated innate immune response that influences the resolution of inflammation. The future challenge is to understand how microbes affect the activation of inflammasomes, and why this interaction will develop into severe inflammatory disease in certain individuals.
Alogliptin: safety, efficacy, and clinical implications.

PURPOSE Alogliptin is the newest dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitor approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes either alone or in combination with other antidiabetic agents. The purpose of this review is to highlight the clinical studies that led to Food and Drug Administration approval of alogliptin and to provide insight into the place in therapy for the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus. SUMMARY As a DPP-4 inhibitor, alogliptin raises postprandial levels of glucagon-like peptide 1, leading to insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis. When given as monotherapy, alogliptin has the ability to reduce glycoslate hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) by 0.4% to 1.0%. Combination therapy yielded similar reductions with some variability depending on the agent with which alogliptin was combined. The mean HbA1c reduction seen with alogliptin is relative to the degree of HbA1c elevation at baseline. Alogliptin appears to be weight neutral and is relatively well tolerated with few adverse effects. Furthermore, alogliptin has proven to result in comparable efficacy and tolerability in the elderly as in the younger population. CONCLUSION Alogliptin alone or in combination with other antidiabetic agents has shown a significant reduction in HbA1c while remaining safe and tolerable. The efficacy profile of alogliptin is comparable to other DPP-4 inhibitors. Additional long-term research is necessary with regard to long-standing efficacy and effects on beta-cell function.
Impact of Written Emotional Disclosure and Gender on Capsaicin-Induced Inflammation, Allodynia, and Spontaneous Pain

Impact of Written Emotional Disclosure and Gender on Capsaicin-Induced Inflammation, Allodynia, and Spontaneous Pain. (December 2008) Jerrell Smith B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Mary W. Meagher Prior research has shown that affective valence and arousal interact to alter pain perception. One personally relevant method of inducing affective states is the written emotional disclosure procedure. The current study examined the immediate effects of written emotional disclosure on secondary hyperalgesia, flare, and spontaneous pain in healthy undergraduate men and women. Fifty-five men and women undergraduates participated in an IRB approved experiment in which they wrote about a traumatic or neutral event fro twenty minutes. After writing, the participants underwent pain perception testing for area of secondary hyperalgesia, flare, and spontaneous pain. Results indicated that women writing about a traumatic experience rated their spontaneous pain as more intense than those writing about a neutral topic, whereas males did not. In addition, men showed greater physiological arousal and area of flare than women. These findings suggest that men and women experience different affective and pain modulatory reactions to written emotional disclosure, though the underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated.
Bilateral Relations Between Countries and the Complexity of Newspaper Editorials

This study investigated how positive and negative relations between pairs of countries affected the integrative complexity of editorials in major newspapers of each country. Integrative complexity is characterized by rigid, unidimensional, black-or-white thinking at the low end of the scale and a flexible, responsive, interactive approach at the high. Bilateral relations among Canada, the U.S.A. , the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China were tracked from 1947 to 1982. In each year, events affecting the relations between each pair positively or negatively were rated by independent judges. Editorials about the other nation in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the New York Times, and Pravda were more complex when relations were good. Overall, Canadian and American editorials were higher in complexity than Soviet ones. Bilateral relations were most consistently positive for Canada and least so for the U.S.S.R. Although only Pravda is an official government publication, all three newspapers showed similar patterns of association between editorial complexity and positive or negative events in international relations.
The CCSDS Space Data Link Security protocol

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) initiated work several years ago to develop a knowledge-base and relevant standards for the protection of the Telecommand and Telemetry communications and data systems of space missions of their Member Space Agencies. A particularly recent CCSDS security effort concerns the development and specification of a Space Data Link Security (SDLS) protocol that can provide security services to the existing CCSDS family of Space Data Link (SDL) protocols: Telecommand (TC), Telemetry (TM) and Advanced Orbiting Systems (AOS). Those CCSDS SDL protocols are used extensively for Telecommand as well as for both Housekeeping and Payload Telemetry space links by the entire civil space community. While ad-hoc security implementations have been developed by several CCSDS Member Agencies, there is a recognition that a commonly engineered security protocol with minimal logical and physical integration impact on CCSDS space data link protocols and compatible with Space Link Extension (SLE) protocols would be very beneficial not only for CCSDS Member Agencies but also for commercial space missions, space data handling equipment suppliers and possibly other future applications such as civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) data links. This paper will describe the protocol requirements, the provided security services, issues concerning its implementation and integration/interface with TM, TC and AOS data link protocols as well as its current development status.
Positive psychology interventions: A comparison of the effects of three good things, best possible selves and a control task of early memories on dispositional gratefulness, life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect.

