Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Connective tissue growth factor: a cysteine-rich mitogen secreted by human vascular endothelial cells is related to the SRC-induced immediate early gene product CEF-10

Human umbilical vein endothelial (HUVE) cells have been previously reported to express the genes for the A and B chains of PDGF and to secrete PDGF-related factors into culture media. Antihuman PDGF IgG affinity chromatography was used to purify PDGF-related activity from HUVE cell-conditioned media. Immunoblot analysis of the affinity- purified proteins with anti-PDGF IgG and antibodies specific for the A or B chain peptides of PDGF combined with chemotactic and mitogenic assays revealed that the major PDGF immunorelated molecule secreted by HUVE cells is a monomer of approximately 36-38 kD and that less than 10% of the purified biologically active molecules are PDGF A or B chain peptides. Screening of an HUVE cell cDNA library in the expression vector lambda gtl 1 with the anti-PDGF antibody resulted in the cloning and sequencing of a cDNA with an open reading frame encoding a 38-kD cysteine-rich secreted protein which we show to be the major PDGF- related mitogen secreted by human vascular endothelial cells. The protein has a 45% overall homology to the translation product of the v- src-induced CEF-10 mRNA from chick embryo fibroblasts. We have termed this new mitogen connective tissue growth factor.
Association of HLA Polymorphisms with Post‐transplant Lymphoproliferative Disorder in Solid‐Organ Transplant Recipients

The association between HLA polymorphisms and PTLD was investigated in a case–control study, comparing 110 predominantly adult solid‐organ transplant recipients who developed PTLD to 5601 who did not. Donor and recipient HLA were analyzed. We detected a significant association between recipient HLA‐A26 and the development of PTLD (OR 2.74; p = 0.0007). In Caucasian recipients, both recipient and donor HLA‐A26 were independently associated with development of PTLD (recipient A26 OR 2.99; p = 0.0004, donor A26 OR 2.81; p = 0.002). Analysis of HLA‐A and ‐B haplotypes revealed that recipient HLA‐A26, B38 haplotype was strongly correlated with a higher incidence of EBV‐positive PTLD (OR 3.99; p = 0.001). The common ancestral haplotype HLA‐A1, B8, DR3, when carried by the donor, was protective against PTLD (OR 0.41; p = 0.05). Several other HLA specificities demonstrated associations with clinical and pathological characteristics as well as survival. These findings demonstrate the importance of HLA polymorphisms in modulating the risk for PTLD, and may be useful in risk stratification and development of monitoring and prophylaxis strategies.
Elevated IL-1α and CXCL10 Serum Levels Occur in Patients with Homozygous Sickle Cell Disease and a History of Acute Splenic Sequestration

Acute splenic sequestration (ASS) and chronic hypersplenism are common features of homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease in the first 5 years of life affecting one-third of subjects in the Jamaican Cohort Study. The risk factors are largely unknown and the current study explores a possible role of genetic factors. We have explored these in subjects who received splenectomy in the management of ASS (n=8) or chronic hypersplenism (n=9) along with age, gender, and genotype matched controls using Luminex Technology to assess 42 human cytokines/chemokines, including IL-1α and CXCL10 (IP-10). Levels of IL-1α (p=0.008) and CXCL10 (p=0.009) were significantly elevated in patients treated by splenectomy compared with the control group. Levels of IL-1α were significantly higher in those with a history of ASS compared with matched normal controls (p=0.028) but not in those treated for hypersplenism (p=0.093). Furthermore, several significant differences were found in the median ratios of some cytokine biomarkers between the splenectomized group and the normal controls. These observations are consistent with acute splenic sequestration having a distinct phenotype which may be helpful in predicting those at risk of this complication and suggest that the mechanism of these differences merit further study.
Rabenosyn-5, a Novel Rab5 Effector, Is Complexed with Hvps45 and Recruited to Endosomes through a Fyve Finger Domain

