Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inflammatory cytokine regulation of transgene expression in human fibroblast-like synoviocytes infected with adeno-associated virus.

OBJECTIVE An ideal gene transfer vector for chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) would provide local transgene expression only when the disease is active. To determine whether adeno-associated virus (AAV) possesses this ability, the effects of inflammatory cytokines on transgene expression were evaluated in human RA fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS). METHODS Human FLS were infected with AAV in the presence or absence of inflammatory cytokines or synovial fluid obtained from patients with RA. Transgene expression was monitored by either enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or flow cytometry. Transgene messenger RNA (mRNA) was measured by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS Inflammatory cytokines increased transgene expression in FLS by up to 60-fold. Synovial fluid from patients with RA, but not from patients without arthritis, was also able to increase expression in synoviocytes. Protein expression correlated with transgene mRNA levels. The enhanced expression required the continued presence of cytokines because, upon removal, transgene expression returned to baseline levels. Expression could be repeatedly reinduced by reexposure to cytokines. The effect was not promoter specific and was demonstrated to be phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-dependent. CONCLUSION These results suggest that expression of a therapeutic transgene can be controlled by the presence of inflammation following AAV gene transfer, making it an attractive vector for chronic inflammatory diseases such as RA.
Functional Dissection of SseF, a Type III Effector Protein Involved in Positioning the Salmonella‐Containing Vacuole

Intracellular replication of Salmonella enterica requires the formation of a unique organelle termed Salmonella‐containing vacuole (SCV). The type III secretion system (T3SS) encoded by Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 2 (SPI2–T3SS) has a crucial role in the formation and maintenance of the SCV. The SPI2–T3SS translocates a large number of effector proteins that interfere with host cell functions such as microtubule‐dependent transport. We investigated the function of the effector SseF and observed that this protein is required to maintain the SCV in a juxtanuclear position in infected epithelial cells. The formation of juxtanuclear clusters of replicating Salmonella required the recruitment of dynein to the SCV but SseF‐deficient strains were highly reduced in dynein recruitment to the SCV. We performed a functional dissection of SseF and defined domains that were important for translocation and the specific effector functions of this protein. Of particular importance was a hydrophobic domain in the C‐terminal half that contains three putative transmembrane (TM) helices. Deletion of one of these TM helices ablated the effector functions of SseF. We observed that this domain was essential for the proper intracellular positioning of the SCV to a juxtanuclear, Golgi‐associated localization. These data show that SseF, in concert with the effector proteins SifA and SseG mediate the precise positioning of the SCV by differentially modulating the recruitment of microtubule motor proteins to the SCV.
Identification, characterization, and functional correlation of calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase in sperm

Preliminary data demonstrated that the inhibition of reactivated sperm motility by calcium was correlated with inhibited protein phosphorylation. The inhibition of phosphorylation by Ca2+ was found to be catalyzed by the calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase (calcineurin). Sperm from dog, pig, and sea urchin contain both the Ca2+-binding B subunit of the enzyme (Mr 15,000) and the calmodulin- binding A subunit with an Mr of 63,000. The sperm A subunit is slightly higher in Mr than reported for other tissues. Inhibition of endogenous calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase activity with a monospecific antibody revealed the presence of 14 phosphoprotein substrates in sperm for this enzyme. The enzyme was localized to both the flagellum and the postacrosomal region of the sperm head. The flagellar phosphatase activity was quantitatively extracted with 0.6 M KCl from isolated flagella from dog, pig, and sea urchin sperm. All salt-extractable phosphatase activity was inhibited with antibodies against the authentic enzyme. Preincubation of sperm models with the purified phosphatase stimulated curvolinear velocity and lateral head amplitude (important components of hyperactivated swimming patterns) and inhibited beat cross frequency suggesting a role for this enzyme in axonemal function. Our results suggest that calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase plays a major role in the calcium-dependent regulation of flagellar motility.
Dental caries experience and treatment needs of green marble mine laborers in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, India.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The study was undertaken at Kesariyaji, located in Udaipur district of Rajasthan. There are about 3 million workers who marble mine at Rajasthan. Living conditions of these workers are substandard and most of them are immigrant workers living in tiny shacks. Majority of them belong to lower socioeconomic status with poor educational background. The present study was carried out to estimate dental caries prevalence and treatment needs of laborers working in the green marble mines of Udaipur district. BASIC RESEARCH DESIGN The data was collected using the methods and standards recommended by the WHO. Dentition status and treatment needs along with decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) index, and decayed, missing, and filled surfaces score were recorded. Standard error of mean was calculated for all the mean values of treatment needs. There were three examiners, who were trained before the survey for inter-examiner variability, and the reliability was tested by means of weighted kappa statistics, which was 90%. PARTICIPANTS The study population comprised 513 men in four age groups of 18-25, 26-34, 35-44, and 45-54 years, respectively. RESULTS The mean DMFT for all age groups was 3.13 with highest mean of 4.0 for the age group of 45-54 years. Mean decayed teeth were 2.60, 3.33, 1.46, and 1.5 for the age groups 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 years, respectively. Filled component was nil for all age groups. Most of the subjects required one surface filling with a very less proportion needing pulp care. CONCLUSIONS The missing component constituted the major part of DMFT index in the 45-54 years age group and the absence of filled component in the whole study population implies that the treatment needs of the study population are unmet. Thus, intervention in the form of oral health promotion and curative services are the need of the hour.
Emotional influences on perception and working memory

