Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors in angioleiomyoma of the nasal cavity of six patients

Angioleiomyoma of the nasal cavity is extremely rare. There are only a small number of studies in the literature that demonstrate that the estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) are expressed in angioleiomyoma, and the results from these studies are inconsistent. The present study identified 6 patients with nasal angioleiomyoma that were treated between 2004 and 2013. All patients underwent endoscopic surgery and were followed-up for 1–10 years. Resected tumors were investigated for the presence of ER and PR using immunoperoxidase staining. Of the 6 patients, 4 were men and 2 were woman. The mean age of the patients was 60.5 years. The tumors of the 6 patients were identified in the nasal septum, middle turbinate, inferior turbinate, lateral wall of the nasal cavity and nasal vestibule. The clinical manifestations reported by the patients consisted of a painless mass, recurrent epistaxis and nasal obstruction. There were no specific features observed in any of the patients using computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. All the patients underwent tumor dissection visualized with a nasal endoscope and recovered without recurrence or malignancy of the tumor post-surgery. Hematoxylin and eosin and immunoperoxidase staining confirmed the diagnosis of angioleiomyoma in all patients. In 5 patients the nuclei of the smooth muscle tumor cells markedly expressed ER and PR. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to demonstrate that ER and PR are clearly expressed in nasal angioleiomyoma. The present study suggests that the sex hormones are possibly associated with the growth of angioleiomyoma.
Cellular and molecular mechanism of ofloxacin induced apoptotic cell death under ambient UV-A and sunlight exposure

Abstract Ofloxacin (OFLX) is a racemic mixture of levofloxacin which revealed phototoxicity in patients exposed with sunlight after medication. Here, we have been addressed the possible cellular and molecular mechanisms of OFLX induced apoptosis under ambient UV-A and sunlight exposure using HaCaT cell line as a model. The results showed that Photodegradation and three photo-products formation of OFLX by LC-MS/MS under ambient intensities of UV-A (1.5 and 2.2 mW/cm2) and sunlight. OFLX produced 1O2, O2. −, and OH radicals via type-II- and type-I-dependent reaction mechanism, which corroborated by its specific quenchers. 2’-dGua degradation in photochemical and % tail DNA formation in cell line using comet test advocated the genotoxic potential of OFLX. Photocytotoxic assays (MTT and NRU) revealed the considerable decline in cell viability by OFLX. OFLX triggered apoptosis, proved by cell cycle, Annexin V/PI double staining along with acridine orange (AO)/ethidium bromide (EB), and Hoechst staining as well as caspase-3 activity by colorimetric assay. OFLX induced lysosomal disruption and mitochondrial membrane destabilization confirmed through fluorescence staining with AO/JC-1. OFLX significantly upregulated the expression of p21 and bax genes. In conclusion, the study revealed that photosensitized OFLX induced apoptosis via ROS-mediated DNA damage, destabilization of lysosomal and mitochondrial membrane, and upregulation of p21, bax, and caspase-3 genes.
A very strong zero-one law for connectivity in one-dimensional geometric random graphs

We consider the geometric random graph where n points are distributed uniformly and independently on the unit interval [0, 1]. Using the method of first and second moments, we provide a simple proof of a very strong "zero-one" law for the property of graph connectivity under the asymptotic regime created by having n become large and the transmission range scaled appropriately with u
Characterization of a Highly Replicative Intergroup M/O Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Recombinant Isolated from a Cameroonian Patient