Rab5 regulates endocytic membrane traffic by specifically recruiting cytosolic effector proteins to their site of action on early endosomal membranes. We have characterized a new Rab5 effector complex involved in endosomal fusion events. This complex includes a novel protein, Rabenosyn-5, which, like the previously characterized Rab5 effector early endosome antigen 1 (EEA1), contains an FYVE finger domain and is recruited in a phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase–dependent fashion to early endosomes. Rabenosyn-5 is complexed to the Sec1-like protein hVPS45. hVPS45 does not interact directly with Rab5, therefore Rabenosyn-5 serves as a molecular link between hVPS45 and the Rab5 GTPase. This property suggests that Rabenosyn-5 is a closer mammalian functional homologue of yeast Vac1p than EEA1. Furthermore, although both EEA1 and Rabenosyn-5 are required for early endosomal fusion, only overexpression of Rabenosyn-5 inhibits cathepsin D processing, suggesting that the two proteins play distinct roles in endosomal trafficking. We propose that Rab5-dependent formation of membrane domains enriched in phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate has evolved as a mechanism for the recruitment of multiple effector proteins to mammalian early endosomes, and that these domains are multifunctional, depending on the differing activities of the effector proteins recruited.
Graded persisting activity of heterogeneous neuron ensembles subject to white noises 1

Effects of distractions such as noises and parameter heterogeneity have been studied on the firing activity of ensemble neurons, each of which is described by the extended Morris-Lecar model showing the graded persisting firings with the aid of an included Ca 2+ -dependent cation current. Although the sustained activity of single neurons is rather robust in a sense that the activity is realized even in the presence of the distractions, the graded frequency of sustained firings is vulnerable to them. It has been shown, however, that the graded persisting activity of ensemble neurons becomes much robust to the distractions by the pooling (ensemble) effect. When the coupling is introduced, the synchronization of firings in ensemble neurons is enhanced, which is beneficial to firings of target neurons.
Robust Common Spatial Patterns Estimation Using Dynamic Time Warping to Improve BCI Systems

Common spatial patterns (CSP) is one of the most popular feature extraction algorithms for brain-computer interfaces (BCI). However, CSP is known to be very sensitive to artifacts and prone to overfitting. This paper proposes a novel dynamic time warping (DTW)-based approach to improve CSP covariance matrix estimation and hence improve feature extraction. Dynamic time warping is widely used for finding an optimal alignment between two time-dependent signals under predefined conditions. The proposed approach reduces within class temporal variations and non-stationarity by aligning the training trials to the average of the trials from the same class. The proposed DTW-based CSP approach is applied to the support vector machines (SVM) classifier and evaluated using one of the publicly available motor imagery datasets. The results showed that the proposed approach, when compared to the classical CSP, improved the classification accuracy from 78% to 83% on average. Importantly, for some subjects, the improvement was around 10%.
[Decreased bone mineral density in HIV-infected children receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy].

BACKGROUND In developed countries, the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has greatly improved survival and quality of life in HIV-infected children. Nevertheless, worrisome metabolic and bone alterations are beginning to be observed. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prevalence of alterations in bone mineral density and possible associated factors in a cohort of HIV-infected children receiving HAART. PATIENTS AND METHODS Bone dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) was performed in 50 HIV-infected children in a tertiary hospital in Madrid after a median length of HAART of 54 months. Subsequently, the group with bone mineral loss was compared with the group without bone mineral loss. RESULTS Forty percent of the children studied had decreased bone mineral density, of which 36 % had osteopenia (18/50) and 4 % had osteoporosis (2/50). No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups in any of the factors analyzed. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of decreased bone mineral density in our cohort of HIV-infected children receiving HAART is high. The etiology and factors associated with this alteration are still not well known.
Minimum Bayes-Risk Decoding for Statistical Machine Translation

Abstract : We present Minimum Bayes-Risk (MBR) decoding for statistical machine translation. This statistical approach aims to minimize expected loss of translation errors under loss functions that measure translation performance. We describe a hierarchy of loss functions that incorporate different levels of linguistic information from word strings, word-to-word alignments from an MT system, and syntactic structure from parse-trees of source and target language sentences. We report the performance of the MBR decoders on a Chinese-to-English translation task. Our results show that MBR decoding can be used to tune statistical MT performance for specific loss functions.
Fluctuations of Epstein-Barr Virus Serological Antibodies and Risk for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Prospective Screening Study with a 20-Year Follow-Up