Positive psychology interventions are intentional activities designed to promote positive feelings (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). Different types of interventions have different focuses such as gratitude (Three Good Things) and optimism (Best Possible Selves). However, there are inconsistent findings for which type of intervention is the most effective (Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson, 2005; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006b). It is suggested that individual factors may explain this inconsistency, with dispositional gratefulness (predisposition to experience gratitude) being put forward (Chan, 2010). The present study investigated whether type of intervention affected life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and dispositional gratefulness comparing Three Good Things, Best Possible Selves and a control task of Early Memories. A 3 x 2 mixed design was used with participants randomly allocated to one of the tasks. Forty five participants completed post-intervention measures five days later. Life satisfaction had significantly increased post-intervention in the Best Possible Selves and Early Memories conditions. This study provides further support for the trait of dispositional gratefulness. Future research could investigate whether dispositional gratefulness is a moderator for the effectiveness of gratitude interventions. It is argued that future studies should be adequately powered and a greater clarification is needed regarding definitions for happiness.
Facial expression and selective attention

Recent findings demonstrate that faces with an emotional expression tend to attract attention more than neutral faces, especially when having some threat-related value (anger or fear). These findings suggest that discrimination of emotional cues in faces can at least partly be extracted at preattentive or unconscious stages of processing, and then serve to enhance awareness and behavioural responses toward emotionally relevant stimuli. Functional neuroimaging results have begun to delineate brain regions whose response to threat-related expressions is independent of voluntary attention (e.g. amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex), and other regions whose response occurs only with attention (e.g. superior temporal and anterior cingulate cortex). Moreover, visual responses in the fusiform cortex are enhanced for emotional faces, consistent with their greater perceptual saliency. Recent data from event-related evoked potentials and neurophysiology also suggest that rapid processing of emotional information may not only occur in parallel to, but promote a more detailed perceptual analysis of, sensory inputs and thus bias competition for attention toward the representation of emotionally salient stimuli.
Functioning of TCP Algorithms over a Wireless Link

Abstract : In this paper, the authors investigate the behavior of the various algorithms of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the internet data transport protocol, over wireless links with correlated packet losses. For such a scenario, they show that the performance of NewReno is worse than the performance of Tahoe in many situations, and even OldTahoe in a few situations, on account of the inefficient fast recovery method of NewReno. They also show that random loss leads to significant throughput deterioration when either the product of the square of the bandwidth-delay ratio and the loss probability when in the good state exceeds 1, or the product of the bandwidth-delay ratio and the packet success probability when in the bad state is less than two. The performance of Sack is always seen to be the best and the most robust, thereby arguing for the implementation of TCP Sack over the wireless channel. They also show that, under certain conditions, the performance depends not only on the bandwidth-delay product, but also on the nature of timeout, whether coarse or fine. They also have investigated the effects of reducing the fast retransmit threshold.
Deep Kernels for Optimizing Locomotion Controllers

Sample efficiency is important when optimizing parameters of locomotion controllers, since hardware experiments are time consuming and expensive. Bayesian Optimization, a sample-efficient optimization framework, has recently been widely applied to address this problem, but further improvements in sample efficiency are needed for practical applicability to real-world robots and high-dimensional controllers. To address this, prior work has proposed using domain expertise for constructing custom distance metrics for locomotion. In this work we show how to learn such a distance metric automatically. We use a neural network to learn an informed distance metric from data obtained in high-fidelity simulations. We conduct experiments on two different controllers and robot architectures. First, we demonstrate improvement in sample efficiency when optimizing a 5-dimensional controller on the ATRIAS robot hardware. We then conduct simulation experiments to optimize a 16-dimensional controller for a 7-link robot model and obtain significant improvements even when optimizing in perturbed environments. This demonstrates that our approach is able to enhance sample efficiency for two different controllers, hence is a fitting candidate for further experiments on hardware in the future.
A Note on a Piecewise-Linear Duffing-Type System

