Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Doxorubicin-loaded cell-derived nanovesicles: an alternative targeted approach for anti-tumor therapy

Cell-derived nanovesicles (CDNs) are an emerging class of biological drug delivery systems (DDS) that retain the characteristics of the cells they were derived from, without the need for further surface functionalization. CDNs are also biocompatible, being derived from natural sources and also take advantage of the enhanced permeability and retention effect due to their nanodimensions. Furthermore, CDNs derived from monocytes were shown to have an in vivo targeting effect, accumulating at the tumor site in a previous study conducted in a mouse tumor model. Here, we report a systematic approach pertaining to various loading methods of the chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin into our CDNs and examine the differential cellular uptake of drug-loaded CDNs in cancerous (HeLa) and healthy (HEK293) cell lines. Lastly, we proved that the addition of doxorubicin-loaded CDNs to the HeLa and HEK293 co-cultures showed a clear discrimination toward cancer cells at the cellular level. Our results further reinforce the intriguing potential of CDNs as an alternative targeted strategy for anticancer therapy.
Effects of Main Stem Impoundments and Channelization upon the Limnology of the Missouri River, Nebraska

Abstract Rigid control has been imposed upon the Missouri River by impounding over one-half of the upper 1500 miles and by channeling most of the remaining river within permanent, narrow banks. These controls have caused environmental changes in the lower Missouri River, as shown by this study, of adjacent unchannelized and channelized sections of river below the main stem impoundments. Impoundments have regulated flow by evening maximum and minimum discharges and improved downstream water quality by decreasing turbidity and indirectly raising the dissolved oxygen. In addition the impoundments have contributed a limnetic cladoceran, Leptodora kindti, to the drift and have affected the distribution of benthos through the modification of turbidity. Channelization of the river has reduced both the size and variety of aquatic habitat by destroying key productive areas. Average standing crops of benthos were similar in unchannelized and channelized river (0.63 and 0.67 pounds per acre, respectively) but the be.
Mapping communities in large virtual social networks: Using Twitter data to find the Indie Mac community

This paper describes a multi-method approach to delineate a “real world” community of practice from a large N dataset derived from the social networking site Twitter. The starting point is previous qualitative research of a virtual community of independent (“indie”) developers who create software for Apple's Macintosh and iPhone platforms. Indie developers have been active on Twitter from an early stage on and they use Twitter to sustain interactions between peers, exchange technical information and for viral “echo chamber” marketing. The publicly available Twitter API is used to mine a network consisting of several million edges, which is sized down to a large network containing roughly 1 million edges through several pruning methods. The fast greedy algorithm is then used to detect subgraphs within this large network. Triangulation with qualitative data proves that the fast greedy algorithm is able to distill meaningful communities from a large, noisy and ill-delineated network. The accuracy of this approach gives rise to the discussion of the value for businesses and market research, since it offers opportunities to identify and monitor target audiences at a finely grained level. However, we should be wary of the serious consequences with regard to privacy and ethics. The proposed multi-method approach allows micro level inferences from a macro dataset of which the individual Twitter user might be completely unaware. The results could have consequences for the anonymity of key persons behind the scenes of social and political movements or any other communities whose members are active on Twitter or other social networks.
Impact of Encryption on the Throughput of Infrastructure WLAN IEEE 802.11g

This paper investigates the impact of security on the performance of WLAN. More specifically, it analyzes the impact of applying encryption used by the well-known security protocol wired equivalent privacy (WEP) on the throughput over an infrastructure WLAN, IEEE 802.11g. This paper also addresses the different issues related to the security protocols currently used in WLAN IEEE 802.11g and demonstrates how these issues affect the final results of the experiments conducted. The main result is that the security adds moderate degradation on the throughput that may affect some applications over infrastructure WLANs.
Effect of flipped learning on self-directed learning and academic achievement in emergency medical technology students

