Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SIRT1 ameliorates age-related senescence of mesenchymal stem cells via modulating telomere shelterin

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) senescence is an age-related process that impairs the capacity for tissue repair and compromises the clinical use of autologous MSCs for tissue regeneration. Here, we describe the effects of SIRT1, a NAD+-dependent deacetylase, on age-related MSCs senescence. Knockdown of SIRT1 in young MSCs induced cellular senescence and inhibited cell proliferation whereas overexpression of SIRT1 in aged MSCs reversed the senescence phenotype and stimulated cell proliferation. These results suggest that SIRT1 plays a key role in modulating age-induced MSCs senescence. Aging-related proteins, P16 and P21 may be downstream effectors of the SIRT1-mediated anti-aging effects. SIRT1 protected MSCs from age-related DNA damage, induced telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) expression and enhanced telomerase activity but did not affect telomere length. SIRT1 positively regulated the expression of tripeptidyl peptidase 1 (TPP1), a component of the shelterin pathway that protects chromosome ends from DNA damage. Together, the results demonstrate that SIRT1 quenches age-related MSCs senescence by mechanisms that include enhanced TPP1 expression, increased telomerase activity and reduced DNA damage.
Structural effects of atypical antipsychotics: Implications for the meaning of cortical volume deficit in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia have a smaller volume of cortex than healthy controls. Nevertheless, the substrate of such deficit is not well understood A progressive loss of cortical GM in schizophrenia seemed supported by early studies with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in which patients received typical drugs between the baseline and final scans. However, recent MRI results challenge this notion and suggest that structural changes may depend, at least in part, on the type of treatment received. These data may be relevant for a correct interpretation of the substrate of cortical volume deficit in schizophrenia. If that deficit can be even reversed by treatment, as suggested by recent studies, a neuronal substrate seems unlikely. Several lines of evidence instead support that glia cells may have a role in cortical structural and functional deficits in schizophrenia, which would be also in agreement with recent longitudinal results with MRI in patients treated with atypical antipsychotics. These evidences are reviewed in this paper.
Online Health Information Seeking and Adolescents' Intention Towards Health Self-Management

The widespread availability of healthcare websites has changed the traditional healthcare system by enabling patients to play an active role in health management. The emerging field of Health 2.0 has enabled both professionals and patients to engage in content generation; changing the traditionally accepted professional healthcare to a new dimension of patient-centric healthcare. With the easy access to health information online, patients are turning to the Internet to look up for symptoms, diagnose health problems, or determine treatment procedures. Anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals’ health management practices can be highly influenced by online health information. Considering the psychological characteristics of adolescents and their high exposure to the Internet, this study investigates the mechanisms of how online health information can motivate adolescents’ behavioral intention towards self-management of their health issues. Our results showed that empowerment, attitude towards the website and privacy concerns significantly predict adolescents’ health self-management behavior. Our findings also revealed that perceived health threat is not directly influencing the intention to self-managed health but instead interacts with other factors to influence intention. The findings provide important implications for theory and practice, by providing a better understanding of an emerging field of health care.
Discrete Molecular Classes of Ovarian Cancer Suggestive of Unique Mechanisms of Transformation and Metastases

Purpose: Tumor heterogeneity and subsistence of high-grade serous ovarian adenocarcinoma (HGSC) classes can be speculated from clinical incidences suggesting passive tumor dissemination versus active invasion and metastases. Experimental Design: We explored this theme toward tumor classification through two approaches of gene expression pattern clustering: (i) derivation of a core set of metastases-associated genes and (ii) resolution of independent weighted correlation networks. Further identification of appropriate cell and xenograft models was carried out for resolution of class-specific biologic functions. Results: Both clustering approaches achieved resolution of three distinct tumor classes, two of which validated in other datasets. Networks of enriched gene modules defined biologic functions of quiescence, cell division-differentiation-lineage commitment, immune evasion, and cross-talk with niche factors. Although deviant from normal homeostatic mechanisms, these class-specific profiles are not totally random. Preliminary validation of these suggests that Class 1 tumors survive, metastasize in an epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT)-independent manner, and are associated with a p53 signature, aberrant differentiation, DNA damage, and genetic instability. These features supported by association of cell-specific markers, including PAX8, PEG3, and TCF21, led to the speculation of their origin being the fimbrial fallopian tube epithelium. On the other hand, Class 2 tumors activate extracellular matrix–EMT–driven invasion programs (Slug, SPARC, FN1, THBS2 expression), IFN signaling, and immune evasion, which are prospectively suggestive of ovarian surface epithelium associated wound healing mechanisms. Further validation of these etiologies could define a new therapeutic framework for disease management. Clin Cancer Res; 20(1); 87–99. ©2013 AACR.
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience Computational Neuroscience

