Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Moderation of Calpain Activity Promotes Neovascular Integration and Lumen Formation during VEGF-Induced Pathological Angiogenesis

Background Successful neovascularization requires that sprouting endothelial cells (ECs) integrate to form new vascular networks. However, architecturally defective, poorly integrated vessels with blind ends are typical of pathological angiogenesis induced by vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF), thereby limiting the utility of VEGF for therapeutic angiogenesis and aggravating ischemia-related pathologies. Here we investigated the possibility that over-exuberant calpain activity is responsible for aberrant VEGF neovessel architecture and integration. Calpains are a family of intracellular calcium-dependent, non-lysosomal cysteine proteases that regulate cellular functions through proteolysis of numerous substrates. Methodology/Principal Findings In a mouse skin model of VEGF-driven angiogenesis, retroviral transduction with dominant-negative (DN) calpain-I promoted neovessel integration and lumen formation, reduced blind ends, and improved vascular perfusion. Moderate doses of calpain inhibitor-I improved VEGF-driven angiogenesis similarly to DN calpain-I. Conversely, retroviral transduction with wild-type (WT) calpain-I abolished neovessel integration and lumen formation. In vitro, moderate suppression of calpain activity with DN calpain-I or calpain inhibitor-I increased the microtubule-stabilizing protein tau in endothelial cells (ECs), increased the average length of microtubules, increased actin cable length, and increased the interconnectivity of vascular cords. Conversely, WT calpain-I diminished tau, collapsed microtubules, disrupted actin cables, and inhibited integration of cord networks. Consistent with the critical importance of microtubules for vascular network integration, the microtubule-stabilizing agent taxol supported vascular cord integration whereas microtubule dissolution with nocodazole collapsed cord networks. Conclusions/Significance These findings implicate VEGF-induction of calpain activity and impairment of cytoskeletal dynamics in the failure of VEGF-induced neovessels to form and integrate properly. Accordingly, calpain represents an important target for rectifying key vascular defects associated with pathological angiogenesis and for improving therapeutic angiogenesis with VEGF.
Monoclonal Antibody Recipients Conditioned with Anti-CD3 Clinical Signs of Graft-versus-Host Disease in Graft-versus-Leukemia Activity without T Cells Mediate + Donor CD8

Donor CD8 (cid:1) T cells play a critical role in mediating graft-vs-leukemia (GVL) activity, but also induce graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) in recipients conditioned with total body irradiation (TBI). In this study, we report that injections of donor C57BL/6 (H-2 b ) or FVB/N (H-2 q ) CD8 (cid:1) T with bone marrow cells induced chimerism and eliminated BCL1 leukemia/lymphoma cells without clinical signs of GVHD in anti-CD3-conditioned BALB/c (H-2 d ) recipients, but induced lethal GVHD in TBI-conditioned recipients. Using in vivo and ex vivo bioluminescent imaging, we observed that donor CD8 (cid:1) T cells expanded rapidly and inﬁltrated GVHD target tissues in TBI-conditioned recipients, but donor CD8 (cid:1) T cell expansion in anti-CD3-conditioned recipients was conﬁned to lymphohematological tissues. This conﬁnement was associated with lack of up-regulated expression of (cid:2) 4 (cid:3) 7 integrin and chemokine receptors (i.e., CXCR3) on donor CD8 (cid:1) T cells. In addition, donor CD8 (cid:1) T cells in anti-CD3-conditioned recipients were rendered unresponsive, anergic, Foxp3 (cid:1) , or type II cytotoxic T phenotype. Those donor CD8 (cid:1) T cells showed strong suppressive activity in vitro and mediated GVL activity without clinical signs of GVHD in TBI-conditioned secondary recipients. These results indicate that anti-CD3 conditioning separates GVL activity from GVHD via conﬁning donor CD8 (cid:1) T cell expansion to host lymphohemological tissues as well as tolerizing them in the host. Journal
Gravity compensation control of compliant joint systems with multiple drives

