Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lumican regulates corneal inflammatory responses by modulating Fas-Fas ligand signaling.

PURPOSE The authors have previously shown that apoptosis of stromal cells is downregulated in the lumican-null mouse and that this may be due to disruption of Fas-Fas ligand (FasL) signaling. The present study was undertaken to investigate the role of lumican in regulating Fas and its impact on inflammation and healing of corneal injuries. METHODS Apoptosis was determined by measuring caspase-3/7 activity in corneal extracts. Protein and RNA levels of Fas were estimated by immunoblot analysis and RT-PCR, respectively. Circular and incisional stromal wounds were exposed to Pseudomonas aeruginosa LPS, and healing was assessed by (1) observing wound closure with fluorescence and bright-field microscopy, (2) histology to quantify inflammatory infiltrates by immunostaining for macrophages (F4/80) and neutrophils (NIMP-R14), (3) measuring myeloperoxidase (MPO) levels by ELISA to quantify neutrophils, and (4) measuring proinflammatory cytokines by ELISA. RESULTS Lum-/- -injured corneas showed significantly lower caspase-3/7 activity (apoptosis). Lum-/- -wounded corneas showed delayed healing, reduced recruitment of macrophages and neutrophils, lower MPO levels, and no induction of the proinflammatory cytokines TNFalpha and IL1beta. The Fas protein level, before and after wounding, was dramatically lower in Lum-/- - compared with Lum+/+-injured cornea. However, Fas mRNA levels were comparable in both genotypes, suggesting regulation of Fas at the protein level. Moreover, a solid-state binding assay and coimmunoprecipitation of FasL and lumican suggested binding of FasL to lumican. CONCLUSIONS The data suggest that lumican binds FasL and facilitates induction of Fas. Poor signaling through Fas-FasL in lumican deficiency leads to impaired induction of inflammatory cytokines and corneal healing.
EEG-based emotion estimation using adaptive tracking of discriminative frequency components

EEG-based emotion recognition has received increasing attention in the past few decades. The frequency components that give effective discrimination between different emotion states are subject specific. Identification of these subject-specific discriminative frequency components (DFCs) is important for the accurate classification of emotional activities. This paper investigated the potential of adaptive tracking of DFCs as an effective method for choosing the discriminative bands of EEG patterns and improving emotion recognition performance. 13 healthy volunteers were emotionally elicited by pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Discriminative frequency components were tracked and analyzed for each subject and classification of three emotions (pleasant/high arousal, neutral, unpleasant/high arousal) was performed by employing a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and a Support Vector Machine (SVM). Our results showed that adaptive tracking of DFCs improved classification accuracies significantly and the highest average accuracy of 82.85% was achieved by SVM.
Remote Neutron Spectroscopy on Mars

203 Introduction . 205 Data . 206 DAN Passive Data . 206 Data From Other MSL Instruments . 212 Engineering Data . 212 Hypotheses Tested . 212 Subsurface Temperature . 215 Atmospheric Pressure Variations . 219 Instrumental Effects . 227 Diurnal Water Cycle . 236 Discussion . 237 Conclusions . 245 Acknowledgements . 247 References . 248 CHAPTER V Conclusion . 252
Changes in SIRT gene expression during odontoblastic differentiation of human dental pulp cells

Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of 7 different sirtuin genes (SIRT1-SIRT7) in human dental pulp cells (HDPCs), and to determine the role of SIRTs in the odontoblastic differentiation potential of HDPCs. Materials and Methods HDPCs were isolated from freshly extracted third molar teeth of healthy patients and cultulred in odontoblastic differentiation inducing media. Osteocalcin (OCN) and dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSPP) expression was analyzed to evaluate the odontoblastic differentiation of HDPCs by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), while alizarin red staining was used for the mineralization assay. To investigate the expression of SIRTs during odontoblastic differentiation of HDPCs, real time PCR was also performed with RT-PCR. Results During the culture of HDPCs in the differentiation inducing media, OCN, and DSPP mRNA expressions were increased. Mineralized nodule formation was also increased in the 14 days culture. All seven SIRT genes were expressed during the odontogenic induction period. SIRT4 expression was increased in a time-dependent manner. Conclusions Our study identified the expression of seven different SIRT genes in HDPCs, and revealed that SIRT4 could exert an influence on the odontoblast differentiation process. Further studies are needed to determine the effects of other SIRTs on the odontogenic potential of HDPCs.
Prenatal diagnosis of low‐level mosaic trisomy 6 by amniocentesis

Comparing the present case with previously described cases showing deletions of similar regions on chromosome 1 (Stockton et al., 1997; Schinzel, 2001; Yang et al., 2004), cerebellar hypoplasia, dysplasia of long bones, micrognathy, and equinovarus deformity of feet were found to be unique in the present case. The latter could be attributed to additional chromosome 1 region loss as compared to previous reports. In summary, it is noteworthy that the present report supports current thinking concerning phenotypic consequences of the deletions of large gene-rich chromosome regions. Furthermore, this report shows standard CGH as an adequate technique for prenatal molecular cytogenetic diagnosis of relatively large imbalanced chromosome aberrations when fetal tissue cultivation is difficult to perform. However, smaller chromosome rearrangements as well as a more sensitive definition of chromosomal break points apparently requires the application of array CGH–based techniques.
Hyperostosis associated with meningioma of the cranial base: secondary changes or tumor invasion.

