Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Residential Proximity to Major Roadways and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis

Research indicates that higher levels of traffic-related pollution exposure increase the risk of diabetes, but the association between road proximity and diabetes risk remains unclear. To assess and quantify the association between residential proximity to major roadways and type 2 diabetes, a systematic review and meta-analysis was performed. Embase, Medline, and Web of Science were searched for eligible studies. Using a random-effects meta-analysis, the summary relative risks (RRs) were calculated. Bayesian meta-analysis was also performed. Eight studies (6 cohort and 2 cross-sectional) with 158,576 participants were finally included. The summary unadjusted RR for type 2 diabetes associated with residential proximity to major roadways was 1.24 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07–1.44, p = 0.001, I2 = 48.1%). The summary adjusted RR of type 2 diabetes associated with residential proximity to major roadways was 1.12 (95% CI: 1.03–1.22, p = 0.01, I2 = 17.9%). After excluding two cross-sectional studies, the summary results suggested that residential proximity to major roadways could increase type 2 diabetes risk (Adjusted RR = 1.13; 95% CI: 1.02–1.27, p = 0.025, I2 = 36.6%). Bayesian meta-analysis showed that the unadjusted RR and adjusted RR of type 2 diabetes associated with residential proximity to major roadways were 1.22 (95% credibility interval: 1.06–1.55) and 1.13 (95% credibility interval: 1.01–1.31), respectively. The meta-analysis suggested that residential proximity to major roadways could significantly increase risk of type 2 diabetes, and it is an independent risk factor of type 2 diabetes. More well-designed studies are needed to further strengthen the evidence.
Performance of a novel topology control scheme for future wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we address the topology control issues for future wireless mesh networks (WMNs). In particular, we propose a novel topology control scheme that attempts to maximize the overall throughput in the network and that takes into account traffic patterns. The main idea of the scheme is to establish multiple semi-permanent wireless highways, each of which can convey the traffic for nodes along the highway. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, we conduct theoretical analysis, which demonstrates that viable solutions for highways do exist with high probability. The theoretical analysis also proves the optimality. Furthermore, we conduct simulations, and the simulation results verify our theoretical analysis.
Phylogeographical Studies of Ascaris spp. Based on Ribosomal and Mitochondrial DNA Sequences

Background The taxonomic distinctiveness of Ascaris lumbricoides and A. suum, two of the world's most significant nematodes, still represents a much-debated scientific issue. Previous studies have described two different scenarios in transmission patterns, explained by two hypotheses: (1) separated host-specific transmission cycles in highly endemic regions, (2) a single pool of infection shared by humans and pigs in non-endemic regions. Recently, A. suum has been suggested as an important cause of human ascariasis in endemic areas such as China, where cross-infections and hybridization have also been reported. The main aims of the present study were to investigate the molecular epidemiology of human and pig Ascaris from non-endemic regions and, with reference to existing data, to infer the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships among the samples. Methodology 151 Ascaris worms from pigs and humans were characterized using PCR-RFLP on nuclear ITS rDNA. Representative geographical sub-samples were also analysed by sequencing a portion of the mitochondrial cox1 gene, to infer the extent of variability at population level. Sequence data were compared to GenBank sequences from endemic and non-endemic regions. Principal Findings No fixed differences between human and pig Ascaris were evident, with the exception of the Slovak population, which displays significant genetic differentiation. The RFLP analysis confirmed pig as a source of human infection in non-endemic regions and as a corridor for the promulgation of hybrid genotypes. Epidemiology and host-affiliation seem not to be relevant in shaping molecular variance. Phylogenetic and phylogeographical analyses described a complex scenario, involving multiple hosts, sporadic contact between forms and an ancestral taxon referable to A. suum. Conclusions/Significance These results suggest the existence of homogenizing gene flow between the two taxa, which appear to be variants of a single polytypic species. This conclusion has implications on the systematics, transmission and control programs relating to ascariasis.
Venoms of Heteropteran Insects: A Treasure Trove of Diverse Pharmacological Toolkits