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of flipped learning on self-directed learning and academic achievement in national competence standards (NCS) based physical assistant skills in the emergency medical technology(EMT) students. Methods: One-group pretest-post test design was used. Flipped learning was carried out for 2 hours per week for 16 weeks. A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 56 EMT students from March 3 to June 16, 2016. Data were analyzed by paired t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient using SPSS 18.0 program. Results: After completion of flipped learning, significant improvement was found in self-directed learning(t =6.04, 𝑝 <.001), academic achievement(3.25±.79) and academic achievement((t=6.41, 𝑝 <.001). There was a significant positive correlation among self-directed learning and academic achievement. Conclusion: Flipped learning is useful teaching and learning method to the EMT students.
Metabolic progression markers of neurodegeneration in the transgenic G93A‐SOD1 mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive loss of motor neurons. Visualizing corresponding metabolic changes in the brain of patients with ALS with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H‐MRS) may provide surrogate markers for an early disease detection, for monitoring the progression and for evaluating a treatment response. The primary objective of our study was to evaluate whether modifications in MR metabolite levels occur before clinical disease onset, and whether these changes are directly linked to a distinct spatial progression pattern in the CNS. Therefore, age‐dependent alterations in the cerebral and spinal metabolic profile in the mouse model of ALS overexpressing the mutated human G93A‐superoxide dismutase 1 (G93A‐SOD1) were determined by high‐resolution MRS of tissue extracts at 14.1 Tesla. Both non‐transgenic mice (control mice) and transgenic mice overexpressing the non‐mutated human SOD1 (tg‐SOD1) served as controls. In the spinal cord of G93A‐SOD1 mice significantly decreased levels of N‐acetyl aspartate were already detected 34 days postpartum, i.e. about 60 days before the average disease onset caused by motor neuron decline. In addition, glutamine and γ‐aminobutyric acid concentrations were significantly diminished at Day 75, which is still in the presymptomatic phase of the disease. These metabolic changes were further progressive in the course of the disease and started to involve the brainstem at Day 75. Overall, high‐resolution 1H‐MRS allows a sensitive spatial and temporal metabolite profiling in the presymptomatic phase of ALS even before significant neuronal cell loss occurs.
Long non-coding RNA ZFAS1 interacts with miR-150-5p to regulate Sp1 expression and ovarian cancer cell malignancy

We reported that long non-coding RNA ZFAS1 was upregulated in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues, and was negatively correlated to the overall survival rate of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer in this study. While depletion of ZFAS1 inhibited proliferation, migration, and development of chemoresistance, overexpression of ZFAS1 exhibited an even higher proliferation rate, migration activity, and chemoresistance in epithelial ovarian cancer cell lines. We further found miR-150-5p was a potential target of ZFAS1, which was downregulated in epithelial ovarian cancer tissue. MiR-150-5p subsequently inhibited expression of transcription factor Sp1, as evidence by luciferase assays. Inhibition of miR-150-5p rescued the suppressed proliferation and migration induced by depletion of ZFAS1 in epithelial ovarian cancer cells, at least in part. Taken together, our findings revealed a critical role of ZFAS1/miR-150-5p/Sp1 axis in promoting proliferation rate, migration activity, and development of chemoresistance in epithelial ovarian cancer. And ZFAS1/miR-150-5p may serve as novel markers and therapeutic targets of epithelial ovarian cancer.
Effects of Benzopyrene-7,8-Diol-9,10-Epoxide (BPDE) In Vitro and of Maternal Smoking In Vivo on Micronuclei Frequencies in Fetal Cord Blood

Up to 20% of pregnant women smoke and there is indirect evidence that certain tobacco-specific metabolites can cross the placental barrier and are genotoxic to the fetus. The presence of micronuclei results from chromosome damage and reflects the degree of underlying genetic instability. Fetal blood was obtained from the cord blood of 143 newborns (102 from nonsmoking mothers and 41 from mothers smoking >10 cigarettes/d during pregnancy). The micronucleus assay was performed following the guidelines established by the Human MicroNucleus project with modifications. To test the micronucleus assay, we evaluated the effect of a range of benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide concentrations (from 3.125 nM to 4 μM) on cord blood from nonsmoking mothers. This validation showed that the number of micronuclei and apoptotic cells increased with benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide dose (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.001, respectively); the minimal detectable effect was induced by 12.5 nM benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide. In our sample, the number of MN was significantly higher in the 41 cord blood samples from mothers who smoked during pregnancy [smokers: 4 (1; 10.5); nonsmokers: 3 (0; 8); p = 0.016]. Therefore, the data reported herein support the hypothesis that tobacco compounds are able to induce chromosomal losses and breaks that are detectable as an increased number of micronuclei.
Information Processing Architecture of Functionally Defined Clusters in the Macaque Cortex

Computational and empirical neuroimaging studies have suggested that the anatomical connections between brain regions primarily constrain their functional interactions. Given that the large-scale organization of functional networks is determined by the temporal relationships between brain regions, the structural limitations may extend to the global characteristics of functional networks. Here, we explored the extent to which the functional network community structure is determined by the underlying anatomical architecture. We directly compared macaque (Macaca fascicularis) functional connectivity (FC) assessed using spontaneous blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-fMRI) to directed anatomical connectivity derived from macaque axonal tract tracing studies. Consistent with previous reports, FC increased with increasing strength of anatomical connection, and FC was also present between regions that had no direct anatomical connection. We observed moderate similarity between the FC of each region and its anatomical connectivity. Notably, anatomical connectivity patterns, as described by structural motifs, were different within and across functional modules: partitioning of the functional network was supported by dense bidirectional anatomical connections within clusters and unidirectional connections between clusters. Together, our data directly demonstrate that the FC patterns observed in resting-state BOLD-fMRI are dictated by the underlying neuroanatomical architecture. Importantly, we show how this architecture contributes to the global organizational principles of both functional specialization and integration.
Is a Minor Merger Driving the Nuclear Activity in the Seyfert 2 Galaxy NGC 2110?