This paper presents a sufficient condition to establish the existence of unique equilibrium points for three types of gravity compensation controller when applied to over-actuated systems. As compared to the existing work, this paper extends the current theory by introducing feedback gain matrices that are not constrained to being diagonal and positive definite. The inherently COmpliant huMANoid (COMAN) served as a platform for the validation of the designed gravity compensation controller that employed reference link positions. The displayed experimental results provide evidence of successful link tracking of sinusoidal references on a humanoid system composed of series elastic actuators.
Identification of the Multi-Resistance Gene cfr in Escherichia coli Isolates of Animal Origin

Previous study indicated that the multi-resistance gene cfr was mainly found in gram-positive bacteria, such as Staphylococcus and Enterococcus, and was sporadically detected in Escherichia coli. Little is known about the prevalence and transmission mechanism of cfr in E. coli. In this study, the presence of cfr in E. coli isolates collected during 2010–2012 from food-producing animals in Guangdong Province of China was investigated, and the cfr-positive E. coli isolates were characterized by PFGE, plasmid profiling, and genetic environment analysis. Of the 839 E. coli isolates, 10 isolates from pig were cfr positive. All the cfr-positive isolates presented a multi-resistance phenotype and were genetically divergent as determined by PFGE. In 8 out of the 10 strains, the cfr gene was located on plasmids of ∼30 kb. Restriction digestion of the plasmids with EcoRI and sequence hybridization with a cfr-specific probe revealed that the cfr-harboring fragments ranged from 6 to 23 kb and a ∼18 kb cfr-carrying fragment was common for the plasmids that were ∼30 kb. Four different genetic environments of cfr were detected, in which cfr is flanked by two identical copies of IS26, which may loop out the intervening sequence through homologous recombination. Among the 8 plasmids of ∼30 kb, 7 plasmids shared the same genetic environment. These results demonstrate plasmid-carried cfr in E. coli and suggest that transposition and homologous recombination mediated by IS26 might have played a rule in the transfer of the cfr gene in E. coli.
Quantitative Tracking of Salmonella Enteritidis Transmission Routes Using Barcode-Tagged Isogenic Strains in Chickens: Proof-of-Concept Study

Salmonella is an important foodborne bacterial pathogen, however, a fundamental understanding on Salmonella transmission routes within a poultry flock remains unclear. In this study, a series of barcode-tagged strains were constructed by inserting six random nucleotides into a functionally neutral region on the chromosome of S. Enteritidis as a tool for quantitative tracking of Salmonella transmission in chickens. Six distinct barcode-tagged strains were used for infection or contamination at either low dose (103 CFUs; three strains) or high dose (105 CFUs; three strains) in three independent experiments (Experiment 1 oral gavage; Experiment 2 contaminated feed; Experiment 3 contaminated water). For all chick experiments, cecal and foot-wash samples were collected from a subset of the chickens at days 7 or/and 14, from which genomic DNA was extracted and used to amplify the barcode regions. After the resulting PCR amplicons were pooled and analyzed by MiSeq sequencing, a total of approximately 1.5 million reads containing the barcode sequences were analyzed to determine the relative frequency of every barcode-tagged strain in each sample. In Experiment 1, the high dose of oral infection was correlated with greater dominance of the strains in the ceca of the respective seeder chickens and also in the contact chickens yet at lesser degrees. When chicks were exposed to contaminated feed (Experiment 2) or water (Experiment 3), there were no clear patterns of the barcode-tagged strains in relation to the dosage, except that the strains introduced at low dose required a longer time to colonize the ceca with contaminated feed. Most foot-wash samples contained only one to three strains for the majority of the samples, suggesting potential existence of an unknown mechanism(s) for strain exclusion. These results demonstrated the proof of concept of using barcode tagged to investigate transmission dynamics of Salmonella in chickens in a quantitative manner.
Are All Resources Cursed? Coffee, Oil and Armed Confict in Colombia