The piercing-sucking mouthparts of the true bugs (Insecta: Hemiptera: Heteroptera) have allowed diversification from a plant-feeding ancestor into a wide range of trophic strategies that include predation and blood-feeding. Crucial to the success of each of these strategies is the injection of venom. Here we review the current state of knowledge with regard to heteropteran venoms. Predaceous species produce venoms that induce rapid paralysis and liquefaction. These venoms are powerfully insecticidal, and may cause paralysis or death when injected into vertebrates. Disulfide-rich peptides, bioactive phospholipids, small molecules such as N,N-dimethylaniline and 1,2,5-trithiepane, and toxic enzymes such as phospholipase A2, have been reported in predatory venoms. However, the detailed composition and molecular targets of predatory venoms are largely unknown. In contrast, recent research into blood-feeding heteropterans has revealed the structure and function of many protein and non-protein components that facilitate acquisition of blood meals. Blood-feeding venoms lack paralytic or liquefying activity but instead are cocktails of pharmacological modulators that disable the host haemostatic systems simultaneously at multiple points. The multiple ways venom is used by heteropterans suggests that further study will reveal heteropteran venom components with a wide range of bioactivities that may be recruited for use as bioinsecticides, human therapeutics, and pharmacological tools.
Impaired Notch4 Activity Elicits Endothelial Cell Activation and Apoptosis: Implication for Transplant Arteriosclerosis

Objective—Notch signaling pathway controls key functions in vascular and endothelial cells (EC). However, little is known about the role of Notch in allografted vessels during the development of transplant arteriosclerosis (TA). This study investigated regulation of the Notch pathway on cardiac allograft arteriosclerosis and further examined its implication in EC dysfunction. Methods and Results—Here we show that, among Notch receptors, Notch2, -3, and -4 transcript levels were markedly downregulated in TA compared to tolerant and syngeneic allografts. TA correlates with high levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), transforming growth factor (TGF)&bgr;, and IL10, which consistently decrease Notch4 expression in transplants and cultured ECs. We found that inhibition of Notch activity, reflected by both a reduced CBF1 activity and Hes1 expression, parallels the downregulation of Notch4 expression mediated by TNF in ECs. Notch4 and Hes1 knockdown enhances vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 expression and promotes EC apoptosis. Silencing Notch4 or Hes1 also drastically inhibits repair of endothelial injury. Overall, our results suggest that Notch4 and basal Notch activity are required to maintain EC quiescence and for optimal survival and repair in response to injury. Conclusion—Together, our findings indicate that impaired Notch4 activity in graft ECs is a key event associated with TA by triggering EC activation and apoptosis.
A Malus Crabapple Chalcone Synthase Gene, McCHS, Regulates Red Petal Color and Flavonoid Biosynthesis

Chalcone synthase is a key and often rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of anthocyanin pigments that accumulate in plant organs such as flowers and fruits, but the relationship between CHS expression and the petal coloration level in different cultivars is still unclear. In this study, three typical crabapple cultivars were chosen based on different petal colors and coloration patterns. The two extreme color cultivars, ‘Royalty’ and ‘Flame’, have dark red and white petals respectively, while the intermediate cultivar ‘Radiant’ has pink petals. We detected the flavoniods accumulation and the expression levels of McCHS during petals expansion process in different cultivars. The results showed McCHS have their special expression patterns in each tested cultivars, and is responsible for the red coloration and color variation in crabapple petals, especially for color fade process in ‘Radiant’. Furthermore, tobacco plants constitutively expressing McCHS displayed a higher anthocyanins accumulation and a deeper red petal color compared with control untransformed lines. Moreover, the expression levels of several anthocyanin biosynthetic genes were higher in the transgenic McCHS overexpressing tobacco lines than in the control plants. A close relationship was observed between the expression of McCHS and the transcription factors McMYB4 and McMYB5 during petals development in different crabapple cultivars, suggesting that the expression of McCHS was regulated by these transcription factors. We conclude that the endogenous McCHS gene is a critical factor in the regulation of anthocyanin biosynthesis during petal coloration in Malus crabapple.
Resisting Tag Spam by Leveraging Implicit User Behaviors

