Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Intronic miRNA Regulates Expression of the Human Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene and Proliferation of Endothelial Cells by a Mechanism Related to the Transcription Factor SP-1

Objective This study was to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the 27nt-miRNA-mediated regulation of expression of the endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) gene. Methods Cell lines overexpressing 27nt-miRNA or its mutant were established by transfecting the miRNA expression vector into the endothelial cells. eNOS mRNA and protein expression were examined by RT-PCR and Western Blotting, respectively. Luciferase activity reporter system was used to study the target of 27nt-miRNA. Results The results showed that overexpression of 27nt-miRNA significantly inhibited eNOS mRNA level and protein expression, and reduced the eNOS transcriptional efficiency. Such inhibitory effects of 27nt-miRNA were attenuated by the sequence mutations in 27nt-miRNA. Interestingly, the transcription factor SP-1 expression was reduced by 27nt-miRNA. Meanwhile, overxpression of SP-1 protein partially restored eNOS expression, and rescued the 27nt-miRNA-mediated reduction of endothelial cell proliferation. Moreover, certain sites in the SP-1 mRNA were found to be the direct target of 27nt-miRNA by a luciferase reporter system. Conclusions These results demonstrate that the 27nt-miRNA suppresses eNOS gene expression and SP-1 expression in vascular endothelial cells. The 27nt-miRNA directly target to SP-1 mRNA, thereby contributing to proliferation of endothelial cells.
Fuzzy Random Impulse Noise Removal From Color Image Sequences

In this paper, a new fuzzy filter for the removal of random impulse noise in color video is presented. By working with different successive filtering steps, a very good tradeoff between detail preservation and noise removal is obtained. One strong filtering step that should remove all noise at once would inevitably also remove a considerable amount of detail. Therefore, the noise is filtered step by step. In each step, noisy pixels are detected by the help of fuzzy rules, which are very useful for the processing of human knowledge where linguistic variables are used. Pixels that are detected as noisy are filtered, the others remain unchanged. Filtering of detected pixels is done by blockmatching based on a noise adaptive mean absolute difference. The experiments show that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art filters both visually and in terms of objective quality measures such as the mean absolute error (MAE), the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and the normalized color difference (NCD).
Sensing and control of weld pool by fuzzy-neural network in robotic welding system

It is important to control the penetration depth of the weld pool during welding, so as to obtain a good-quality weld, but it may be difficult to detect the penetration depth directly by using a visual sensor. In order to detect the penetration depth, the authors propose a penetration depth model based on a neural network. During welding, a fuzzy controller adjusts the welding current so as to obtain the desired penetration depth. Since the performance of the fuzzy controller depends on fuzzy variables, its tuning can be performed by using the neural network model. The validity of the fuzzy neural network is verified by some welding experiments.
Harmonic Extension

In this paper, we consider the harmonic extension problem, which is widely used in many applications of machine learning. We find that the transitional method of graph Laplacian fails to produce a good approximation of the classical harmonic function. To tackle this problem, we propose a new method called the point integral method (PIM). We consider the harmonic extension problem from the point of view of solving PDEs on manifolds. The basic idea of the PIM method is to approximate the harmonicity using an integral equation, which is easy to be discretized from points. Based on the integral equation, we explain the reason why the transitional graph Laplacian may fail to approximate the harmonicity in the classical sense and propose a different approach which we call the volume constraint method (VCM). Theoretically, both the PIM and the VCM computes a harmonic function with convergence guarantees, and practically, they are both simple, which amount to solve a linear system. One important application of the harmonic extension in machine learning is semi-supervised learning. We run a popular semi-supervised learning algorithm by Zhu et al. over a couple of well-known datasets and compare the performance of the aforementioned approaches. Our experiments show the PIM performs the best.
Flavonoid Accumulation in Arabidopsis Repressed in Lignin Synthesis Affects Auxin Transport and Plant Growth