Nelson, 2000 for a review). Further studies investigating plasticity results in response to triplets and quadruplets of spikes have highlighted the non-linearity of plasticity results (Bi and Wang, 2002; Froemke and Dan, 2002; Wang et al., 2005). In this review we will mostly focus on biophysical models accounting for the " classical " form of STDP observed in hippocampal and neocortical pyramidal cells as well as in retinotectal connections. What are the biochemical mechanisms operating at the synapse leading to the observed plasticity outcomes? Enormous experimental effort has been devoted to the identification of the molecular players both mediating and modulating synaptic plasticity (Malenka and Bear, 2004). Tremendous advances have been made in identifying which constituents take part in the induction of LTP for pre–post pairs or LTD for post–pre pairs, for example. The biological mechanisms underlying spike-timing synaptic plasticity have furthermore inspired mathematical models that strive to reproduce aspects of STDP results. Other less well studied questions are: What is the nature of the synaptic change (continuous or discrete)? What biological machinery stably maintains the evoked synaptic state over time scales of minutes to hours or more? Only a few experimental studies have investigated synaptic changes on putative single synaptic connections. These studies consistently find all-or-none switch like events (Petersen et al., 1998; Bagal et al., 2005; O'Connor et al., 2005b). These experiments suggest that the synapse exists in only two states of high-and low transmission strength respectively, and that transitions between these states can be evoked by specific stimulation protocols. Synapse models including protein signaling cascades often exhibit bistability due to positive feedback loops in the modeled pathways. In such models, synaptic changes correspond to transitions between two states, and the stable maintenance of synaptic changes is accounted for by bistability (we discuss briefly in section
The VLT-FLAMES survey of massive stars: atmospheric parameters and rotational velocity distributions for B-type stars in the Magellanic Clouds ,

Aims. We aim to provide the atmospheric parameters and rotational velocities for a large sample of O- and early B-type stars, analysed in a homogeneous and consistent manner, for use in constraining theoretical models. Methods. Atmospheric parameters, stellar masses, and rotational velocities have been estimated for approximately 250 early B-type stars in the Large (LMC) and Small (SMC) Magellanic Clouds from high-resolution VLT-FLAMES data using the non-LTE TLUSTY model atmosphere code. This data set has been supplemented with our previous analyses of some 50 0-type stars (Mokiem et al. 2006, 2007) and 100 narrow-lined early B-type stars (Hunter et al. 2006; Trundle et al. 2007) from the same survey, providing a sample of ∼400 early-type objects. Results. Comparison of the rotational velocities with evolutionary tracks suggests that the end of core hydrogen burning occurs later than currently predicted and we argue for an extension of the evolutionary tracks. We also show that the large number of the luminous blue supergiants observed in the fields are unlikely to have directly evolved from main-sequence massive 0-type stars as neither their low rotational velocities nor their position on the H-R diagram are predicted. We suggest that blue loops or mass-transfer binary systems may populate the blue supergiant regime. By comparing the rotational velocity distributions of the Magellanic Cloud stars to a similar Galactic sample, we find that (at 3σ confidence level) massive stars (above 8 M ⊙ ) in the SMC rotate faster than those in the solar neighbourhood. However there appears to be no significant difference between the rotational velocity distributions in the Galaxy and the LMC. We find that the υ sin i distributions in the SMC and LMC can modelled with an intrinsic rotational velocity distribution that is a Gaussian peaking at 175 km s -1 (SMC) and 100 km s -1 (LMC) with a 1/e half width of 150 km s -1 . We find that in NGC 346 in the SMC, the 10-25 M ⊙ main-sequence stars appear to rotate faster than their higher mass counterparts. It is not expected that 0-type stars spin down significantly through angular momentum loss via stellar winds at SMC metallicity, hence this could be a reflection of mass dependent birth spin rates. Recently Yoon et al. (2006) have determined rates of GRBs by modelling rapidly rotating massive star progenitors. Our measured rotational velocity distribution for the 10-25 M ⊙ stars is peaked at slightly higher velocities than they assume, supporting the idea that GRBs could come from rapid rotators with initial masses as low as 14 M ⊙ at low metallicities.
Environmental Activism in India’s Garden City : The Role of Civil Society Networks for Governance of Urban Social-Ecological Systems in the Global South