ABSTRACT A Cameroonian patient with antibodies reacting simultaneously to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) group O- and group M-specific V3-loop peptides was identified. In order to confirm that this patient was coinfected with both viruses, PCRs with O- and M-specific discriminating primers corresponding to different regions of the genome were carried out with both primary lymphocyte DNA and the corresponding viral strains isolated from three consecutive patient samples. The PCR data suggested that this patient is coinfected with a group M virus and a recombinant M/O virus. Indeed, only type Mgag sequences could be amplified, while for theenv region, both type M and O sequences were amplified, from plasma or from DNA extracted from primary lymphocytes. Sequence analysis of a complete recombinant genome isolated from the second sample (97CA-MP645 virus isolate) revealed two intergroup breakpoints, one in the vpr gene and the second in the long terminal repeat region around the TATA box. Comparison of the type M sequences shared by the group M and the recombinant M/O viruses showed that these sequences were closely related, with only 3% genetic distance, suggesting that the M virus was one of the parental viruses. In this report we describe for the first time a recombination event in vivo between viruses belonging to two different groups, leading to a replicative virus. Recombination between strains with such distant lineages (65% overall homology) may contribute substantially to the emergence of new HIV-1 variants. We documented that this virus replicates well and became predominant in vitro. At this time, group O viruses represent a minority of the strains responsible for the HIV-1 pandemic. If such recombinant intergroup viruses gained better fitness, inducing changes in their biological properties compared to the parental group O virus, the prevalences of group O sequences could increase rapidly. This will have important implications for diagnosis of HIV-1 infections by serological and molecular tests, as well as for antiviral treatment.
Replication in Psychological Science

psychological science, the field, continue to struggle with the challenge of establishing interesting and important and replicable phenomena. As I often tell my students, “If scientific psychology was easy, everyone would do it. ” We can take some comfort in knowing that other sciences, too, face similar challenges (e.g., Begley & Ellis, 2012). But our business is with psychology. In August of this year, Science published a fascinating article by Brian Nosek and 269 coauthors (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). They reported direct replication attempts of 100 experiments published in prestigious psychology journals in 2008, including experiments reported in 39 articles in Psychological Science. Although I expect there is room to critique some of the replications, the article strikes me as a terrific piece of work, and I recommend reading it (and giving it to students). For each experiment, researchers prespecified a benchmark finding. On average, the replications had statistical power of . 90+ to detect effects of the sizes obtained in the original studies, but fewer than half of them yielded a statistically significant effect. As Nosek and his coauthors made clear, even ideal replications of ideal studies are expected to fail some of the time (Francis, 2012), and failure to replicate a previously observed effect can arise from differences between the original and replication studies and hence do not necessarily indicate flaws in the original study (Maxwell, Lau, & Howard, 2015; Stroebe & Strack, 2014). Still, it seems likely that psychology journals have too often reported spurious effects arising from Type I errors (e.g., Francis, 2014). Language: en
Src Family Kinase Activity Is Required for Murine Embryonic Stem Cell Growth and Differentiation

Self-renewal and differentiation of embryonic stem (ES) cells are regulated by cytokines and growth factors through tyrosine kinase-dependent signaling pathways. In murine ES cells, signals for self-renewal are generated by the leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). LIF and other growth factors are linked to the activation of the Src family of cytoplasmic protein-tyrosine kinases (SFKs), which consists of eight members having shared structural architecture. In this article, we show that murine ES cells express seven SFKs, three of which (Hck, Src, and Fyn) exhibit constitutive activity in self-renewing ES cells. Differentiation of ES cells to embryoid bodies was associated with rapid transcriptional silencing of Hck and Lck and with the loss of the corresponding kinase proteins. The expression of other family members remained relatively constant, although some loss of Fgr and Lyn proteins was observed during differentiation. Like ES cells, embryoid bodies maintained constitutive Src and Fyn kinase activity. Partial inhibition of endogenous SFK activity with the ATP-competitive inhibitors 4-amino-5-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-(t-butyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine or Src kinase inhibitor-1 induced differentiation of ES cells in the presence of LIF. In contrast, suppression of all SFK activity with higher concentrations of these inhibitors, or with the more potent compound A-419259 (Bioorg Med Chem Lett 12:1683-1686, 2002) blocked differentiation in response to LIF withdrawal. It is surprising that these inhibitor-treated cells remained pluripotent despite the absence of LIF. Our results implicate individual members of the Src kinase family in distinct ES cell renewal and differentiation pathways and show that small-molecule SFK inhibitors can control ES cell fate.
Comparison of Serum Zinc Level Between Neonates With Jaundice and Healthy Neonates