ABSTRACT Although there has been steady progress elucidating the influence of emotion on cognition, it remains unclear precisely when and why emotion impairs or facilitates cognition. The present study investigated the mechanisms involved in the influence of emotion on perception and working memory (WM), using modified 0-back and 2-back tasks, respectively. First, results showed that attentional focus modulated the impact of emotion on perception. Specifically, emotion facilitated perceptual task performance when it was relevant to the task, but it impaired performance when it was irrelevant to the task. The differential behavioural effect of emotion on perception as a function of attentional focus diminished under high WM load. Second, attentional focus did not directly modulate the impact of emotion on WM, but rather its influence depended on the dynamic relationship between internal representations. Specifically, WM performance was worse when the material already being held online and the new input were of matching emotions (e.g. both were negative), compared to when they were not. We propose that the competition between “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing for limited cognitive resources explains the nature of the influence of emotion on both perception and WM.
The protein Compromised Hydrolysis of Triacylglycerols 7 (CHT7) acts as a repressor of cellular quiescence in Chlamydomonas

Significance Microalgae accumulate valuable compounds under conditions adverse to growth. For example, nutrient starvation causes accumulation of triacylglycerols but also induces cellular quiescence, characterized by the reversible cessation of growth. Among other factors, this inverse relationship between biomass productivity and triacylglycerol accumulation has long hampered efforts toward the efficient generation of biofuel feedstocks from microalgae. The discovery of a mutant and corresponding protein of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii affecting the orderly transition of algal cells from quiescence to normal growth provides mechanistic insights to address this problem. Quiescent cells also are found in plants and animals. Thus, understanding how Chlamydomonas CHT7 affects the exit out of quiescence promises to provide important insights into the regulation of cellular behavior in multicellular organisms as well. Microalgae are prolific photosynthetic organisms that have the potential to sustainably produce high-value chemical feedstocks. However, an industry based on microalgal biomass still is faced with challenges. For example, microalgae tend to accumulate valuable compounds, such as triacylglycerols, only under stress conditions that limit growth. To investigate the fundamental mechanisms at the base of this conundrum—the inverse relationship between biomass production and storage compound accumulation—we applied a combination of cell biological and genetic approaches. Conceptually, nutrient deprivation, which commonly is used to induce the accumulation of triacylglycerol in microalgae, leads to a state of cellular quiescence defined by a halt of cell divisions that is reversible upon nutrient resupply. To identify factors that govern cellular quiescence, we screened for mutants of the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that, in contrast to wild-type cells placed under conditions of nitrogen deprivation, were unable to degrade triacylglycerols following nitrogen resupply. One of the mutants described here in detail, compromised hydrolysis of triacylglycerols 7 (cht7), was severely impaired in regrowth following removal of different conditions inducing cellular quiescence. The mutant carries a deletion affecting four genes, only one of which rescued the quiescence phenotype when reintroduced. It encodes a protein with similarity to mammalian and plant DNA binding proteins. Comparison of transcriptomes indicated a partial derepression of quiescence-related transcriptional programs in the mutant under conditions favorable to growth. Thus, CHT7 likely is a repressor of cellular quiescence and provides a possible target for the engineering of high-biomass/high-triacylglycerol microalgae.
BMI: a simple, rapid and clinically meaningful index of under-nutrition in the oldest old?