Background The impact of variation of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibody titers before the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is still unclear. We analyzed the fluctuations of antibodies against EBV before histopathological diagnosis to assess the risk of NPC and aimed to provide a reliable basis for screening in high risk populations. Methods This study was based on a population-based screening program in Sihui County in Guangdong Province of China. A total of 18,986 subjects were recruited in 1987 and 1992, respectively. Baseline and repeated serological tests were performed for IgA antibodies against EBV capsid antigen (VCA/IgA) and early antigen (EA/IgA). Follow-up until the end of 2007 was accomplished through linkage with population and health registers. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the relative risk of NPC in association with EBV antibodies. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was used to further evaluate the predictive ability. Results A total of 125 NPCs occurred during an average of 16.9 years of follow-up. Using baseline information alone or together with repeated measurements, serological levels of VCA/IgA and EA/IgA were significantly associated with increased risks for NPC, with a striking dose-response relationship and most prominent during the first 5 years of follow-up. Considering the fluctuant types of serological titers observed during the first three tests, relative risk was highest among participants with ascending titers of EBV VCA/IgA antibodies with an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 21.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] 7.1 to 64.1), and lowest for those with decreasing titers (HR = 1.5, 95% CI 0.2 to 11.4), during the first 5 years of follow-up. Time-dependent ROC analysis showed that VCA/IgA had better predictive performance for NPC incidence than EA/IgA. Conclusion Our study documents that elevated EBV antibodies, particularly with ascending titers, are strongly associated with an increased risk for NPC.
Energy-aware clustering of ubiquitous devices for collaborative mobile applications

The continuous advances in mobile computing technologies have paved the way to the spreading of new classes of collaborative mobile applications. Clustering the mobile nodes into local groups may promote and ease collaborations. In this paper we propose a clustering scheme formulated as a multi-criteria optimization problem based on the weighted-sum approach. The aim of the optimization is to maximize the network lifetime and the mobility similarity of the devices within a group. Depending on the specific application scenario, the weights associated to the cost functions can be properly tuned. Experimental results show that by using the proposed approach, the network lifetime is extended and the number of alive devices is significantly higher compared to alternative clustering strategies, while meeting application-level performance constraints as high mobility similarity within a cluster.
Endothelin-1–Induced Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in Disease

The accumulation of unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) represents a cellular stress induced by multiple stimuli and pathologic conditions. Recent evidence implicates endothelin-1 (ET-1) in the induction of placental ER stress in pregnancy disorders. ER stress has previously also been implicated in various other disease states, including neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, as has ET-1 in the pathophysiology of these conditions. However, to date, there has been no investigation of the link between ET-1 and the induction of ER stress in these disease states. Based on recent evidence and mechanistic insight into the role of ET-1 in the induction of placental ER stress, the following review attempts to outline the broader implications of ET-1–induced ER stress, as well as strategies for therapeutic intervention based around ET-1.
Caspase-11 Mediates Oligodendrocyte Cell Death and Pathogenesis of Autoimmune-Mediated Demyelination

Multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), are inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by localized areas of demyelination. The mechanisms underlying oligodendrocyte (OLG) injury in MS and EAE remain unknown. Here we show that caspase-11 plays crucial roles in OLG death and pathogenesis in EAE. Caspase-11 and activated caspase-3 were both expressed in OLGs in spinal cord EAE lesions. OLGs from caspase-11–deficient mice were highly resistant to the cell death induced by cytotoxic cytokines. EAE susceptibility and cytokine concentrations in the CNS were significantly reduced in caspase-11–deficient mice. Our findings suggest that OLG death is mediated by a pathway that involves caspases-11 and -3 and leads to the demyelination observed in EAE.
Protracted Course of Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus WE Infection in Early Life: Induction but Limited Expansion of CD8+ Effector T Cells and Absence of Memory CD8+ T Cells

ABSTRACT Viral infections in human infants frequently follow a protracted course, with higher viral loads and delayed viral clearance compared to viral infections in older children. To identify the mechanisms responsible for this protracted pattern of infection, we developed an infant infection murine model using the well-characterized lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) WE strain in 2-week-old BALB/c mice. In contrast to adult mice, in which viral clearance occurred as expected 8 days after infection, LCMV titers persisted for several weeks after infection of infant mice. LCMV-specific effector CD8+ T cells were elicited in infant mice and fully functional on day 7 but rapidly waned and could not be recovered from day 12 onwards. We show here that this results from the failure of LCMV-specific CD8+ T cells to expand and the absence of protective LCMV-specific memory CD8+ T cells. Under these early life conditions, viral control and clearance are eventually achieved only through LCMV-specific B cells that contribute to protect infant mice from early death or chronic infection.
Relationship Between Post-Concussion Headache and Neuropsychological Test Performance in High School Athletes