We report on a detailed morphological and kinematic study of the isolated nonbarred nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 2110. We combine integral field optical spectroscopy with long-slit and WFPC2 imaging available in the Hubble Space Telescope archive to investigate the fueling mechanism in this galaxy. Previous work (Wilson & Baldwin) concluded that the kinematic center of the galaxy is displaced ~220 pc from the apparent mass center of the galaxy, and the ionized gas follows a remarkably normal rotation curve. Our analysis, which is based on the stellar kinematics, two-dimensional ionized gas velocity field and dispersion velocity, and high spatial resolution morphology at V, I, and Hα, reveals the following: (1) The kinematic center of NGC 2110 is at the nucleus of the galaxy. (2) The ionized gas is not in pure rotational motion. (3) The morphology of the two-dimensional distribution of the emission-line widths suggests the presence of a minor axis galactic outflow. (4) The nucleus is blueshifted with respect to the stellar systemic velocity, suggesting the narrow-line region gas is outflowing owing to the interaction with the radio jet. (5) The ionized gas is redshifted ~100 km s-1 over the corresponding rotational motion south of the nucleus and 240 km s-1 with respect to the nuclear stellar systemic velocity. This velocity is coincident with the H I redshifted absorption velocity detected by Gallimore et al. We discuss the possibility that the kinematics of the south ionized gas could be perturbed by a collision with a small satellite that impacted on NGC 2110 close to the center with a highly inclined orbit. Additional supports for this interpretation are the radial dust lanes and tidal debris detected in the V unsharp-masked image. We suggest that a minor merger may have driven the nuclear activity in NGC 2110.
Reading Logs: An Application of Reader-Response Theory in ELT.

This article introduces the activity of student-written reading logs as a practical application of reader-response theory in EFL literature teaching. Since reader-response theory stresses the synthesis between reader and text, so it is proposed that practical applications should be based on this interaction. Students make notes in their reading logs as they read a novel, setting down their thoughts and feelings. This encourages them to interact with the text, and to tap into their individual responses to the literature. While reading logs are already used in L1 literature teaching, this article argues that the activity is particularly appropriate for L2 use, since it stimulates foreign language readers to go beyond the first barrier of semantic understanding and to move towards critical appreciation. The article describes how reading logs were successfully used in literature classes at a junior college in Taiwan.
Using interpolation to improve path planning: The Field D* algorithm

We present an interpolation‐based planning and replanning algorithm for generating low‐cost paths through uniform and nonuniform resolution grids. Most grid‐based path planners use discrete state transitions that artificially constrain an agent's motion to a small set of possible headings (e.g., 0, π/4, π/2, etc.). As a result, even “optimal” grid‐based planners produce unnatural, suboptimal paths. Our approach uses linear interpolation during planning to calculate accurate path cost estimates for arbitrary positions within each grid cell and produce paths with a range of continuous headings. Consequently, it is particularly well suited to planning low‐cost trajectories for mobile robots. In this paper, we introduce a version of the algorithm for uniform resolution grids and a version for nonuniform resolution grids. Together, these approaches address two of the most significant shortcomings of grid‐based path planning: the quality of the paths produced and the memory and computational requirements of planning over grids. We demonstrate our approaches on a number of example planning problems, compare them to related algorithms, and present several implementations on real robotic systems.
In vivo effects of anti-Ia alloantisera. I. Elimination of specific suppression by in vivo administration of antisera specific for I-J controlled determinants

