Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heme Oxygenase-1 Regulates Matrix Metalloproteinase MMP-1 Secretion and Chondrocyte Cell Death via Nox4 NADPH Oxidase Activity in Chondrocytes

Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) activates the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secretion of MMPs as well as chondrocyte apoptosis. Those events lead to matrix breakdown and are key features of osteoarthritis (OA). We confirmed that in human C-20/A4 chondrocytes the NADPH oxidase Nox4 is the main source of ROS upon IL-1β stimulation. Since heme molecules are essential for the NADPH oxidase maturation and activity, we therefore investigated the consequences of the modulation of Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), the limiting enzyme in heme catabolism, on the IL-1β signaling pathway and more specifically on Nox4 activity. Induction of HO-1 expression decreased dramatically Nox4 activity in C-20/A4 and HEK293 T-REx™ Nox4 cell lines. Unexpectedly, this decrease was not accompanied by any change in the expression, the subcellular localization or the maturation of Nox4. In fact, the inhibition of the heme synthesis by succinylacetone rather than heme catabolism by HO-1, led to a confinement of the Nox4/p22phox heterodimer in the endoplasmic reticulum with an absence of redox differential spectrum highlighting an incomplete maturation. Therefore, the downregulation of Nox4 activity by HO-1 induction appeared to be mediated by carbon monoxide (CO) generated from the heme degradation process. Interestingly, either HO-1 or CO caused a significant decrease in the expression of MMP-1 and DNA fragmentation of chondrocytes stimulated by IL-1β. These results all together suggest that a modulation of Nox4 activity via heme oxygenase-1 may represent a promising therapeutic tool in osteoarthritis.
FAB-MAP: Probabilistic Localization and Mapping in the Space of Appearance

This paper describes a probabilistic approach to the problem of recognizing places based on their appearance. The system we present is not limited to localization, but can determine that a new observation comes from a previously unseen place, and so augment its map. Effectively this is a SLAM system in the space of appearance. Our probabilistic approach allows us to explicitly account for perceptual aliasing in the environment—identical but indistinctive observations receive a low probability of having come from the same place. We achieve this by learning a generative model of place appearance. By partitioning the learning problem into two parts, new place models can be learned online from only a single observation of a place. The algorithm complexity is linear in the number of places in the map, and is particularly suitable for online loop closure detection in mobile robotics.
Fairness Comparison of Uplink NOMA and OMA

In this paper, we compare the resource allocation fairness of uplink communications between non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes. Through characterizing the contribution of the individual user data rate to the system sum rate, we analyze the fundamental reasons that NOMA offers a more fair resource allocation than that of OMA in asymmetric channels. Furthermore, a fairness indicator metric based on Jain's index is proposed to measure the asymmetry of multiuser channels. More importantly, the proposed metric provides a selection criterion for choosing between NOMA and OMA for fair resource allocation. Based on this discussion, we propose a hybrid NOMA-OMA scheme to further enhance the users fairness. Simulation results confirm the accuracy of the proposed metric and demonstrate the fairness enhancement of the proposed hybrid NOMA-OMA scheme compared to the conventional OMA and NOMA schemes.
Force related afferent feedback to the triceps surae locomotor activity during human walking

Force related afferent feedback to the triceps surae locomotor activity during human walking. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at vbn@aub.aau. dk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
An Estimate of the Effect of Currency Unions on Trade and Growth

Gravity-based cross-sectional evidence indicates that currency unions stimulate trade as much or more than do free trade areas. Thus currencies are a source of the home-country bias in trade. This paper extends such findings to estimate the ultimate benefits of currency unions, via trade, in terms of income per capita. We use a large data set of economic and geographic variables for over 200 countries and dependencies to quantify the implications of currency unions for trade and growth, pursuing a two-stage approach. Our estimates at the first stage suggest that a currency union more than triples trade with the partners in question. Our estimates at the second stage suggest that every one percent increase in trade (relative to GDP) raises income per capita by roughly 1/3 of a percent over a 20-year period. We combine the two estimates to derive a prediction for the effects of currency union on growth. Our results support the hypothesis that the beneficial effects of currency unions on economic performance come specifically through the promotion of trade or other interactions with major trading partners, rather than, as commonly thought, through a commitment to non-inflationary monetary policy, or other macroeconomic influences.
SEASON EFFECTS ON PRODUCTIVITY OF SOME COMMERCIAL SOUTH AFRICAN SUGARCANE CULTIVARS, I: BIOMASS AND RADIATION USE EFFICIENCY