BMI is commonly used as a sole indicator for the assessment of nutritional status. While it is a good predictor of morbidity and mortality among young and middle-aged adults, its predictive ability among the oldest old remains unclear. The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between BMI and risk of falls, fractures and all-cause mortality among older Australians in residential aged care facilities. One thousand eight hundred and forty-six residents of fifty-two nursing homes and thirty hostels in northern Sydney, Australia, participated in the present study. Baseline weight and height were measured and BMI (kg/m2) calculated. For 2 years following the baseline measurements, incidence and date of all falls and fractures were recorded by research nurses who visited the facilities regularly and date of death was documented based on the participants' records at each facility. Cox proportional hazards regression models were calculated to determine the relationship between baseline BMI and time to fall, fracture or death, within 2 years following the baseline measures taken to be the censoring date. After adjustments were made for age, sex and level of care, low BMI ( < 22 kg/m2) increased the risk of fracture by 38 % (hazard ratio = 1·38, 95 % CI 1·11, 1·73) and all-cause mortality by 52 % (hazard ratio = 1·52, 95 % CI 1·30, 1·79). The magnitude of this effect was only slightly reduced when adjustments were further made to incorporate cognition, number of medications, falls and fracture in the subsequent 2-year period. In conclusion, BMI has predictive ability in the area of fracture and all-cause mortality for residents of aged care facilities. It is a simple and rapid indicator of nutritional status rendering it a useful nutrition screen and goal for nutrition intervention.
Providing basic security mechanisms in broker-less publish/subscribe systems

The provisioning of basic security mechanisms such as authentication and confidentiality is highly challenging in a content-based publish/subscribe system. Authentication of publishers and subscribers is difficult to achieve due to the loose coupling of publishers and subscribers. Similarly, confidentiality of events and subscriptions conflicts with content-based routing. In particular, content-based approaches in broker-less environments do not address confidentiality at all. This paper presents a novel approach to provide confidentiality and authentication in a broker-less content-based publish-subscribe system. The authentication of publishers and subscribers as well as confidentiality of events is ensured, by adapting the pairing-based cryptography mechanisms, to the needs of a publish/subscribe system. Furthermore, an algorithm to cluster subscribers according to their subscriptions preserves a weak notion of subscription confidentiality. Our approach provides fine grained key management and the cost for encryption, decryption and routing is in the order of subscribed attributes. Moreover, the simulation results verify that supporting security is affordable with respect to the cost for overlay construction and event dissemination latencies, thus preserving scalability of the system.
A Study of Vertical‐to‐Horizontal Ratio of Earthquake Components in the Gulf Coast RegionA Study of Vertical‐to‐Horizontal Ratio of Earthquake Components in the Gulf Coast Region

A new ground-motion prediction model is developed for the response spectral ratio of vertical-to-horizontal (V/H) components of earthquakes for the Gulf Coast region. The proposed V/H response spectral ratio model has the advantage of considering the earthquake magnitude, source-to-site distance, and the shear-wave velocity of soil deposits in the upper 30 m of the site (VS30) for the peak ground acceleration, and a wide range of spectral periods (0.01–10.0 s). The model is based on a comprehensive set of regression analyses of the newly compiled Next Generation Attenuation-East database of available central and eastern North America recordings with the moment magnitudesM ≥3:4 and the rupture distances RRup < 1000 km. The 50th percentile (or median) pseudospectral acceleration values computed from the orthogonal horizontal components of ground motions rotated through all possible nonredundant rotation angles, known as the RotD50 (Boore, 2010), is used along with the vertical component to perform regression using a nonlinear mixed-effects regression algorithm. The predicted V/H ratios from the proposed model are compared with the recently published V/H spectral ratio models for different regions. The derived V/H ratios can be used to develop the vertical response spectra for the sites located within the Gulf Coast region, which include the Mississippi embayment.
Sparse Modeling of Intrinsic Correspondences

Pokrass et al. [PBBS12] present a novel sparse modeling approach to non-rigid shape matching using only the ability to detect repeatable regions. They show that such scarce information as two sets of regions in two shapes is sufficient to establish very accurate correspondences between shapes. The paper presents methods from the field of sparse modeling and show how they can be aplied to simultaneously solve for an unknown permutation ordering of the regions on two shapes and for an unknown correspondence in functional representation. It further presents numerical solutions to the resulting optimization problems. The paper also presents results and compare them to state-of-the-art methods. In this seminar paper, we give an overview on their work. Figure 1: In their work on the Sparse Modeling of Intrinsic Correspondences, Pokrass et al. present a novel and first of its kind approach to shape matching. They show how to use tools from the field of sparse modeling to simultaneously search for an approximately diagonal C and permutation Π, bringing a set of regions into correspondence. The latter are given in functional representation by coefficients A and B. These indicator functions can represent any intrinsic property of two near-isometric shapes, e.g. repeatable regions like MSER. Such scarce information is sufficient to achieve high quality matchings with the presented robust permuted sparse coding algorithm, which outperforms state-of-the-art methods.
Characteristics of the Joint Distribution of Race and Income Among Neighborhoods

We develop and illustrate a general method for describing in detail the joint distribution of race and income among neighborhoods. The approach we describe provides estimates of the average income distribution and racial composition of the neighborhoods of households of a given racial category and specific income level. We illustrate the method using 2007-2011 tract-level data from the American Community Survey. We show, for example, that blacks and Hispanics of any given income level typically live in neighborhoods that are substantially poorer than do whites and Asians of the same income level. Our approach provides a very general method for fully characterizing the joint patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation, and so may prove useful for understanding the spatial foundations and correlates of racial and socioeconomic inequality. ABSTRACT AUTHORS
Comparison principle and stability of impulsive stochastic functional differential systems in terms of two measures