Tagging systems are vulnerable to tag spam attacks. However, defending against tag spam has been challenging in practice, since adversaries can easily launch spam attacks in various ways and scales. To deeply understand users' tagging behaviors and explore more effective defense, this paper first conducts measurement experiments on public datasets of two representative tagging systems: Del.icio. us and CiteULike. Our key finding is that a significant fraction of correct tag-resource annotations are contributed by a small number of implicit similarity cliques, where users annotate common resources with similar tags. Guided by the above finding, we propose a new service, called Spam-Resistance-as-a-Service (or SRaaS), to effectively defend against heterogeneous tag spam attacks even at very large scales. At the heart of SRaaS is a novel reputation assessment protocol, whose design leverages the implicit similarity cliques coupled with the social networks inherent to typical tagging systems. With such a design, SRaaS manages to offer provable guarantees on diminishing the influence of tag spam attacks. We build an SRaaS prototype and evaluate it using a large-scale spam-oriented research dataset (which is much more polluted by tag spam than Del.icio.us and CiteULike datasets). Our evaluational results demonstrate that SRaaS outperforms existing tag spam defenses deployed in real-world systems, while introducing low overhead.
Clinical efficacy of an automated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein assay.

BACKGROUND Prospective studies have shown that C-reactive protein (CRP) can be used to predict risk of future cardiovascular events. High-sensitivity methods for CRP (hs-CRP) measurement are needed for this purpose. METHODS We compared the clinical efficacy of an automated and commercially available latex-enhanced assay (Latex) for hs-CRP (Dade Behring) to a validated in-house ELISA, previously shown to predict future peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in asymptomatic populations. Using a prospective, nested, case-control design, we measured baseline hs-CRP concentrations in 144 apparently healthy men who subsequently developed symptomatic PAD and 144 age- and smoking habit-matched controls who remained free of vascular disease over the follow-up period of 60 months. RESULTS The two hs-CRP assays correlated highly (r = 0.95; P <0.001), and all but two participants were classified into concordant quartiles or varied by only one quartile. The median hs-CRP of the case group was significantly higher than that of controls when measured by either the ELISA (1.34 vs 0.99 mg/L; P = 0.034) or the Latex method (1.80 vs 1.20 mg/L; P = 0.042). Furthermore, for both ELISA and the Latex method, the calculated relative risks of developing PAD increased significantly with each increasing quartile of hs-CRP. The calculated interquartile increase in relative risk of PAD was 31% (95% confidence interval, 5.2-62.2%; P = 0.01) for ELISA and 34% (95% confidence interval, 8.2-66.1%; P = 0.007) for the Latex method. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that the Latex method is equally as efficacious as the validated ELISA in classifying patients into cutoff points established by prospective studies for risk stratification for coronary and cerebrovascular disease.
Subiko welcome (welcome to everyone): Hindi/English code-switching in the British-Asian media

Studies among British-Asians have attested the pervasiveness of code-switching (CS) in this community. We examine Hindi/English CS on cable television in Britain, extending the type of analysis carried out on various language pairs to a new medium. CS on television mirrors CS in real life, with various qualifications. It is avoided at one extreme of the style/formality continuum, in news broadcasts and in children’s programmes–presumably for normative reasons. Its conversational functions are well-represented in the framing of different programme segments, and, unsurprisingly, where spontaneous speech/ audience participation are involved. It is under-represented in dramas/ soaps, which supposedly depict naturalistic speech, but where dialogue is actually highly stylised. We conclude that further studies should be carried out using spoken media material, which provides a fertile source of sociolinguistic data. We speculate on the legitimizing effect of the presence of frequent CS on television on the practice of speakers.
Reversal of acute and chronic synovial inflammation by anti- transforming growth factor beta