As urban ecosystem services have considerable impact on human well-being, sustainable management of urban green spaces is increasingly important. Previous studies indicate thatinvolving civil society in governance might help overcome some of the many complex challengesinvolved. However, research so far rarely focuses on cities in the Global South, where most of thefuture population growth is projected to take place. In Bangalore, India, a network of citizens isworking to monitor and protect greenery and other urban commons in streets and public spaces.This study combines interviews and social network analysis to describe the function and activitiesof this environmental movement. The results show a network with a core of more active and well connected members, and a large periphery of heterogeneous actors with some links to the core but few among themselves. The periphery is an asset for monitoring the fragmented urban ecosystemand provides a diversity of information, ideas and knowledge. However, as the group grows thesparsity of links outside the core complicates democratic participation and deliberation, causingdifficulties for consensus-building and decision-making. Results further show that the core group isless focused on collaboration with government city officials compared to similar cases in countries in the North. Instead, its ability to connect to local residents and civil society groups is of crucialimportance for legitimizing claims and gaining support in campaigns. Understanding this “sociallegitimacy” could be crucial for the governance of urban social-ecological systems in the South.
Putting the Bumps in the Rocky Road: Optimizing the Pathway to Excellence

There seems to be general agreement on the importance of challenge for effective development on the athlete pathway. What seems less coherent, however, are ideas on how much, when and how this challenge should be used. Reflecting our own experience as applied practitioners and our ongoing research, we offer a perspective on this work from a practitioner stance. The literature suggests that differences between levels of adult achievement relate more to what performers bring to the challenges than what they experience. Therefore, it is essential that young athletes have the opportunity to develop psycho-behavioral and coping skills, and have adequate social support, to ensure that adversity is interpreted as a positive growth experience. A periodized and progressive set of challenge, preceded with specific skill development, would seem to offer the best pathway to success. The importance of preparing athletes for challenges, supporting them through the experience, and then encouraging positive evaluation and reflection is key to successful outcome. Finally, we offer some suggestions, structures and systems, which can be used to support the skill-based approach promoted.
Cultural Diversity and the Empowerment of Minorities

Conflicts between different racial, ethnic, national and other social groups are becoming more and more salient. One of the main sources of these internal conflicts is social and economic inequality, in particular the increasing disparities between majority and minority groups. Even societies that had been successful in dealing with external conflicts and making the transition from war to peace have realized that this does not automatically resolve internal conflicts. On the contrary, the resolution of external conflicts may even sharpen the internal ones. This volume, a joint publication of the University of Haifa and the International Center for Graduate Studies (ICGS) at the University of Hamburg, addresses questions of how to deal with internal issues of social inequality and cultural diversity and, at the same time, how to build a shared civility among their different national, ethnic, religious and social groups.
Bundles over the Fano Threefold V 5

ABSTRACT Using an explicit resolution of the diagonal for the variety V 5, we provide cohomological characterizations of the universal and quotient bundles. A splitting criterion for bundles over V 5 is also proved. The presentation of semistable aCM bundles is shown, together with a resolution–theoretic classification of low rank aCM bundles.
Corruption: Political Determinants and Macroeconomic Effects

Two aspects of corruption are examined theoretically: its effect on macroeconomic variables, and its determination from the political environment. Corruption is defined in an occupational choice model as the extra fees or bribes that must be paid by some entrepreneurs. Even in an environment of perfect information and well-defined property rights, wages and total output decrease with the level of corruption. Inverted-U relationships of income inequality with both corruption and output are calculated. Second, two types of decentralization, regional and bureaucratic, are analyzed. The effects depend crucially on agents' mobility across regions. Under imperfect mobility assumptions, corruption decreases with regional decentralization and increases with bureaucratic decentralization. Two methods of controlling corruption are analyzed in this setting: democratic accountability and incentive payments. The same factor that makes bureaucratic decentralization more corrupt makes it more resistant to efforts to rein in corruption; the reverse is true for regional decentralization. This model matches emerging stylized facts relating corruption to output, inequality, and decentralization, and reinterprets findings linking bureaucratic wage levels and corruption.
Unified theories from fuzzy extra dimensions

We combine and exploit ideas from Coset Space Dimensional Reduction (CSDR) methods and Non‐commutative Geometry. We consider the dimensional reduction of gauge theories defined in high dimensions where the compact directions are a fuzzy space (matrix manifold). In the CSDR one assumes that the form of space‐time is MD = M4 × S / R with S / R a homogeneous space. Then a gauge theory with gauge group G defined on MD can be dimensionally reduced to M4 in an elegant way using the symmetries of S / R, in particular the resulting four dimensional gauge is a subgroup of G. In the present work we show that one can apply the CSDR ideas in the case where the compact part of the space‐time is a finite approximation of the homogeneous space S / R, i.e. a fuzzy coset. In particular we study the fuzzy sphere case.
Deficits and Long-Term Interest Rates: An Empirical Note