Background: Neonatal jaundice is the most common cause of hospitalization in the first month of life. Factors that reportedly affect the severity of neonatal jaundice include: maternal, prenatal and neonatal factors as well as environmental factors (such as zinc). Animal study demonstrated a decrease in serum bilirubin level after zinc treatment in hyperbilirubinemic rats. Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate serum zinc level in the neonates with idiopatic jaundice. Patients and Methods: A case-control study was undertaken from 2008 to 2010 on 263 neonates in a neonatal intensive care unit and obstetrics department in Ghaem hospital, Mashhad, Iran. Of the 263 infants, 114 and 149 neonates were in the control and the case groups, respectively. Infants with a gestational age of > 35 weeks or with idiopathic jaundice were included in the study. Exclusion criteria were as follows: neonates with sepsis or any congenital abnormalities or with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6PD) deficiency, ABO and RH incompatibility. Serum levels of zinc and bilirubin were compared between the control (114 neonates without jaundice) and case (149 neonates with jaundice) groups using atomic absorption spectrometry. The maternal and neonatal information were recorded. Spearman correlation coefficient, chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were employed to analyze the data by SPSS software. Results: The mean value of the zinc serum level was 1024.74 ± 245.17 μmol/L in the control group and 841.42 ± 211.99 μmol/L in the case group (P 0.05). Also, no significant correlation was observed between serum levels of Na, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (Cr), white blood cell (WBC), platelet, hematocrit (Hct) and zinc (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The level of serum zinc in the neonates with hyperbilirubinemia jaundice was lower than that of the ones without jaundice. It seems that zinc has a protective effect. However, more studies are needed for better decision making.
Differentially Private Stochastic Gradient Descent for in-RDBMS Analytics

In-RDBMS data analysis has received considerable attention in the past decade and has been widely used in sensitive domains to extract patterns in data using machine learning. For these domains, there has also been growing concern about privacy, and differential privacy has emerged as the gold standard for private data analysis. However, while differentially private machine learning and in-RDBMS data analytics have been studied separately, little previous work has explored private learning in an in-RDBMS system. This work considers a specific algorithm --- stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for differentially private machine learning --- and explores how to integrate it into an RDBMS system. We find that previous solutions on differentially private SGD have characteristics that render them unattractive for an RDBMS implementation. To address this, we propose an algorithm that runs SGD for a constant number of passes and then adds noise to the resulting output. We provide a novel analysis of the privacy properties of this algorithm. We then integrate it, along with two existing versions of differentially private SGD, in the Postgres RDBMS. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach can be easily integrated into an RDBMS, incurs virtually no overhead, and yields substantially better test accuracy than the other private SGD algorithm implementations.
DESIGN FOR BEHAVIOUR CHANGE: A MODEL-DRIVEN APPROACH FOR TAILORING PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGIES

People generally want to engage in a healthy lifestyle, to live in harmony with the environment, to contribute to social causes, and to avoid behaviours that are harmful for themselves and others. However, people often find it difficult to motivate themselves to engage in these beneficial behaviours. Even adopting a healthy lifestyle, such as healthy eating, physical activity, or smoking cessation, is hard despite being aware of the benefits. The increasing adoption and integration of technologies into our daily lives present unique opportunities to assist individuals to adopt healthy behaviours using technology. As a result, research on how to use technology to motivate health behaviour change has attracted the attention of both researchers and health practitioners. Technology designed for the purpose of bringing about desirable behaviour and attitude changes is referred to as Persuasive Technology (PT). Over the past decade, several PTs have been developed to motivate healthy behaviour, including helping people with addictive behaviour such as substance abuse, assisting individuals to achieve personal wellness, helping people manage diseases, and engaging people in preventive behaviours. Most of these PTs take a one-size-fits-all design approach. However, people differ in their motivation and beliefs about health and what constitutes a healthy life. A technology that motivates one type of person to change her behaviour may actually deter behaviour change for another type of person. As a result, existing PTs that are based on the one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective for promoting healthy behaviour change for most people. Because of the motivational pull that games offer, many PTs deliver their intervention in the form of games. This type of game-based PTs are referred to as persuasive games. Considering the increasing interest in delivering PT as a game, this dissertation uses persuasive games as a case study to illustrate the danger of applying the one-size-fits-all approach, the value and importance of tailoring PT, and to propose an approach for tailoring PTs to increase their efficacy. To address the problem that most existing PTs employ the one-size-fits-all design approach, I developed the Model-driven Persuasive Technology (MPT) design approach for tailoring PTs to various user types. The MPT is based on studying and modelling user’s behaviour with respect to their motivations. I developed the MPT approach in two preliminary studies (N = 221, N = 554) that model the determinants of healthy eating for people from different cultures, of different ages, and of both genders. I then applied the MPT approach in two large-scale studies to develop models for tailoring persuasive games to various gamer types. In the first study (N = 642), I examine eating behaviours and associated determinants, using the Health Belief Model. Using data from the study, I modelled the determinants of healthy eating behaviour for various gamer types. In the second study (N = 1108), I examined the persuasiveness of PT design…
Comparison of Fourth Grade Students' Out-of-School Physical Activity Levels and Choices by Gender: Project SPARK

Abstract This study examined fourth grade boys' (n = 669) and girls' (n = 595) out-of-school physical activity levels and choices. The sample included 98 percent of eligible students in seven California schools. On two one-day recalls, students reported their out-of-school physical activities for the prior weekday and weekend day by checking which of 20 activities they did for at least 15 minutes. On separate forms, students identified their frequency of participation in the same 20 activities as well as classes, camps, sports, household chores, and television and video viewing during the previous summer. Activities were classified as low, medium, or high-intensity and as individual or team/dual. Independent t tests for intensity levels indicated that there were no significant differences on one-day recalls between girls and boys overall activity (MET value) or high-intensity physical activities. In addition, the three activities most frequently participated in did not differ by genders and two of the thr.
Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio Is Associated With the Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients With ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

We assessed the relationship between the severity of coronary artery disease assessed by SYNTAX score (SS) and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (N:L ratio) in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). In total, 840 patients with STEMI in whom primary percutaneous coronary intervention was performed were prospectively included (622 male, 218 female; mean age 58.6 ± 12.4 years). Total and differential leukocyte counts and other biochemical markers were measured at admission. Patients were categorized into tertiles on the basis of SS. The N:L ratio of SShigh group was higher compared with SSlow and SSmid groups (P < .001 for all). Multivariate regression analysis showed that N:L ratio (β = .277, P < .001), ejection fraction (β = −.086, P = .012), age (β = .104, P = .004), and diabetes (β = .152, P < .001) were the independent predictors for SS in patients with STEMI.
Effects of Red and Green Glassworts (Salicornia herbacea L.) on Physicochemical and Textural Properties of Reduced-salt Cooked Sausages