OBJECTIVE Hyperostosis associated with intracranial meningiomas is a well-described entity. The cause, management, and prognosis of these bony changes have long been a point of controversy. Some authors have postulated that hyperostotic changes are secondary to the formation of the tumor and do not constitute invasion of the tumor into the bone. Determining this point has direct implications in the treatment of these patients, especially regarding surgical considerations. To more thoroughly evaluate this question, a study correlating the morphology to the radiology is necessary. METHODS In this study, 51 patients underwent resection for meningiomas involving the cranial base. Preoperative radiographic evaluation using magnetic resonance imaging and/or computed tomography was performed, and areas of hyperostosis were identified. During the resection of the tumor, biopsies from these hyperostotic regions were sent for histological evaluation regarding the presence or absence of tumor invasion of the bone. RESULTS Preoperative neuroradiological assessment identified 26 patients with radiographic evidence of hyperostosis. Histological examination of the resected bone showed tumor invasion in 35 patients, including the area of radiographically identified hyperostosis in 25 of the 26 patients. The floor of the middle fossa was a specific area of low sensitivity for preoperative assessment of associated hyperostosis. CONCLUSION These results indicate that hyperostosis associated with meningiomas involving the cranial base are caused by tumor invasion of the bone histologically.
Bit-flipping BIST

A scan-based BIST scheme is presented which guarantees complete fault coverage with very low hardware overhead. A probabilistic analysis shows that the output of an LFSR which feeds a scan path has to be modified only at a few bits in order to transform the random patterns into a complete test set. These modifications may be implemented by a bit-flipping function which has the LFSR-state as an input, and flips the value shifted into the scan path at certain times. A procedure is described for synthesizing the additional bit-flipping circuitry, and the experimental results indicate that this mixed-mode BIST scheme requires less hardware for complete fault coverage than all the other scan-based BIST approaches published so far.
Zee: zero-effort crowdsourcing for indoor localization

Radio Frequency (RF) fingerprinting, based onWiFi or cellular signals, has been a popular approach to indoor localization. However, its adoption in the real world has been stymied by the need for sitespecific calibration, i.e., the creation of a training data set comprising WiFi measurements at known locations in the space of interest. While efforts have been made to reduce this calibration effort using modeling, the need for measurements from known locations still remains a bottleneck. In this paper, we present Zee -- a system that makes the calibration zero-effort, by enabling training data to be crowdsourced without any explicit effort on the part of users. Zee leverages the inertial sensors (e.g., accelerometer, compass, gyroscope) present in the mobile devices such as smartphones carried by users, to track them as they traverse an indoor environment, while simultaneously performing WiFi scans. Zee is designed to run in the background on a device without requiring any explicit user participation. The only site-specific input that Zee depends on is a map showing the pathways (e.g., hallways) and barriers (e.g., walls). A significant challenge that Zee surmounts is to track users without any a priori, user-specific knowledge such as the user's initial location, stride-length, or phone placement. Zee employs a suite of novel techniques to infer location over time: (a) placement-independent step counting and orientation estimation, (b) augmented particle filtering to simultaneously estimate location and user-specific walk characteristics such as the stride length,(c) back propagation to go back and improve the accuracy of ocalization in the past, and (d) WiFi-based particle initialization to enable faster convergence. We present an evaluation of Zee in a large office building.
Crustal surface wave velocity structure of the east Albany-Fraser Orogen, Western Australia, from ambient noise recordings

S U M M A R Y Group and phase velocity maps in the period range 2–20 s for the Proterozoic east AlbanyFraser Orogen, Western Australia, are extracted from ambient seismic noise recorded with the 70-station ALFREX array. This 2 yr temporary installation provided detailed coverage across the orogen and the edge of the Neoarchean Yilgarn Craton, a region where no passive seismic studies of this scale have occurred to date. The surface wave velocities are rather high overall (>3 km s−1 nearly everywhere), as expected for exposed Proterozoic basement rocks. No clear signature of the transition between Yilgarn Craton and Albany-Fraser Orogen is observed, but several strong anomalies corresponding to more local geological features were obtained. A prominent, NE-elongated high-velocity anomaly in the northern part of the array is coincident with a Bouguer gravity high caused by the upper crustal metamorphic rocks of the Fraser Zone. This feature disappears towards longer periods, which hints at an exclusively upper crustal origin for this anomaly. Further east, the limestones of the Cenozoic Eucla Basin are clearly imaged as a pronounced low-velocity zone at short periods, but the prevalence of low velocities to periods of ≥5 s implies that the uppermost basement in this area is likewise slow. At longer periods, slightly above-average surface wave velocities are imaged below the Eucla Basin.
Parallel algorithm mapping to memory multidimensional signals