In Arabidopsis thaliana, silencing of hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA shikimate/quinate hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT), a lignin biosynthetic gene, results in a strong reduction of plant growth. We show that, in HCT-silenced plants, lignin synthesis repression leads to the redirection of the metabolic flux into flavonoids through chalcone synthase activity. Several flavonol glycosides and acylated anthocyanin were shown to accumulate in higher amounts in silenced plants. By contrast, sinapoylmalate levels were barely affected, suggesting that the synthesis of that phenylpropanoid compound might be HCT-independent. The growth phenotype of HCT-silenced plants was shown to be controlled by light and to depend on chalcone synthase expression. Histochemical analysis of silenced stem tissues demonstrated altered tracheary elements. The level of plant growth reduction of HCT-deficient plants was correlated with the inhibition of auxin transport. Suppression of flavonoid accumulation by chalcone synthase repression in HCT-deficient plants restored normal auxin transport and wild-type plant growth. By contrast, the lignin structure of the plants simultaneously repressed for HCT and chalcone synthase remained as severely altered as in HCT-silenced plants, with a large predominance of nonmethoxylated H units. These data demonstrate that the reduced size phenotype of HCT-silenced plants is not due to the alteration of lignin synthesis but to flavonoid accumulation.
Hanging by a coastal strand: breeding system of a federally endangered morning-glory of the south-eastern Florida coast, Jacquemontia reclinata.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Coastal development has led to extensive habitat destruction and the near extinction of the beach clustervine, Jacquemontia reclinata (Convolvulaceae), an endangered, perennial vine endemic to dune and coastal strand communities in south-eastern Florida. We examined the breeding system of this rare species, and observed visitors to its flowers, as part of a larger effort to document its status and facilitate its recovery. METHODS Reproductively mature experimental plants were grown from seed collected from wild plants in two of the largest remaining populations. Controlled hand pollinations on potted plants were conducted to determine the level of compatibility of the species and to investigate compatibility within and between populations. Seeds from the hand pollinations were planted in soil, and they were monitored individually, recording time to seed germination (cotyledon emergence). Wild plants were observed in several of the remaining populations to determine which species visited the flowers. KEY RESULTS Hand pollination and seed planting experiments indicate that J. reclinata has a mixed mating system: flowers are able to set fruit with viable seeds with self-pollen, but outcross pollen produces significantly greater fruit and seed set than self-pollen (> or =50 % for crosses vs. <25 % for self-pollinations). Visitors included a wide array of insect species, primarily of the orders Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera. All visitors captured and examined carried J. reclinata pollen, and usually several other types of pollen. CONCLUSIONS Remnant populations of beach clustervine will have greater reproductive success not only if floral visitor populations are maintained, but also if movement of either pollen or seed takes place between populations. Restoration efforts should include provisions for the establishment and maintenance of pollinator populations.
An analytical formula for estimating the bending angle by laser forming

Abstract Laser forming of metal plates offers the advantages of requiring no external forces and thus reduced cost and increased flexibility. It also enables forming of some materials and shapes that are impossible by using the traditional methods. Based on the conventional equilibrium and compatibility conditions used in solid mechanics, a simple analytical formula for predicting the bending angle is derived. The present model is compared with other models and available experimental data, from which the superiority of the present model is demonstrated.
Heterogeneity and Interference-Aware Virtual Machine Provisioning for Predictable Performance in the Cloud

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud providers offer tenants elastic computing resources in the form of virtual machine (VM) instances to run their jobs. Recently, providing predictable performance (i.e., performance guarantee) for tenant applications is becoming increasingly compelling in IaaS clouds. However, the hardware heterogeneity and performance interference across the same type of cloud VM instances can bring substantial performance variation to tenant applications, which inevitably stops the tenants from moving their performance-sensitive applications to the IaaS cloud. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes Heifer, a Heterogeneity and interference-aware VM provisioning framework for tenant applications, by focusing on MapReduce as a representative cloud application. It predicts the performance of MapReduce applications by designing a lightweight performance model using the online-measured resource utilization and capturing VM interference. Based on such a performance model, Heifer provisions the VM instances of the good-performing hardware type (i.e., the hardware that achieves the best application performance) to achieve predictable performance for tenant applications, by explicitly exploring the hardware heterogeneity and capturing VM interference. With extensive prototype experiments in our local private cloud and a real-world public cloud (i.e., Microsoft Azure) as well as complementary large-scale simulations, we demonstrate that Heifer can guarantee the job performance while saving the job budget for tenants. Moreover, our evaluation results show that Heifer can improve the job throughput of cloud datacenters, such that the revenue of cloud providers can be increased, thereby achieving a win-win situation between providers and tenants.
An essential pathway links FLT3-ITD, HCK and CDK6 in acute myeloid leukemia

CDK4/CDK6 and RB proteins drive the progression through the G1 phase of the cell cycle. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the activity of the CDK/Cyclin D complex is increased. The mechanism involved is unknown, as are the respective roles played by CDK4 or CDK6 in this process. Here, we report that AML cells carrying FLT3-ITD mutations are dependent on CDK6 for cell proliferation while CDK4 is not essential. We showed that FLT3-ITD signaling is responsible for CDK6 overexpression, through a pathway involving the SRC-family kinase HCK. Accordingly, FLT3-ITD failed to transform primary hematopoietic progenitor cells from Cdk6−/− mice. Our results demonstrate that CDK6 is the primary target of CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors in FLT3-ITD positive AML. Furthermore, we delineate an essential protein kinase pathway -FLT3/HCK/CDK6- in the context of AML with FLT3-ITD mutations.
Characteristics of synaptic connections between rodent primary somatosensory and motor cortices