There is renewed interest in ethanol production, and sugarcane promises to be a sustainable ethanol source. Few studies have been done on the effect of season on biomass production, and no studies have quantified yields of a range of cultivars in terms of intercepted radiation. The objective of this study was therefore to assess how season affects the biomass yields of a number of commercial cultivars. The above-ground biomass was measured in two experiments at Pongola and Mount Edgecombe. The treatments consisted of nine cultivars in each experiment and two or five crop starting dates. Season had a large influence on biomass yield production for all cultivars, with some cultivars being more adversely affected than others. Biomass yields of December crops were substantially lower than autumn/winter crops, particularly for cultivars N22 and CP66/1043. Cultivars N14, N16 and N21 were least affected by the conditions that have an adverse effect on December yields and could possibly be more stable cultivars to consider for ethanol production than some of the other cultivars assessed in this study.
Enriching the Notion of Enculturation: Cognitive Integration, Predictive Processing, and the Case of Reading Acquisition

Many human cognitive capacities are rendered possible by enculturation in combination with specific neuronal and bodily dispositions. Acknowledgment of this is of vital importance for a better understanding of the conditions under which sophisticated cognitive processing routines could have emerged on both phylogenetic and ontogenetic timescales. Subscribing to enculturation as a guiding principle for the development of genuinely human cognitive capacities means providing a description of the socio-culturally developed surrounding conditions and the profound neuronal and bodily changes occurring as a result of an individual’s ongoing interaction with its cognitive niche. In this commentary, I suggest that the predictive processing framework can refine and enrich important assumptions made by the theory of cognitive integration and the associated approach to enculturated cognition. I will justify this suggestion by considering several aspects that support the complementarity of these two frameworks on conceptual grounds. The result will be a new integrative framework which I call enculturated predictive processing. Further, I will supplement Richard Menary’s enculturated approach to mathematical cognition with an account of reading acquisition from this new perspective. In sum, I argue in this paper that the cognitive integrationist approach to enculturated cognition needs to be combined with a predictive processing style description in order to provide a full account of the neuronal, bodily, and environmental components giving rise to cognitive practices. In addition, I submit that the enculturated predictive processing approach arrives at a conceptually coherent and empirically plausible description of reading acquisition.
Why aspiring migrants trust migration brokers: the moral economy of departure in Anglophone Cameroon

Abstract In the face of restrictive migration policies, migration brokers in emigration countries sell services that are meant to facilitate departure projects. Not all aspiring migrants who give money to migration brokers are able to travel. This article asks how aspiring migrants in Anglophone Cameroon understand and deal with the potential for deceit by migration brokers. The analysis is based on sixteen months of fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2013, predominantly in the town of Buea. By studying the social effects of European migration management through the lens of norms and values in a place of departure, the article argues that migration brokers cannot be understood exclusively as actors who are instrumental for the realization of migration trajectories. In a context where European migration management frustrates aspirations for global citizenship, migration brokers are also dealers in hopes for global belonging. Relations of trust between brokers and aspiring migrants are articulated through local terms such as ‘dokimen’, ‘feymen’ and ‘big men’. The article's two case studies examine relations between migration brokers and aspiring migrants within a broad social framework that includes family dynamics, as well as with a temporal perspective that stretches beyond the initial moment of failed departure. Résumé Face aux politiques de migration restrictives, des intermédiaires de la migration vendent des services destinés à faciliter les projets de départ dans les pays d’émigration. Les candidats au départ qui versent de l'argent à des intermédiaires de migration n'ont pas tous la possibilité de voyager. Cet article s'interroge sur la manière dont les candidats au départ au Cameroun anglophone comprennent et gèrent la possibilité d’être trompés par les intermédiaires de la migration. L'analyse s'appuie sur seize mois de travaux menés sur le terrain entre 2007 et 2013, principalement dans la ville de Buea. En étudiant les effets sociaux de la gestion de la migration européenne sous l'angle des normes et des valeurs dans un lieu de départ, l'article soutient qu'on ne peut pas comprendre les intermédiaires de la migration exclusivement en tant qu'acteurs dont le rôle est instrumental pour la réalisation de trajectoires de migration. Dans un contexte où la gestion de la migration européenne frustre les aspirations à une citoyenneté mondiale, les intermédiaires de la migration sont aussi des marchands d'espoir d'appartenance mondiale. Les relations de confiance entre les intermédiaires et les candidats au départ s'expriment à travers des termes locaux tels que « dokimen », « feymen » et « big men ». Les deux études de cas de l'article examinent les relations entre les intermédiaires de la migration et des candidats au départ dans un large cadre social qui inclut la dynamique familiale, ainsi que sous une perspective temporelle qui va au-delà du moment initial de l’échec du départ.
The Debt Maturity Structure of Small Firms in a Creditor Oriented Environment