In [Tonnelier, 2005] it was suggested that the number of limit cycles in a piecewise-linear system could be closely related to the number of zones, that is, the number of parts of the phase plane where the system is linear. In this note, we construct an example of a class of perturbed piecewise systems with n zones such that the first variation of the displacement function is identically zero. Then we conjecture that the system has no limit cycles using the second variation of the displacement function expressed for continuous functions. This system can be seen as a feedback system in control theory.
A randomized comparative prospective study of platelet-rich plasma, platelet-rich fibrin, and hydroxyapatite as a graft material for mandibular third molar extraction socket healing

Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), platelet-rich fibrin (PRF), and hydroxyapatite (HA) for reduction of pain and swelling, absence of dry socket, soft tissue healing, and bone regeneration after mandibular third molar extraction in human patients. Materials and Methods: Forty patients requiring extraction of mandibular third molars were randomly grouped as control, PRP, PRF, and HA-treated. The patients were assessed for postoperative pain, swelling, dry socket, and soft tissue healing on the 3rd, 7th, and 14th day of postoperative periods depending on the standard methods. Radiological assessment of the extraction site was done at 1, 2, and 6 months interval to compare the change in bone density in the sockets in control and treated patients. Results: Pain and swelling were less on PRP and PRF site when compared to HA and control site. PRP and PRF site showed better soft tissue healing when compared to HA and control site. Radiographic assessment showed comparatively lesser bone density values in PRP, PRF, and control site at 1, 2, and 6 months than HA site. Conclusion: Our study showed that PRP and PRF are better graft materials than HA regarding pain, swelling, dry socket, and soft tissue healing. Bone regeneration is induced promptly by HA as compared to other graft materials. However, a more elaborate study with a larger number of clinical cases is very much essential to be more conclusive regarding the efficacy of the graft materials.
A Phylogeny of the Monocots, as Inferred from rbcL and atpA Sequence Variation, and a Comparison of Methods for Calculating Jackknife and Bootstrap Values

Abstract A phylogenetic analysis of the monocots was conducted on the basis of nucleotide sequence variation in two genes (atpA, encoded in the mitochondrial genome, and rbcL, encoded in the plastid genome). The taxon sample of 218 angiosperm terminals included 177 monocots and 41 dicots. Among the major results of the analysis are the resolution of a clade comprising four magnoliid lineages (Canellales, Piperales, Magnoliales, and Laurales) as sister of the monocots, with the deepest branch within the monocots between a clade consisting of Araceae, Tofieldiaceae, Acorus, and Alismatales, and a clade that includes all other monocots. Nartheciaceae are placed as the sister of Pandanales, and Corsiaceae as the sister of Liliales. The Triuridaceae, represented by three genera, including Lacandonia, are resolved as monophyletic and placed in a range of positions, generally within Pandanales. Dasypogonaceae and Arecaceae diverge sequentially from a clade that includes all other commelinid taxa, and within the latter group Poales s. lat. are sister of a clade in which Zingiberales and Commelinales are sisters. Within Poales s. lat. , Trithuria (Hydatellaceae) and Mayaca appear to be closely related to some or all elements of Xyridaceae. A comparison was conducted of jackknife and bootstrap values, as computed using strict-consensus (SC) and frequency-within-replicates (FWR) approaches. Jackknife values tend to be higher than bootstrap values, and for each of these methods support values obtained with the FWR approach tend to exceed those obtained with the SC approach.
Power-Saving Transmission in MU-Massive-MIMO with Distributed Antennas and Security Guarantee

The physical layer security in a multi-user massive multiple-input multiple-output (MU-Massive-MIMO) system is considered in this paper, where a hidden eavesdropper (Eve) may eavesdrop the information signal of any legitimate user. Two distributed antenna system (DAS) aided power-saving transmit strategies are evaluated: 1) the autonomous full (AF) transmission with explicit artificial noise (AN), and 2) the autonomous DAS (AD) scheme, in which the AN is implicitly generated. Based on the cooperative maximum-ratio transmission and derived closed-form deterministic equivalents of the signal to interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) of users and Eve, we minimize the sum transmit power subject to the security constraints on the SINRs. The optimizations in both schemes are complementary geometric programming. In particular, the AD scheme depends on the signal to AN power ratio, which is controlled either by an unified or autonomous multiplicative parameter. In simulations, we illustrate that the sum power consumed in the AD scheme with autonomous parameter is less than the unified case as well as the AF scheme, hence it improves the power-saving in MU-Massive-MIMO with security guarantee.
Ameloblastic carcinoma: Secondary dedifferentiated carcinoma of the mandible: Report of a rare entity with a brief review