This paper investigates the stability properties in terms of two measures for impulsive stochastic functional differential systems. A comparison principle for impulsive stochastic functional differential systems is established for the first time. Employing the comparison principle and theory of differential inequalities, sufficient conditions ensuring stability and asymptotical stability in terms of two measures are obtained. An example is given to illustrate our results.
Implication of adenylyl cyclase 8 in pathological smooth muscle cell migration occurring in rat and human vascular remodelling

Recently, we discovered on primary cell cultures that adenylyl cyclase type 8 (AC8) was involved in the transition of rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to an inflammatory phenotype. Here we demonstrate, in human vessels displaying early or advanced atherosclerotic lesions, that: (a) only intimal VSMCs strongly express AC8; and (b) very few AC8‐positive VSMCs were detected in the medial layer, either in atherosclerotic or healthy arteries. Furthermore, over‐expressing AC8 in primary rat VSMC cultures triggered the recolonization of a wounded zone and similar results were obtained in the presence of mitomycin, a potent inhibitor of proliferation. This phenomenon was prevented by silencing AC8. Indeed, in IL‐1β‐treated cells, AC8 silencing halted migration and decreased the matrix‐metalloproteinases 2/9 secretion, known to be involved in VSMC migration. In vivo, we showed: (a) a pronounced up‐regulation of AC8 expression in highly migrating VSMCs of the injured rat carotid artery; (b) an undetectable AC8 labelling in re‐endothelized vessels where neo‐intimal thickening had stopped. From our data, we conclude that AC8 expression appears closely linked to the properties developed by VSMCs in atherosclerosis and post‐angioplasty neo‐intima formation leading to restenosis. In addition, it reinforces the idea that VSMC responses to their cell environment greatly depend on the AC isoforms expressed and attributes a new role for AC8 in these pathological vascular processes. Copyright © 2010 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
POLYPOROID FUNGI OF DISTRICT MANDI (HIMACHAL PRADESH).

The hitherto unexplored Mandi district (H.P.) has been surveyed and thirteen species of Polyporoid fungi belonging to five families (Hymenochaetaceae, Phanerochaetaceae, Polyporaceae, Schizophyllaceae, Steccherinaceae) and ten genera (Phellinus, Phanerochaete, Daedalea, Gloeophyllum, Lenzites, Hexagonia, Trametes, Poria, Schizophyllum, Irpex) are being recorded and described.
Joint laxity is related to lower extremity energetics during a drop jump landing.

PURPOSE To examine the relationships between anterior knee laxity (AKL), genu recurvatum (GR), and general joint laxity (GJL) with sagittal plane energetics in males and females during a drop jump task. METHODS A total of 68 females and 50 males were measured for AKL, GR, and GJL and were instrumented to obtain neuromuscular and biomechanical data on their dominant limb during the initial landing phase of a 45-cm drop jump. Multiple linear regressions determined the extent to which the three joint laxity variables combined to predict hip, knee, and ankle work absorption and stiffness. Associations between joint laxity and joint kinematics, joint kinetics, and muscle activation amplitudes were also investigated to further interpret significant relationships. RESULTS Higher AKL and GJL and lower GR combined to predict greater knee work absorption (R2 = 0.210, P = 0.002) and stiffness (R2 = 0.127, P = 0.033) and lower ankle stiffness (R2 = 0.115, P = 0.048) in females. These associations were modulated through greater peak knee extensor moments and flexion angles, lower hamstring activation, and lower ankle extensor moments. In males, joint laxity had little impact on knee energetics, but a significant association was observed between greater GJL and decreased ankle stiffness (R2 = 0.209, P = 0.012), a product of both greater peak ankle flexion and decreased ankle extensor moment. CONCLUSIONS Females with greater AKL and GJL and lower GR demonstrated a landing strategy that increased work absorption and stiffness about the knee, whereas females with greater GR demonstrated a landing style that reduced knee work absorption and stiffness. The findings suggest that AKL, GR, and GJL may represent distinct risk factors and support the need to consider more comprehensive laxity profiles as they relate to knee joint function and anterior cruciate ligament injury risk.
A Critical Analysis of the Centers of Academic Excellence Program

Author(s): Bishop, Matt; Taylor, Carol | Abstract: The US National Security Agency (NSA) established a program in Information Assurance education in 1999 that established Centers for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE). While designated a success by the government, the program has been criticized over the years by program participants as less than optimal. In this paper, we review the program and identify the most serious problems. We then suggest possible solutions to these problems in order to improve the program so that it represents true excellence in IA education.