The reciprocal connections between primary motor (M1) and primary somatosensory cortices (S1) are hypothesized to play a crucial role in the ability to update motor plans in response to changes in the sensory periphery. These interactions provide M1 with information about the sensory environment that in turn signals S1 with anticipatory knowledge of ongoing motor plans. In order to examine the synaptic basis of sensorimotor feedforward (S1–M1) and feedback (M1–S1) connections directly, we utilized whole-cell recordings in slices that preserve these reciprocal sensorimotor connections. Our findings indicate that these regions are connected via direct monosynaptic connections in both directions. Larger magnitude responses were observed in the feedforward direction (S1–M1), while the feedback (M1–S1) responses occurred at shorter latencies. The morphology as well as the intrinsic firing properties of the neurons in these pathways indicates that both excitatory and inhibitory neurons are targeted. Differences in synaptic physiology suggest that there exist specializations within the sensorimotor pathway that may allow for the rapid updating of sensory–motor processing within the cortex in response to changes in the sensory periphery.
Perceived functions predict intensity of use and problems in young polysubstance users.

AIMS To model consumption patterns and problems associated with alcohol, cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamine and cocaine hydrochloride use in a non-treatment sample of young polysubstance users. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey of 364 16-22-year-old (56.3% male) polysubstance users recruited and interviewed by peer interviewers. MEASUREMENTS Structured questionnaires were used to gather identical datasets on the five target psychoactive substances, recording patterns of substance use; adverse consequences from use; negative effects; functions for substance use; and perceived peer use. FINDINGS Functions for substance use strongly predicted intensity of use in all five substances when peer use, age of first use and demographics were controlled, explaining an additional 11-19% of the variance in scores. Functions also explained an average of 22% of the variance in problem scores over and above the effects of background variables and current intensity of use. In particular, functions concerned with relief from negative mood states were strong predictors of problem scores in alcohol, cannabis and cocaine. CONCLUSIONS The potential implications of using a functional approach to explaining and responding to substance use are considerable. This could help to enhance our understanding of how experimental substance use becomes regular and how regular use becomes problematic, and could thus inform prevention, education and intervention efforts.
When Can Species Abundance Data Reveal Non-neutrality?

Species abundance distributions (SAD) are probably ecology’s most well-known empirical pattern, and over the last decades many models have been proposed to explain their shape. There is no consensus over which model is correct, because the degree to which different processes can be discerned from SAD patterns has not yet been rigorously quantified. We present a power calculation to quantify our ability to detect deviations from neutrality using species abundance data. We study non-neutral stochastic community models, and show that the presence of non-neutral processes is detectable if sample size is large enough and/or the amplitude of the effect is strong enough. Our framework can be used for any candidate community model that can be simulated on a computer, and determines both the sampling effort required to distinguish between alternative processes, and a range for the strength of non-neutral processes in communities whose patterns are statistically consistent with neutral theory. We find that even data sets of the scale of the 50 Ha forest plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, are unlikely to be large enough to detect deviations from neutrality caused by competitive interactions alone, though the presence of multiple non-neutral processes with contrasting effects on abundance distributions may be detectable.
Cancer Screening Adherence of Asian Women According to Biochemically-verified Smoking Status: Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

BACKGROUND Men and women who smoke tend to show less compliance to screening guidelines than non- smokers. However, a recent study in Korea showed that self-reported female smokers constituted less than half of cotinine-verified smokers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify hidden smokers using cotinine- verified method and examine cancer screening behavior according to biochemically verified smoking status. MATERIALS AND METHODS Among 5,584 women aged 30 years and older who participated in the Fourth and Fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), 372 (6.66%) hidden smokers were identified based on interview responses and verified by urinary cotinine levels. We compared cancer-screening behavior (cervical, breast, stomach, and colon cancer) of female hidden smokers to that of non-smokers and self- reported smokers by cross-sectional analysis. RESULTS Hidden female smokers had significantly lower adherence to breast cancer screening compared to non-smokers (aOR (adjusted odds ratio) [95% CI] = 0.71 [0.51-0.98]). Adherence to stomach cancer (aOR [95% CI] = 0.75 [0.54-1.03]) and cervical cancer (aOR [95% CI] = 0.85 [0.66-1.10]) screening was also lower among hidden female smokers compared to non-smokers. Self-reported (current) smokers showed lowest adherence to cervical cancer (aOR: 0.64, 95% CI0.47-0.87), breast cancer (0.47 [0.32-0.68]), stomach cancer (0.66[0.46-0.95]), and colon cancer (0.62 [0.38-1.01]) screening compared to non-smokers, followed by female hidden smokers, then non-smokers. These lower adherence rates of current smokers were attenuated after we incorporated hidden smokers into the current smoker group. CONCLUSIONS Cancer screening adherence of female hidden smokers was lower than cotinine-verified non-smokers but higher than current smokers. Considering the risk of smoking-related cancer among women, identifying hidden smokers is important to encourage appropriate cancer screening.
The mechanism mediating regenerative intercellular Ca2+ waves in the blowfly salivary gland