The Resource Curse" posits a positive association between the value of natural commodities and civil conflict. In this paper, we suggest that the value-to-violence relationship differs across commodities, and that the factor intensity of production determines whether a rise in the price of a legally traded good will exacerbate conflict. We exploit exogenous price shocks for coffee and oil to test this hypothesis, using data on politically-motivated violence in Colombia over 1988 to 2004. We find that a drop in coffee prices during the 1990s led to a disproportionate rise in conflict in the coffee areas. Poverty dynamics follow a similar pattern, while substitution into drug crops do not, which suggests that it is the fall in income rather than the drug trade that fuelled this effect. In contrast, we find that oil prices are positively related to clashes with government forces, and that state revenue is used to strengthen military presence in oil areas. Our results suggest that the income channel is critical in determining how price shocks to labor-intensive commodities affect insurgency. However, for capital-intensive goods, the revenue effect predominates in mediating how the value of the commodity affects violence. "
Oral Sessions: O2-08: Basic Science: Protective and Pathological Protein-Protein Interactions in Alzheimer’s Disease P329 O2-07-04 GENETIC ABLATION OF NRF2 MODULATES ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE–LIKE PATHOLOGY IN APP/PS1 MOUSE

Background: The major pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are presence of beta-amyloid plaques surrounded by dead neurites and neurofibrillary tangles. AD brain is under tremendous oxidative stress that may be a cause or consequence of the pathology. The major familial AD-linked mutations are the mutations in amyloid precursor protein (APP) and Presinilin 1 and 2 (PS1 and 2). The most well-known mouse model to study AD is the mouse carrying human APPswe and PS1DE9 mutation (APP/PS1 mouse). These mice show accelerated plaque deposition. The transcription factor Nrf2 is the primary cellular defense factor against cytotoxic effects of oxidative stress. It is sequestered in the cytoplasm by Keap1 and translocate to nucleus upon oxidative insult to transcribe phase II detoxification genes. Methods: The transgenic mice were developed by crossing Nrf2 knock out (Nrf2-/-) mice to APP/PS1 mouse. The cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum were harvested from 7 mo mice for biochemistry and molecular biology. Brains were harvested for histology. Results: We observed changes in detergent soluble and urea soluble beta-amyloid levels in APP/PS1/Nrf2-/mice compared to APP/PS1/Nrf2+/+ mice. A significant decrease in total p62 levels was observed in cortex and hippocampus of APP/PS1/Nrf2-/mice compared to APP/PS1/Nrf2+/+mice. A further investigation into soluble and insoluble fraction from hippocampal tissue for p62 protein expression revealedmodulation of p62 level in APP/PS1/Nrf2-/compared to APP/PS1/Nrf2+/+ mice. There were altered poly-ubiquitin conjugated proteins levels in APP/PS1/Nrf2-/cortex and hippocampus tissue compared to APP/PS1/Nrf2+/+ mice. Conclusions: SQSTM1/p62 regulates autophagic removal of ubiquitinated protein aggregates. Others have showed induction of the p62 gene by oxidative stress, which is mediated by Nrf2. In APP/PS1 mice an increase in Nrf2 and p62 was observed. In addition, Keap1 facilitates p62-mediated ubiquitin aggregate clearance via autophagy. A significant decrease in p62 in Nrf2 deficient APP/PS1mice may be because of increased oxidative stress in addition to the lack of Nrf2. Changes in poly-ubiquitinated proteins in APP/PS1/Nrf2-/suggests involvement of p62-Keap1-Nrf2 cascade. A further investigation is required into the pathways of beta-amyloid clearance or APP processing and behavioral changes that may have been affected by loss of Nrf2 in APP/PS1 mice.
2014 FIFA World Cup: An Initial Analysis of Collective Sentiments in Twitter

Social analysis in Twitter has become a very interesting research sce- nario. Twitter's popularity and the millions of spontaneous interactions between its users turned the social network into a rich data source. A possible use of this data is to measure collective sentiments related to events. In this short paper, we propose an analysis of the content shared in Twitter during the event 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil TM . The sentiment classifier utilized in this work is the SentiStrength tool. The steps of this works are Composing the corpus, Pre- processing, Classification and Temporal Analysis. Finally, we propose some preliminary results that indicates the distribution of sentiments across the cor- pus.
Ion‐acoustic waves in a plasma with negative ions