Epithelial odontogenic tumors arise from odontogenic epithelial structures. Malignant epithelial odontogenic tumors are extremely rare. Ameloblastic carcinomas may present denovo, ex ameloblastoma or ex odontogenic cyst. Most ameloblastic carcinomas are presumed to present denovo. To date less than 45 cases of ameloblastoma with metastasis have been reported. It occurs primarily in the mandible in a wide range of age groups; no sex or race predilection has been noted. It may present as a cystic lesion with benign clinical features or as a large tissue mass with ulceration, significant bone resorption, and tooth mobility. The lesion is usually found unexpectedly after an incisional biopsy or the removal of a cyst. Histologic features of ameloblastic carcinoma shows tumor cells that resemble the cells seen in ameloblastoma, but they show cytologic atypia. Moreover, they lack the characteristic arrangement seen in ameloblastoma. The clinical course of ameloblastic carcinoma is typically aggressive, with extensive local destruction. Here we describe a rare case of ameloblastic carcinoma (secondary dedifferentiated carcinoma) of mandible in a 40-year-old female patient. Ameloblastic carcinoma: Secondary dedifferentiated carcinoma of the mandible.
An Eye-Tracking Study of Java Programmers and Application to Source Code Summarization

Source Code Summarization is an emerging technology for automatically generating brief descriptions of code. Current summarization techniques work by selecting a subset of the statements and keywords from the code, and then including information from those statements and keywords in the summary. The quality of the summary depends heavily on the process of selecting the subset: a high-quality selection would contain the same statements and keywords that a programmer would choose. Unfortunately, little evidence exists about the statements and keywords that programmers view as important when they summarize source code. In this paper, we present an eye-tracking study of 10 professional Java programmers in which the programmers read Java methods and wrote English summaries of those methods. We apply the findings to build a novel summarization tool. Then, we evaluate this tool. Finally, we further analyze the programmers' method summaries to explore specific keyword usage and provide evidence to support the development of source code summarization systems.
The Determination of Record‐Keeping Behavior of Nurses Regarding Intravenous Fluid Treatment: The Case of Turkey

Record-keeping is one of the legal and professional responsibilities of nurses. This study aims to determine the record-keeping behavior of nurses regarding intravenous fluid treatment (IVFT). The study was conducted with 150 nurses working in adult clinics of a 936-bed university hospital. The most frequently fulfilled record-keeping behaviors were solution type, total solution amount, and date of treatment. The least frequent fulfilled behaviors were the diagnosis of patients and the time of passage of medication added to the solution. The nurses never recorded type of IV fluid treatment, complications, and discontinuation of therapy. According to findings of the study, the record-keeping behavior of nurses regarding IVFT is not at the desired level.
Fluoxetine Counteracts the Cognitive and Cellular Effects of 5-Fluorouracil in the Rat Hippocampus by a Mechanism of Prevention Rather than Recovery

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is a cytostatic drug associated with chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairments that many cancer patients experience after treatment. Previous work in rodents has shown that 5-FU reduces hippocampal cell proliferation, a possible mechanism for the observed cognitive impairment, and that both effects can be reversed by co-administration of the antidepressant, fluoxetine. In the present study we investigate the optimum time for administration of fluoxetine to reverse or prevent the cognitive and cellular effects of 5-FU. Male Lister-hooded rats received 5 injections of 5-FU (25 mg/kg, i.p.) over 2 weeks. Some rats were co-administered with fluoxetine (10 mg/kg/day, in drinking water) for 3 weeks before and during (preventative) or after (recovery) 5-FU treatment or both time periods (throughout). Spatial memory was tested using the novel location recognition (NLR) test and proliferation and survival of hippocampal cells was quantified using immunohistochemistry. 5-FU-treated rats showed cognitive impairment in the NLR task and a reduction in cell proliferation and survival in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus, compared to saline treated controls. These impairments were still seen for rats administered fluoxetine after 5-FU treatment, but were not present when fluoxetine was administered both before and during 5-FU treatment. The results demonstrate that fluoxetine is able to prevent but not reverse the cognitive and cellular effects of 5-FU. This provides information on the mechanism by which fluoxetine acts to protect against 5-FU and indicates when it would be beneficial to administer the antidepressant to cancer patients.