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) induces leukocyte recruitment and activation, events central to an inflammatory response. In this study, we demonstrate that antagonism of TGF-beta with a neutralizing antibody not only blocks inflammatory cell accumulation, but also tissue pathology in an experimental model of chronic erosive polyarthritis. Intraarticular injection of monoclonal antibody 1D11.16, which inhibits both TGF-beta 1 and TGF-beta 2 bioactivity, into animals receiving an arthropathic dose of bacterial cell walls significantly inhibits arthritis. Inhibition was observed with a single injection of 50 micrograms antibody, and a 1-mg injection blocked acute inflammation > 75% compared with the contralateral joints injected with an irrelevant isotype control antibody (MOPC21) as quantitated by an articular index (AI = 0.93 +/- 0.23 for 1D11.16, and AI = 4.0 +/- 0 on day 4; p < 0.001). Moreover, suppression of the acute arthritis achieved with a single injection of antibody was sustained into the chronic, destructive phase of the disease (on day 18, AI = 0.93 +/- 0.07 vs. AI = 2.6 +/- 0.5; p < 0.01). The decreased inflammatory index associated with anti-TGF-beta treatment was consistent with histopathologic and radiologic evidence of a therapeutic response. These data implicate TGF-beta as a profound agonist not only in the early events responsible for synovial inflammation, but also in the chronicity of streptococcal cell wall fragment-induced inflammation culminating in destructive pathology. Interrupting the cycle of leukocyte recruitment and activation with TGF-beta antagonists may provide a mechanism for resolution of chronic destructive lesions.
Cetuximab and Cisplatin Show Different Combination Effect in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cells Lines via Inactivation of EGFR/AKT Signaling Pathway

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common malignant cancer in South China. Cisplatin is a classical chemotherapeutic employed for NPC treatment. Despite the use of cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy, distant failure still confuses clinicians and the outcome of metastatic NPC remains disappointing. Hence, a potent systemic therapy is needed for this cancer. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) represents a promising new therapeutic target in cancer. We predicted that combining the conventional cytotoxic drug cisplatin with the novel molecular-targeted agent cetuximab demonstrates a strong antitumor effect on NPC cells. In this study, we selected HNE1 and CNE2 cells, which have been proved to possess different EGFR expression levels, to validate our conjecture. The two-drug regimen showed a significant synergistic effect in HNE1 cells but an additive effect in CNE2 cells. Our results showed that cisplatin-induced apoptosis was significantly enhanced by cetuximab in the high EGFR-expressing HNE1 cells but not in CNE2 cells. Further molecular mechanism study indicated that the EGFR/AKT pathway may play an important role in cell apoptosis via the mitochondrial-mediated intrinsic pathway and lead to the different antitumor effects of this two-drug regimen between HNE1 and CNE2 cells. Thus, the regimen may be applied in personalized NPC treatments.
One Money, One Market: A Revised Benchmark

The introduction of the euro generated substantial interest in the impact of currency unions (CUs) on trade flows. Initial estimates suggested a tripling of trade, which gave rise to a literature in search of “more reasonable” CU effects. Theoretical derivations of the gravity model highlight, however that the CU literature neglects to control simultaneously for general equilibrium effects (multilateral resistance) and unobserved bilateral heterogeneity among trade partners. Once we introduce the appropriate controls, CU trade effects are shown to range around 50%. We also highlight that the practice of reporting average CU effects generates misleading results. The average effect is shown to be a composite of disparate individual CU effects ranging from 40% (euro) to about 100% (Central African franc).
Who says what to whom in what channel? A rules theoretic perspective on word-of-mouth marketing