Once a firm decides to issue debt, the characteristics of this debt instrument should be considered. One of the critical decisions involves debt maturity. Using a sample of 1091 Belgian small firms from 1996 until 2000, this study analyses the determinants of the corporate debt-maturity structure of small firms in a creditor-oriented s ystem. Consistent with previous empirical evidence on large firms, the present results strongly support the maturity-matching principle. The hypothesis that firms with many growth opportunities will borrow on the short term as a response to the under-investment problem, is not supported. There is a clear relation between the credit worthiness of a firm and the debt-maturity structure. Firms with a better credit score borrow on the long term, whereas firms with a poor credit quality are apparently forced to borrow on the short term. This evidence contradicts the expected U-shaped relationship between credit worthiness and debt maturity. Size negatively influences debt maturity.
RANKL/RANK pathway abrogates cetuximab sensitivity in gastric cancer cells via activation of EGFR and c-Src

Overexpression of EGFR is commonly seen in gastric cancer (GC). However, patients with GC show resistance to anti-EGFR treatments. RAS mutations are rare in GC and cannot explain de novo resistance to EGFR treatments. Therefore, it is particularly important to explore the mechanisms of resistance to anti-EGFR treatments. The RANKL activates the EGFR pathway in osteoclasts, and the RANK is expressed in gastric carcinoma. Whether the RANKL/RANK pathway has an effect on the EGFR pathway in GC remains unknown. Expressions of EGFR and RANK in GC tissues were detected using immunohistochemical staining. Nineteen patients (28%) showed high-level RANKL expression, and 33 patients (48%) showed high-level RANK expression. There was a positive correlation between expression of EGFR and RANK (P<0.001). In an in vitro study, RANKL induced activation of the EGFR pathway and further abrogated cetuximab sensitivity in GC cells. Knockdown of RANK or use of the RANKL inhibitor enhanced cetuximab effect by decreasing RANKL-induced EGFR activation. Furthermore, we showed that c-SRC mediated the EGFR activation induced by the RANKL/RANK pathway and that c-SRC inhibitor reversed the suppression of RANKL on the effect of cetuximab. In conclusion, our results suggest that in GC cells, the RANKL/RANK pathway activates the EGFR pathway and thereby causes resistance to anti-EGFR treatments.
Interlinking video programs with Linked Open Data

Interlinking multimedia resources (video, photo, music, etc) with Linked Open Data will enrich multimedia content and make it connected to the web of linked Data. Especially, DBpedia which represents the central interlinking hub for the emerging Web of Data. Currently, the Web of interlinked data sources around DBpedia covers several domains as companies, people, music, films, drugs, books, geographic information and scientific publications. This paper presents a system that enrich video program with linked open data. We detail the proposed architecture, and we focus on the interlinking process, the encountered problems and the adopted process to address to this problem.
Wrapper design for embedded core test

A wrapper is a thin shell around the core, that provides the switching between functional, and core-internal and core-external test modes. Together with a test access mechanism (TAM), the core test wrapper forms the test access infrastructure to embedded reusable cores. Various company-internal as well as industry-wide standardized but scalable wrappers have been proposed. This paper deals with the design of such core test wrappers. It gives a general architecture for wrappers, and describes how a wrapper can be built up from a library of wrapper cells which are selected on basis of the terminal types of the core. We show that the ordering and partitioning of wrapper cells and core-internal scan chains over TAM chains determine the test time of the core. An heuristic approach for the NP-hard problem of partitioning the TAM chain items for minimal test time is presented and its usage is illustrated by means of an example. Finally we sketch how wrapper generation and verification can be automated.
Phonology and phonetics dissociate in dyslexia: evidence from adult English speakers

ABSTRACT Individuals with dyslexia exhibit subtle impairments in speech processing. Informed by these findings, a large literature has attributed dyslexia to a phonological deficit. Phonology, however, is only one of many systems engaged in speech processing. Accordingly, the speech perception deficit is consistent with any of multiple loci, including both the phonological grammar and lower level systems – auditory and phonetic. Our present research seeks to dissociate these possibilities. To gauge phonological competence, we examined the sensitivity of adults with dyslexia, native speakers of English, to putatively universal grammatical restrictions on syllable structure. Phonetic processing was examined using standard phonetic identification and discrimination tasks. Across all experiments, participants with dyslexia exhibited multiple phonetic difficulties, while their sensitivity to grammatical phonological structure was intact. These results demonstrate a dissociation between the functioning of the phonetic and phonological systems in dyslexia. Contrary to the phonological hypothesis, the phonological grammar appears to be spared.
Non-B DNA Secondary Structures and Their Resolution by RecQ Helicases