This study was conducted to determine the effects of red and green glasswort on the physicochemical and textural properties of reduced-salt cooked sausages. The control was formulated with 1.5% NaCl; then, three reduced-salt treatments were prepared, with 0.75% NaCl (RS), 0.75% NaCl+1.0% red glasswort (RSR) and 0.75% NaCl+1.0% green glasswort (RSG), respectively. The addition of glasswort within the added amount of 1% had no influence on the pH value of the reduced-salt cooked sausages, regardless of the glasswort type. In terms of color, RSG treatment conveyed a higher hue angle value than the RSR treatment (p<0.05). Increases in the protein solubility (total and myofibrillar proteins) and apparent viscosity of reduced-salt meat batter that were due to the addition of glasswort were observed; however, there were no differences according to the type of glasswort (p>0.05). Furthermore, the addition of glasswort, regardless of its type, resulted in decreased cooking loss, and increased emulsion stability. As a result, reduced-salt cooked sausages formulated with either red or green glasswort demonstrated similar textural properties to those of the control. In conclusion, the type of glasswort within an added amount of 1% had no influence on the physicochemical and textural properties of reduced-salt cooked sausages, except for the color characteristics. In terms of color alteration by the addition of glasswort, the red glasswort, which in comparison with the green glasswort could minimize the color changes of reduced-salt cooked sausages, might be an effective source for manufacturing meat products.
A Simulation Study on the Effect of Glottal Boundary Conditions on Vocal Tract Formants

In the source-filter theory, the complete closure of the glottis is assumed as a glottal boundary condition. However, such assumption of glottal closure in the source-filter theory is not strictly satisfied in actual utterance. Therefore, it is considered that acoustic features of the glottis and the subglottal region may affect vocal tract formants. In this study, we investigated how differences in the glottal boundary conditions affect vocal tract formants by speech synthesis simulation using speech production model. We synthesized five Japanese vowels using the speech production model in consideration of the source-filter interaction. This model consisted of the glottal area polynomial model and the acoustic tube model in the concatenation of the vocal tract, glottis, and the subglottis. From the results, it was found that the first formant frequency was affected more strongly by the boundary conditions, and also found that the open quotient may give the formant stronger effect than the maximum glottal width. In addition, formant frequencies were also affected more strongly by subglottal impedance when the maximum glottal area was wider.
The effect of desensitization to adenosine triphosphate on the peristaltic reflex in guinea‐pig ileum

Contractions of the longitudinal muscle of guinea-pig ileum were inhibited by adenosine triphosphate. This inhibition was prevented by specific desensitization of the tissue to adenosine triphosphate whilst the peristaltic reflex was unaffected. The results suggest that the transmitter substance released from the intramural inhibitory neurones activated during peristalsis is not adenosine triphosphate.
Influence of the Encapsulation Efficiency and Size of Liposome on the Oral Bioavailability of Griseofulvin-Loaded Liposomes

The objective of the present study was to investigate the influence of the encapsulation efficiency and size of liposome on the oral bioavailability of griseofulvin-loaded liposomes. Griseofulvin-loaded liposomes with desired characteristics were prepared from pro-liposome using various techniques. To study the effect of encapsulation efficiency, three preparations of griseofulvin, namely, griseofulvin aqueous suspension and two griseofulvin-loaded liposomes with different amounts of griseofulvin encapsulated [i.e., F1 (32%) and F2(98%)], were administered to rats. On the other hand, to study the effect of liposome size, the rats were given three different griseofulvin-loaded liposomes of various sizes, generated via different mechanical dispersion techniques [i.e., FTS (142 nm), MS (357 nm) and NS (813 nm)], but with essentially similar encapsulation efficiencies (about 93%). Results indicated that the extent of bioavailability of griseofulvin was improved 1.7–2.0 times when given in the form of liposomes (F1) compared to griseofulvin suspension. Besides that, there was an approximately two-fold enhancement of the extent of bioavailability following administration of griseofulvin-loaded liposomes with higher encapsulation efficiency (F2), compared to those of F1. Also, the results showed that the extent of bioavailability of liposomal formulations with smaller sizes were higher by approximately three times compared to liposomal formulation of a larger size. Nevertheless, a further size reduction of griseofulvin-loaded liposome (≤400 nm) did not promote the uptake or bioavailability of griseofulvin. In conclusion, high drug encapsulation efficiency and small liposome size could enhance the oral bioavailability of griseofulvin-loaded liposomes and therefore these two parameters deserve careful consideration during formulation.