The signal processing algorithms are typically described in a high-level programming language. In data-dominated applications, particularly in the multimedia and telecommunication domains, the code of these behavioral specifications is organized in sequences of loop nests; the main data structures are multidimensional arrays. This paper proposes a memory management algorithm for mapping multidimensional signals (arrays) to the physical memories. The proposed technique is well-suited to a dynamic multithreading implementation, which makes it computationally efficient. Another advantage is that it can be applied to multi-layer memory hierarchies, which makes it particularly useful in embedded systems design.
Understanding the Factors That Impact the Popularity of GitHub Repositories

Software popularity is a valuable information to modern open source developers, who constantly want to know if their systems are attracting new users, if new releases are gaining acceptance, or if they are meeting user's expectations. In this paper, we describe a study on the popularity of software systems hosted at GitHub, which is the world's largest collection of open source software. GitHub provides an explicit way for users to manifest their satisfaction with a hosted repository: the stargazers button. In our study, we reveal the main factors that impact the number of stars of GitHub projects, including programming language and application domain. We also study the impact of new features on project popularity. Finally, we identify four main patterns of popularity growth, which are derived after clustering the time series representing the number of stars of 2,279 popular GitHub repositories. We hope our results provide valuable insights to developers and maintainers, which could help them on building and evolving systems in a competitive software market.
Sunlight and mortality from breast, ovarian, colon, prostate, and non-melanoma skin cancer: a composite death certificate based case-control study

Objectives: To explore whether mortality from female breast, ovarian, colon, and prostate cancer were negatively associated with exposure to sunlight. Methods: A death certificate based case-control study of mortality was conducted into five cancers: female breast, ovarian, colon, prostate, and non-melanoma skin cancer (as a positive control) to examine associations with residential and occupational exposure to sunlight. Cases were all deaths from these cancers between 1984 and 1995 in 24 states of the United States. Controls, which were age frequency matched to a series of cases, excluded deaths from cancer and certain neurological diseases. Multiple logistic regression was used in a model that included age, sex, race, residential exposure to sunlight (based on region), and socioeconomic status, occupational exposure to sunlight, and physical activity (the last three based on usual occupation). Results: Residential exposure to sunlight was negatively and significantly associated with mortality from female breast, ovarian, prostate, and colon cancer. Only female breast and colon cancer, however, also showed significant negative associations with jobs with the highest occupational exposure to sunlight (odds ratio (OR) 0.82 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.70 to 0.97) for female breast cancer; OR 0.90 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.94) for colon cancer). For both cancers, the negative association with occupational sunlight was greatest in the geographical region of highest exposure to sunlight and was independent of physical activity on the job. Non-melanoma skin cancer, as expected, was positively associated with both residential and occupational sunlight. Conclusions: In this exploratory study, unlike mortality from non-melanoma skin cancer, mortality from female breast cancer and colon cancer were negatively associated with both residential and occupational sunlight.
Selenium-Induced Toxicity Is Counteracted by Sulfur in Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica)

Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient for humans. Increasing Se content in food crops offers an effective approach to enhance the consumption of Se in human diets. A thoroughly understanding of the effects of Se on plant growth is important for Se biofortification in food crops. Given that Se is an analog of sulfur (S) and can be toxic to plants, its effect on plant growth is expected to be greatly affected by S nutrition. However, this remains to be further understood. Here, we evaluated the influence of Se treatments on broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica) growth when S was withheld from the growth nutrient solution. We found that Se was highly toxic to plants when S nutrition was poor. In contrast to Se treatments with adequate S nutrition that slightly reduced broccoli growth, the same concentration of Se treatments without S supplementation dramatically reduced plant sizes. Higher Se toxicity was observed with selenate than selenite under low S nutrition. We examined the bases underlying the toxicity. We discovered that the high Se toxicity in low S nutrition was specifically associated with an increased ratio of Se in proteins verse total Se level, enhanced generation of reactive oxygen species, elevated lipid peroxidation causing increased cell membrane damage, and reduced antioxidant enzyme activities. Se toxicity could be counteracted with increased supplementation of S, which is likely through decreasing non-specific integration of Se into proteins and altering the redox system. The present study provides information for better understanding of Se toxicity and shows that adequate S nutrition is important to prevent Se toxicity during biofortification of crops by Se fertilization.
Early human peopling of Sicily: Evidence from the Mesolithic skeletal remains from Grotta d'Oriente