This note examines whether long-term nominal interest rates are cointegrated with budget deficits over the period 1959 to 1990. A key finding of this note is that long-term rates are cointegrated with deficits if a one-year ahead inflation forecast series is used to measure long-term expected inflation. However, the evidence favoring cointegration between deficits and interest rates weakens and almost disappears when inflation forecasts over longer horizons (2 to 4 years) are used. This result indicates that a one-year ahead inflation forecast series does not adequately measure long-term expected inflation. Hence, the link found between deficits and long-term rates using one-year inflation forecast series is spurious.
Menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells differentiate into functional hepatocyte-like cells

Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is the only proven effective treatment for both end-stage and metabolic liver diseases. Hepatocyte transplantation is a promising alternative for OLT, but the lack of available donor livers has hampered its clinical application. Hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) differentiated from many multi-potential stem cells can help repair damaged liver tissue. Yet almost suitable cells currently identified for human use are difficult to harvest and involve invasive procedures. Recently, a novel mesenchymal stem cell derived from human menstrual blood (MenSC) has been discovered and obtained easily and repeatedly. In this study, we examined whether the MenSCs are able to differentiate into functional HLCs in vitro. After three weeks of incubation in hepatogenic differentiation medium containing hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), fibroblast growth factor-4 (FGF-4), and oncostain M (OSM), cuboidal HLCs were observed, and cells also expressed hepatocyte-specific marker genes including albumin (ALB), α-fetoprotein (AFP), cytokeratin 18/19 (CK18/19), and cytochrome P450 1A1/3A4 (CYP1A1/3A4). Differentiated cells further demonstrated in vitro mature hepatocyte functions such as urea synthesis, glycogen storage, and indocyanine green (ICG) uptake. After intrasplenic transplantation into mice with 2/3 partial hepatectomy, the MenSC-derived HLCs were detected in recipient livers and expressed human ALB protein. We also showed that MenSC-derived HLC transplantation could restore the serum ALB level and significantly suppressed transaminase activity of liver injury animals. In conclusion, MenSCs may serve as an ideal, easily accessible source of material for tissue engineering and cell therapy of liver tissues.
Eliminating harmful redundancy for testing-based fault localization using test suite reduction: an experimental study

In the process of software maintenance, it is usually a time-consuming task to track down bugs. To reduce the cost on debugging, several approaches have been proposed to localize the fault(s) to facilitate debugging. Intuitively, testing-based fault localization (TBFL), such as dicing and TRANTULA, is quite promising as it can take the advantage of a large set of execution traces at the same time. However, redundant test cases may bias the distribution of the test suite and harm this kind of approaches. Therefore, we suggest that the test suite, which is the input of TBFL, should be reduced before used in TBFL. To evaluate whether and to what extent TBFL can benefit from test suite reduction, we performed an experimental study on two source programs. The experimental results show that, for test suites containing unevenly distributed redundant test cases, performing test suite reduction before applying TBFL may be more advantageous.
Mother-child conversations about safety: implications for socializing safety values in children.

OBJECTIVE This study examined how mothers socialize their children about safety through conversations about potentially unsafe activities. METHODS Mothers and their 8- and 10-year-old children discussed and rated the safety of 12 photographs depicting another same-gender child engaged in potentially dangerous activities. RESULTS Conversations usually unfolded with children giving the first rating or rationale, followed by additional discussion between the mother and child. Mothers and children relied on 2 main types of rationales to justify their ratings: potential outcomes of the activity and specific features of the situation (dangerous and nondangerous). Mothers (but not children) used dangerous feature rationales more often than dangerous outcome rationales. When disagreements arose, mothers typically guided children to adopt their own rating rather than the child's rating. Additionally, children who used more nondangerous feature and outcome rationales had experienced more injuries requiring medical attention. CONCLUSIONS Mothers' focus on dangerous features appears to reflect their efforts to help children make causal connections between dangerous elements of the situation and adverse outcomes that might result.
A MIXED BLESSING

This paper diagnoses the symptoms of the Dutch disease in a two-sector stochastic endogenous growth model. A productive, low-skill-intensive primary sector causes the currency to appreciate in real terms, thus hampering the development of a high-skill-intensive secondary sector and thereby reducing growth. Moreover, the volatility of the primary sector generates real-exchange-rate uncertainty and may thus reduce investment and learning in the secondary sector and hence also growth. Cross-sectional and panel regressions based on data for 125 countries in the period 1960–1992 confirm a statistically significant inverse relationship between the size of the primary sector and economic growth, but not between the volatility of the real exchange rate and growth.