Propagation and damping of ion‐acoustic waves have been investigated in a Q‐machine plasma consisting of K+ positive ions, SF−6 negative ions, and electrons. The phase velocity of the ion‐acoustic ‘‘fast’’ mode increases with increasing e, the concentration of negative ions. The wave damping decreases with increasing e, and nearly disappears, for the highest wave frequencies investigated, when e≳0.9. Both results are in agreement with predictions from Vlasov theory.
Both Noncoding and Protein-Coding RNAs Contribute to Gene Expression Evolution in the Primate Brain

Despite striking differences in cognition and behavior between humans and our closest primate relatives, several studies have found little evidence for adaptive change in protein-coding regions of genes expressed primarily in the brain. Instead, changes in gene expression may underlie many cognitive and behavioral differences. Here, we used digital gene expression: tag profiling (here called Tag-Seq, also called DGE:tag profiling) to assess changes in global transcript abundance in the frontal cortex of the brains of 3 humans, 3 chimpanzees, and 3 rhesus macaques. A substantial fraction of transcripts we identified as differentially transcribed among species were not assayed in previous studies based on microarrays. Differentially expressed tags within coding regions are enriched for gene functions involved in synaptic transmission, transport, oxidative phosphorylation, and lipid metabolism. Importantly, because Tag-Seq technology provides strand-specific information about all polyadenlyated transcripts, we were able to assay expression in noncoding intragenic regions, including both sense and antisense noncoding transcripts (relative to nearby genes). We find that many noncoding transcripts are conserved in both location and expression level between species, suggesting a possible functional role. Lastly, we examined the overlap between differential gene expression and signatures of positive selection within putative promoter regions, a sign that these differences represent adaptations during human evolution. Comparative approaches may provide important insights into genes responsible for differences in cognitive functions between humans and nonhuman primates, as well as highlighting new candidate genes for studies investigating neurological disorders.
FFT test of A/D converters to determine the integral nonlinearity

The use of the FFT test to derive the integral nonlinearity (INL) of A/D converters is examined. The derived INL is a linear combination of Chebyshev polynomials, where the coefficients are the spurious harmonics of the output spectrum. The accuracy of the test is examined theoretically, in simulations and in practical devices, particularly for the critical (and typical) case when sudden jumps are present in the actual INL. The examined methodology appears to be very convenient when the device under test has high resolution (16-20 bits) and a smoothed approximation of the INL is sufficient, as the FFT test is in this case thousands of times faster than the customary histogram test and static nonlinearity test.
Evidence for Early Morphological Decomposition: Combining Masked Priming with Magnetoencephalography

Are words stored as morphologically structured representations? If so, when during word recognition are morphological pieces accessed? Recent masked priming studies support models that assume early decomposition of (potentially) morphologically complex words. The electrophysiological evidence, however, is inconsistent. We combined masked morphological priming with magneto-encephalography (MEG), a technique particularly adept at indexing processes involved in lexical access. The latency of an MEG component peaking, on average, 220 msec post-onset of the target in left occipito-temporal brain regions was found to be sensitive to the morphological prime–target relationship under masked priming conditions in a visual lexical decision task. Shorter latencies for related than unrelated conditions were observed both for semantically transparent (cleaner–CLEAN) and opaque (corner–CORN) prime–target pairs, but not for prime–target pairs with only an orthographic relationship (brothel–BROTH). These effects are likely to reflect a prelexical level of processing where form-based representations of stems and affixes are represented and are in contrast to models positing no morphological structure in lexical representations. Moreover, we present data regarding the transitional probability from stem to affix in a post hoc comparison, which suggests that this factor may modulate early morphological decomposition, particularly for opaque words. The timing of a robust MEG component sensitive to the morphological relatedness of prime–target pairs can be used to further understand the neural substrates and the time course of lexical processing.
Electron microscopic localization of cytoplasmic myosin with ferritin- labeled antibodies