Abstract Background: The site of Grotta d'Oriente, Island of Favignana, Sicily has yielded the complete skeleton of an adult female (OB) dated to the Mesolithic age. The cranial morphometry of this individual can provide us with some useful information about the peopling of Sicily in the Early Holocene period. Aim: Morphological affinities of OB and other Sicilian Mesolithic specimens were assessed to verify hypotheses concerning the early peopling of Sicily. Subjects and methods: Craniofacial metric data were employed in a comparative analysis with European Upper Palaeolithic (UP), Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Copper/Bronze age samples, and contemporary Italians. Both a model-free and a model-bound approach were used not only to calculate craniometric distances, but also to assess the role played by gene flow and drift to produce the resulting pattern of variations and relationships. Results: A Sicilian Mesolithic (SM) sample, including OB, resulted morphologically very close to an Italian Late UP comparative group. A general similarity among Western/Central European UP and Mesolithic groups was also detected. Conclusion: Intense gene flow among hunter–gatherer populations accounts for close resemblances among various UP and Mesolithic groups. The beginning of a regional characterization is suggested by the morphological similarity between Italian Late UP and SM, and by decreasing gene flow among populations during the transition from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic period.
Inflation Targeting Skepticism: Myth or Reality? A Way Forward for Pakistan

This paper makes twofold contributions. First, it critically reviews empirical literature along the key dimensions of inflation targeting (IT)—skepticism/critique to ascertain whether such skepticism is a myth or reality. Second, it critically reviews the so-called preconditions and operational prerequisites of IT and evaluates Pakistan’s existing state to draw lessons on whether Pakistan is in a position to adopt IT successfully. Contrary to the skeptic’s views, the review indicates that by and large the benefits of IT are promising not only in terms of macroeconomic performance—as measured by inflation, output, interest rate, exchange rate and their variants—but it also allows flexibility to effectively deal with real, financial as well as external sector shocks. The current state of preconditions and operational prerequisites in Pakistan seems adequate, which better positions the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to adopt IT. Statutory prioritisation of price stability, consistent inflation targets, and strict accountability mechanisms as well as aggressive disinflation need to be improved for successful implementation of IT.
Chronic Endocannabinoid System Stimulation Induces Muscle Macrophage and Lipid Accumulation in Type 2 Diabetic Mice Independently of Metabolic Endotoxaemia

Aims Obesity and type 2 diabetes are characterised by low-grade inflammation, metabolic endotoxaemia (i.e., increased plasma lipopolysaccharides [LPS] levels) and altered endocannabinoid (eCB)-system tone. The aim of this study was to decipher the specific role of eCB-system stimulation or metabolic endotoxaemia in the onset of glucose intolerance, metabolic inflammation and altered lipid metabolism. Methods Mice were treated with either a cannabinoid (CB) receptor agonist (HU210) or low-dose LPS using subcutaneous mini-pumps for 6 weeks. After 3 weeks of the treatment under control (CT) diet, one-half of each group of mice were challenged with a high fat (HF) diet for the following 3-week period. Results Under basal conditions (control diet), chronic CB receptor agonist treatment (i.e., 6 weeks) induced glucose intolerance, stimulated metabolic endotoxaemia, and increased macrophage infiltration (CD11c and F4/80 expression) in the muscles; this phenomenon was associated with an altered lipid metabolism (increased PGC-1α expression and decreased CPT-1b expression) in this tissue. Chronic LPS treatment tended to increase the body weight and fat mass, with minor effects on the other metabolic parameters. Challenging mice with an HF diet following pre-treatment with the CB agonist exacerbated the HF diet-induced glucose intolerance, the muscle macrophage infiltration and the muscle's lipid content without affecting the body weight or the fat mass. Conclusion Chronic CB receptor stimulation under basal conditions induces glucose intolerance, stimulates metabolic inflammation and alters lipid metabolism in the muscles. These effects worsen following the concomitant ingestion of an HF diet. Here, we highlight the central roles played by the eCB system and LPS in the pathophysiology of several hallmarks of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Carcinogen derived biomarkers: applications in studies of human exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke

Objective: To review the literature on carcinogen derived biomarkers of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS). These biomarkers are specifically related to known carcinogens in tobacco smoke and include urinary metabolites, DNA adducts, and blood protein adducts. Method: Published reviews and the current literature were searched for relevant articles. Results: The most consistently elevated biomarker in people exposed to SHS was 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL) and its glucuronides (NNAL-Gluc), urinary metabolites of the tobacco specific lung carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK). The tobacco specificity of this biomarker as well as its clear relation to an established lung carcinogen are particularly appropriate for its application in studies of SHS exposure. Conclusion: The results of the available carcinogen derived biomarker studies provide biochemical data which support the conclusion, based on epidemiologic investigations, that SHS causes lung cancer in non-smokers.