In addition to the canonical B-form structure first described by Watson and Crick, DNA can adopt a number of alternative structures. These non-B-form DNA secondary structures form spontaneously on tracts of repeat sequences that are abundant in genomes. In addition, structured forms of DNA with intrastrand pairing may arise on single-stranded DNA produced transiently during various cellular processes. Such secondary structures have a range of biological functions but also induce genetic instability. Increasing evidence suggests that genomic instabilities induced by non-B DNA secondary structures result in predisposition to diseases. Secondary DNA structures also represent a new class of molecular targets for DNA-interactive compounds that might be useful for targeting telomeres and transcriptional control. The equilibrium between the duplex DNA and formation of multistranded non-B-form structures is partly dependent upon the helicases that unwind (resolve) these alternate DNA structures. With special focus on tetraplex, triplex, and cruciform, this paper summarizes the incidence of non-B DNA structures and their association with genomic instability and emphasizes the roles of RecQ-like DNA helicases in genome maintenance by resolution of DNA secondary structures. In future, RecQ helicases are anticipated to be additional molecular targets for cancer chemotherapeutics.
A COMPARISON OF GENERAL EDUCATION AND SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE, SELF-EFFICACY, AND CONCERNS IN TEACHING CHILDEN WITH AUTISM

A COMPARISON OF GENERAL EDUCATION AND SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE, SELF-EFFICACY, AND CONCERNS IN TEACHING CHILDEN WITH AUTISM By Laura A. Schwarber This study examined teachers’ knowledge of symptoms, concerns, and self-efficacy in teaching children with autism. The sample of 166 preschool through 12 grade general education teachers (n=105), special education teachers (n=29), and other educational professionals [i.e., 22 aides, 2 occupational therapists, 7 speech pathologists, and 1 Title teacher) (n=32)] attending an in-service from eleven elementary schools were selected from four school districts in the Midwest. Similar to previous studies, there was confusion regarding autism knowledge amongst all educators. Special educators had more knowledge, higher self-efficacy, and less concern in teaching children with autism than general education teachers. Differences amongst groups’ main teaching objectives also existed. Given the increase of mainstreaming children with autism in the general education classroom, results of this study warrant the need for additional workshops, teacher preparation courses, and fieldwork experiences on autism. A COMPARISON OF GENERAL EDUCATION AND SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE, SELF-EFFICACY, AND CONCERNS IN TEACHING CHILDEN WITH AUTISM
Human Retinal Transmitochondrial Cybrids with J or H mtDNA Haplogroups Respond Differently to Ultraviolet Radiation: Implications for Retinal Diseases

Background It has been recognized that cells do not respond equally to ultraviolet (UV) radiation but it is not clear whether this is due to genetic, biochemical or structural differences of the cells. We have a novel cybrid (cytoplasmic hybrids) model that allows us to analyze the contribution of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to cellular response after exposure to sub-lethal dose of UV. mtDNA can be classified into haplogroups as defined by accumulations of specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Recent studies have shown that J haplogroup is high risk for age-related macular degeneration while the H haplogroup is protective. This study investigates gene expression responses in J cybrids versus H cybrids after exposure to sub-lethal doses of UV-radiation. Methodology/Principal Findings Cybrids were created by fusing platelets isolated from subjects with either H (n = 3) or J (n = 3) haplogroups with mitochondria-free (Rho0) ARPE-19 cells. The H and J cybrids were cultured for 24 hours, treated with 10 mJ of UV-radiation and cultured for an additional 120 hours. Untreated and treated cybrids were analyzed for growth rates and gene expression profiles. The UV-treated and untreated J cybrids had higher growth rates compared to H cybrids. Before treatment, J cybrids showed lower expression levels for CFH, CD55, IL-33, TGF-A, EFEMP-1, RARA, BCL2L13 and BBC3. At 120 hours after UV-treatment, the J cybrids had decreased CFH, RARA and BBC3 levels but increased CD55, IL-33 and EFEMP-1 compared to UV-treated H cybrids. Conclusion/Significance In cells with identical nuclei, the cellular response to sub-lethal UV-radiation is mediated in part by the mtDNA haplogroup. This supports the hypothesis that differences in growth rates and expression levels of complement, inflammation and apoptosis genes may result from population-specific, hereditary SNP variations in mtDNA. Therefore, when analyzing UV-induced damage in tissues, the mtDNA haplogroup background may be important to consider.