The in vivo effects of intravenous administration of alloantisera directed to I-J subregion coded determinants were investigated. In confirmation and extension of our previous results, anti-I-Jk [B10.A(3R) anti-B10.A(5R)] and anti-I-Js ([B10.A(3R) X B10.S(9R)]F1 anti-B10.HTT) antisera, when administered in 1 to 10 microliter amounts at the time of immunization, led to twofold increases in the IgM and IgG plaque-forming cells (PFC) responses to suboptimal doses of sheep erythrocytes in A/J (I-Jk) and SJL (I-Js) mice, respectively. To assess whether this immunopotentiation was due to a decrease in specific suppression, experiments were carried out using the polypeptide antigens random linear terpolymer of L-glutamic acid60, L-alanine30, and L-tyrosine10 (GAT) and random linear copolymer of L-glutamic acid50- L-tyrosine50 (GT), since administration of GAT to the nonresponder strain SJL, or GT to the nonresponder strain CBA fails to induce a primary PFC response and stimulates specific suppressor T cells able to prevent PFC responses to subsequent challenge with the immunogens GAT- methylated bovine serum albumin (MBSA) or GT-MBSA, respectively. The current study demonstrates that CBA (I-Jk) mice given 100 microgram GT in Maalox-pertussis adjuvant on day 0, and 10 microliter anti-I-Jk antiserum i.v. on days 0, 1, and 2, develop a significant primary specific PFC response on day 7. A similar responsiveness to 10 microgram GAT is found in SJL mice treated with 10 microliter anti-I-Js antiserum for 3 days. This same active anti-I-Js antiserum does not permit CBA mice to respond to GT, demonstrating the specificity of the anti-I-J effect. These data suggest that anti-I-J antiserum treatment at the time of antigen administration reduces suppressor responses to GAT or GT, permitting primary PFC responses. To directly demonstrate such an effect on suppressor activity, SJL or CBA mice treated, respectively, with GAT or GT to induce suppressor cells active on GAT- MBSA or GT-MBSA responses after adoptive transfer to normal syngeneic recipients were also given anti-I-J antisera (10 microliter/day) for 3 days, at which time their spleen cells were tested for suppressive activity upon transfer. Cells from such treated mice failed to show detectable suppressive activity upon transfer to syngeneic recipients challenged with GAT-MBSA or GT-MBSA, confirming the hypothesis of an in vivo effect of anti-I-J antiserum on suppressor activity.
The slow demise of Easter Island: insights from a modeling investigation

The history of Easter Island and its supposed social-ecological collapse is often taken as a grim warning for the modern world. However, while the loss of a once lush palm forest is largely uncontested, causes and timing of the collapse remain controversial, because many paleoeological and archaeological data are afflicted with considerable uncertainties. According to a scenario named ecocide, the overharvesting of palm trees triggered a dramatic population decline, whereas a contrasting view termed genocide deems diseases and enslavement introduced by Europeans as the main reasons for the collapse. We propose here a third possibility, a slow demise, in which aspects of both ecocide and genocide concur to produce a long and slow decline of the society. We use a dynamic model to illustrate the consequences of the three alternatives with respect to the fate of the paleoecological system of the island. While none of the three model scenarios can be safely ruled out given the uncertainties of the available data, the slow demise appears to be the most plausible model scenario, in particular when considering the temporal pattern of deforestation as inferred from radiocarbon dates of charcoal remains.
Analog electronic cochlea with mammalian hearing characteristics

Systems close to bifurcations can be used as small-signal amplifiers. Biophysical measurements suggest that the active amplifiers present in the mammalian cochlea are systems close to a Hopf bifurcation. The pure tone and transient signal output of our electronic hearing sensor based on this observation provides output that is fully compatible with the electrophysiological data from the mammalian cochlea. In particular, it reproduces all salient nonlinear effects displayed by the cochlea.
Wilson polynomials and the generic superintegrable system on the 2-sphere

For complex two-dimensional Riemannian spaces every classical or quantum second-order superintegrable system can be obtained from a single generic 3-parameter potential on the complex 2-sphere by delicate limit operations and through Stäckel transforms between manifolds. Here we derive families of finite- and infinite-dimensional irreducible representations of the corresponding quadratic quantum algebra for the 2-sphere and point out their role in explaining the degeneracy of the energy eigenspaces corresponding to bound state and continuous spectra of quantum and wave equation analogs of this system. The algebra is exactly the one that describes the Wilson and Racah polynomials in their full generality.
Volatility Downside Risk

This paper derives and tests the cross-sectional predictions of an intertemporal equilibrium asset pricing model with generalized disappointment aversion and time-varying macroeconomic uncertainty. To the contrary of the existing literature, disappointment may result not only from a fall in the market index, but also from a rise in a volatility index. Theoretically, we show that besides the market return and changes in market volatility, three two-asset option-like payoffs, contingent to the disappointing event, are also priced factors: a long binary cash-or-nothing option, a short put on the market index and a long call on the volatility index. Implied measures of market and volatility downside risks similar to those considered in the literature explicitly express as linear combinations of exposures to these options and their underlying instruments. Empirically, we find that the cross-section of stock returns reflects a premium for bearing undesirable exposures to these options. The signs of the estimated risk premia are consistent with theory, their economic magnitudes show that a long/short strategy on exposure to each of these options pays on average more than 5% per annum, and these rewards are not explained by coskewness, size, value, and momentum factors.
Sophia-3: A Semiadaptive Cable-Driven Rehabilitation Device With a Tilting Working Plane

Sophia-3 (string-operated planar haptic interface for arm rehabilitation) is a planar cable-driven device with a tilting working plane. It represents the first application of the adaptive cable-driven design paradigm recently introduced by the authors, featuring a moving pulley-block that allows the robot to achieve excellent force capabilities, despite the low number of cables. This study presents the design, kinematics, and control of the device and results of experimental validation on healthy subjects.