ABSTRACT We investigate how word-of-mouth marketing campaign participants select communication partners, content and channel. Rules Theory, which we adopt from the interpersonal communication literature, indicates that socially constructed contextual rules explain participants’ choices. Our analysis suggests that campaign participants are sensitive to the socially constructed contexts within which interaction takes place and adjust their communication choices accordingly. We identify four contexts that account for variance in participants’ choices: episode, relationship, life-script and family narrative. We show that specific communication choices may be obligated, legitimated or prohibited dependent on the activated context.
Effects of Vowel Auditory Training on Concurrent Speech Segregation in Hearing Impaired Children

Objective: This clinical trial investigated the ability of concurrent speech segregation in hearing impaired children. The auditory behavioral responses and auditory late responses (ALRs) were compared between test and control groups prior to vowel auditory training and after 3 and 6 months of vowel auditory training to find the effects of bottom-up training on concurrent speech segregation in hearing impaired children. Methods: Auditory behavioral responses for 5 vowels and ALRs for double synthetic vowels, with special physical properties, were recorded in a timetable in 30 hearing impaired children (test group = 15 and control group = 15). Results: Identification score and reaction time data showed that the test group was approximately proficient for some vowels (P < .05 for vowels /æ/, /e/, and /u:/) and took less time to process after 6 months of training. N1-P2 amplitude indexing of the vowel change detection and reflecting central auditory speech representation without active client participation has been increased in the test group (P < .05). Conclusion: The present study showed training-related improvements in concurrent speech segregation. This information provided evidence for bottom-up training based on F0, its differences in auditory scene analysis, and neural underpinnings.
The dwarf galaxy population in Abell 2218

We present results from a deep photometric study of the rich galaxy cluster Abell 2218 (z = 0.18) based on archival Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 F606W images. These have been used to derive the luminosity function to extremely faint limits (M F606W -13.2 mag, μ 0 24.7 mag arcsec -2 ) over a wide field of view (1.3 h -2 Mpc 2 ). We find the faint-end slope of the luminosity function to vary with environment within the cluster, going from a = -1.23 ± 0.13 within the projected central core of the cluster (100 < r < 300 h -1 kpc) to a = -1.49 ± 0.06 outside this radius (300 < r < 750 h -1 kpc). We infer that the core is 'dwarf depleted', and further quantify this by studying the ratio of 'dwarf' to 'giant' galaxies and its dependency as a function of clustercentric radius and local galaxy density. We find that this ratio varies strongly with both quantities, and that the dwarf galaxy population in A2218 has a more extended distribution than the giant galaxy population.
Retrieval-Induced Inhibition in Short-Term Memory

We used a visual illusion called motion repulsion as a model system for investigating competition between two mental representations. Subjects were asked to remember two random-dot-motion displays presented in sequence and then to report the motion directions for each. Remembered motion directions were shifted away from the actual motion directions, an effect similar to the motion repulsion observed during perception. More important, the item retrieved second showed greater repulsion than the item retrieved first. This suggests that earlier retrieval exerted greater inhibition on the other item being held in short-term memory. This retrieval-induced motion repulsion could be explained neither by reduced cognitive resources for maintaining short-term memory nor by continued inhibition between short-term memory representations. These results indicate that retrieval of memory representations inhibits other representations in short-term memory. We discuss mechanisms of retrieval-induced inhibition and their implications for the structure of memory.
Current Clinical Applications of Magnifying Endoscopy with Narrow Band Imaging in the Stomach

Narrow band imaging (NBI), in conjunction with magnifying endoscopy (ME), has arisen more and more attention in the area of advanced endoscopy. By enhancing the mucosal microvascular architecture and surface pattern, it is feasible to use ME-NBI to identify subtle changes associated with gastric inflammation, atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, and early gastric cancer. The new technique thus plays a valuable role in therapeutic decision-making, endoscopic treatment process, postoperative evaluation, and follow-up examination. To date, many criteria or evaluation method of ME-NBI has been proposed. This paper aims to summarize the various diagnosing classifications and the current clinical applications of ME-NBI in the stomach.