Intercellular Ca2+ signaling in intact salivary glands of the blowfly Calliphora erythrocephala was studied by fluorimetric digital imaging combined with microinjection of putative messenger molecules. Iontophoretic injection of D‐myo‐inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate (InsP3) into salivary gland cells evoked regenerative intercellular Ca2+ waves that spread through the impaled cell and several rows of surrounding cells. Ca2+ increases induced by microinjection of Ca2+ ions were confined to the injected cells and their nearest neighbors. Depletion of intracellular Ca2+ stores by thapsigargin pre‐treatment did not alter the time course of the Ca2+ increase caused by Ca2+ injection. However, activation of Ca2+ release became clearly evident when Ca2+ was injected in the presence of serotonin (5‐HT). Under these conditions, injection of Ca2+ triggered intercellular Ca2+ waves that consecutively passed through >10 cells. The phospholipase C inhibitor U73122 blocked 5‐HT‐induced Ca2+ increases but did not affect InsP3‐dependent Ca2+ spiking and intercellular Ca2+ wave propagation. The results demonstrate that propagation of agonist‐evoked Ca2+ waves in the blowfly salivary gland requires supra‐basal [InsP3] but does not depend on feedback activation of phospholipase C. We conclude that the intra‐ and intercellular transmission of these Ca2+ waves is mediated by diffusion of Ca2+ and Ca2+‐induced Ca2+ release via the InsP3 receptor channel.
Chondral Resurfacing and High Tibial Osteotomy in the Varus Knee

Background Treatment of patients with degenerative knees and varus malalignment presents a difficult clinical problem. Hypothesis Combining a medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy with the microfracture chondral resurfacing procedure is a viable treatment option. Study Design Retrospective review of prospectively collected data. Methods A group of 38 consecutive patients (mean age, 51.3 years; range, 34 to 72 years; 29 men and 10 women) with varus malalignment and chondral lesions who were treated with chondral resurfacing (an abrasion and microfracture technique) combined with a medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy. All patients had >5° of varus malalignment. Patients were evaluated preoperatively with the Lysholm and Western Ontario & McMasters Universities Osteoarthritis Index scoring systems and at a minimum of 2 years follow-up. Results Thirty-three of 38 patients (87%) were available for 2-year follow-up (average, 45 months; range, 24 to 80 months). Lysholm scores improved from a preoperative score of 43.5 to 78.0 at follow-up; Western Ontario & McMasters Universities Osteoarthritis Index scores improved from 45.8 to 16.2. The average Tegner score was 5.0. Conclusions Combining a medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy with the microfracture chondral resurfacing procedure in the varus knee is an effective method of decreasing pain and increasing function at a minimum of 2 years follow-up.
Building Roof Component Extraction from Panchromatic Satellite Images Using a Clustering-Based Method

Developing fully automatic systems is still an active research topic in 3D building model reconstruction. While a general solution to the building reconstruction problem relies on collecting and grouping the modeling cues (e.g., lines, corners, planes) from Digital Surface Model (DSM) data, failure in finding the cues due to noise in the DSM and the object complexities is a big challenge. In this paper, we introduce a clustering-based method for cue discovery from Pan-chromatic satellite images which reduces the dependencies of the reconstruction techniques on DSM data. Experimental results show that the proposed method is not only able to effectively refine building masks by discriminating building boundaries from nearby clutter, but also is able to determine the roof types (e.g., pitched, flat). The latter, allows to establish a reconstruction method to reduces the search effort and the failure probability regions in finding a particular cue by leading the system to an appropriate area.
Author's Personal Copy Computational Statistics and Data Analysis Progressively First-failure Censored Reliability Sampling Plans with Cost Constraint

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: Expected test time Maximum likelihood method Operating characteristic curve Weibull distribution a b s t r a c t In this article, reliability sampling plans are developed for the Weibull distribution when the life test is progressively first-failure censored. We use the maximum likelihood method to obtain the point estimators of the model parameters. We propose an approach to establish reliability sampling plans which minimize three different objective functions under the constraint of total cost of experiment and given consumer's and producer's risks. The results are tabulated for selected specifications under progressive first-failure censoring scheme, and the sensitivity analysis is also studied. A Monte Carlo simulation is performed to study the accuracy of large-sample approximation.