We localized myosin in vertebrate nonmuscle cells by electron microscopy using purified antibodies coupled with ferritin. Native and formaldehyde-fixed filaments of purified platelet myosin filaments each consisting of approximately 30 myosin molecules bound an equivalent number of ferritin-antimyosin conjugates. In preparations of crude platelet actomyosin, the ferritin-antimyosin bound exclusively to similar short, 10-15 nm wide filaments. In both cases, binding of the ferritin-antimyosin to the myosin filaments was blocked by preincubation with unlabeled antimyosin. With indirect fluorescent antibody staining at the light microscope level, we found that the ferritin-antimyosin and unlabeled antimyosin stained HeLa cells identically, with the antibodies concentrated in 0.5-microns spots along stress fibers. By electron microscopy, we found that the concentration of ferritin-antimyosin in the dense regions of stress fibers was five to six times that in the intervening less dense regions, 20 times that in the cytoplasmic matrix, and 100 times that in the nucleus. These concentration differences may account for the light microscope antibody staining pattern of spread interphase cells. Some, but certainly not all, of the ferritin-antimyosin was associated with 10-15-nm filaments. In mouse intestinal epithelial cells, ferritin- antimyosin was located almost exclusively in the terminal web. In isolated brush borders exposed to 5 mM MgCl2, ferritin-antimyosin was also concentrated in the terminal web associated with 10-15-nm filaments.
Women in Focus: an evaluation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank everyone who contributed to this evaluation. Firstly, the staff at Women in Focus, in particular Angela Curran and Frances Emmerson; and all the support workers. Many criminal justice social work staff played an important part in the evaluation and we would like to make special mention of Christine Murray, who tirelessly compiled the data on which we drew. We would also like to thank all the members of the Women in Focus Steering Group particularly Fiona MacKinnon, who chaired the group and made an important contribution to the evaluation. Thanks also to Finally, and most importantly, we would like to thank all the women involved with the service, who spoke with us, shared their experiences and who are the main focus of this research study. The development and operation of Women in Focus resulted from the concerns that many practitioners, policy-makers and others have expressed in relation to the increasing imprisonment of women in Scotland (and internationally). There is evidence of considerable innovation and insight in the development of recent initiatives and actions which have innovative attempts, while making a significant difference to the individual women who are able to access them, are introduced and required to operate within, a wider social, political and economic context that can influence how services operate (i.e. short-term funding imposes its own constraints) and how 'effective' these innovative services can be seen to be. The objectives, and thus measures of effectiveness, which Women in Focus required to attain (reductions in reconviction/reoffending; reduction in rates of custody; increased community integration/reintegration) are themselves influenced by wider trends in while at the same time, attempts to integrate socially marginalised individuals into local communities also places agencies under the sphere of current policies and practices in the distribution of resources and welfare provision. In recent years, cuts in welfare spending have impacted on women with the increasing 'feminisation of poverty' (Pearce, 1978; Carlen, 1998) and the introduction of increasingly punitive policies which impact disproportionately on the poor (Wacquant, 2009). This wider context highlights the importance of addressing welfare-related issues as a mechanism for alleviating some of the contributory factors for offending by women, while at the same time, creating very real challenges for the service in attempts to 'evidence' real change, in terms of rates of reconviction, breach and custody, in the short-term. This evaluation examines the implementation and operation of Women …
Network Security Analysis Based on Security Status Space

As an important method to analyze the security status of computer network, generating of network attack graph is a hot topic in this domain. After analyzing network security attributes including the host, user privilege, connection relation, etc., the model of computer network security status space is built. The node of attack graph expresses the network security status, and the directed-line expresses the attack rule. We use a forward-search, breadth-first and depth-limited algorithm to produce attack route, and utilize the tools Graphviz to generate the attack graph. The experiment validates the prototype of network attack graph automatic generating tools based on security status space.
An Authentication Code over Galois Rings with Optimal Impersonation and Substitution Probabilities

Two new systematic authentication codes based on the Gray map over a Galois ring are introduced. The first introduced code attains optimal impersonation and substitution probabilities. The second code improves space sizes, but it does not attain optimal probabilities. Additionally, it is conditioned to the existence of a special class of bent maps on Galois rings.