The relevance of headache to outcome following sports concussion is poorly understood and no studies exist examining this issue. The current study was conducted to investigate whether postconcussion headaches are associated with neurocognitive deficits and/or presence of other postconcussion symptoms at approximately one-week post injury. Study participants included 110 high school athletes who sustained concussion. Concussed athletes were divided into two groups, those reporting no headache at approximately day 7 post-injury and those reporting headaches. Dependent measures included symptom and neurocognitive test results collected via ImPACT, a computerized neuropsychological test battery. Groups were compared across both cognitive and symptom domains as well to the presentation of on-field markers of concussion severity at the time of injury. Results suggest that athletes reporting post-traumatic headache demonstrated significantly worse performance on Reaction Time (p < .001) and Memory (p < .02) cognitive composite scores as compared to athletes not reporting headache. These athletes also reported significantly more symptoms other than headache (p < .001) and were more likely to have demonstrated on-field anterograde amnesia (X = 4.2, p = .04). Our study suggests that any degree of post-concussion headache in high school athletes is likely associated with an incomplete recovery following concussion.
The Use of Social Networking Sites by Adolescents with Psychiatric Illnesses: A Qualitative Study

Abstract Background: Social networking sites (SNSs) are increasingly dominant platforms for communication among adolescents. Recently, concerns have been raised about the risks involved with SNS use, particularly among more vulnerable adolescents. Objective: Our goal was to explore the experience of SNS use by adolescents with psychiatric illnesses. We also sought to understand the ways in which these sites may be a useful way to communicate—as well as a potential source of increased stress—for this vulnerable population. Methods: We performed a qualitative study by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 20 adolescents (mean age, 16 years; 15 female and 5 male participants) attending the Yale Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Program, which includes 3 hours of outpatient treatment 3 or 4 days per week. Results: The participants in our study described multiple ways in which SNSs possessed unique utility as platforms for communication. Participants found that SNSs allowed them to reach out to a broader audience and to “broadcast” feelings of distress without forcing any specific person into a supportive discussion. In addition, SNSs were described as lower-stress means of communication that allowed responses to be carefully formulated; this led to participants sharing information that they would not have shared during face-to-face interactions. However, participants also described anxiety surrounding the pressure to be active on SNSs, and they found it stressful to be exposed to pictures and posts involving former romantic partners. Conclusion: SNSs provide a useful platform for adolescents with psychiatric illnesses to use to communicate, particularly with regard to communicating any feelings of distress. However, there are many ways in which SNSs can increase levels of anxiety, and this aspect may be an important focus of future clinical attention.
Dynamic Incentive Contracts Under Parameter Uncertainty

We analyze a long-term contracting problem involving common uncertainty about a parameter capturing the productivity of the relationship, and featuring a hidden action for the agent. We develop an approach that works for any utility function when the parameter and noise are normally distributed and when the effort and noise affect output additively. We then analytically solve for the optimal contract when the agent has exponential utility. We find that the Pareto frontier shifts out as information about the agent's quality improves. In the standard spot-market setup, by contrast, when the parameter measures the agent's 'quality', the Pareto frontier shifts inwards with better information. Commitment is therefore more valuable when quality is known more precisely. Incentives then are easier to provide because the agent has less room to manipulate the beliefs of the principal. Moreover, in contrast to results under one-period commitment, wage volatility declines as experience accumulates.
Temperature dependence of drain current transient response by gate pulse voltage in AlGaN / GaN high electron mobility transistors

In our previous studies, a AlGaN/GaN HEMTs (High Electron Mobilty Transistors) demonstrated a sharp drain current phenomenon in a cryogenic environment, which is not confirmed at room temperature. This phenomenon was not derived from the self-heating effect of GaN-HEMT but was considered as a current collapse phenomenon caused by crystal defects at the interface between i-GaN and AlGaN. In this study, we investigated IV characteristics change of AlGaN / GaN HEMT against ambient temperature change by changing drain voltage to pulse voltage. By a pulse of drain voltage, in addition to the pulse response when the two-dimensional electron gas carrier ware swept, the two response peaks were confirmed. One of them showed fluctuations that followed the temperature change. The temperature change of the response time constant of this peak was calculated, and the activation energy was calculated from the Arrhenius plot. The calculated activation energy was 0.575 eV, which agreed well with the literature value. It was suggested that the IV characteristic change due to the temperature change is caused by the current collapse phenomenon due to the carrier trap to the AlGaN layer. As a result of this study, it was shown that the identification of the crystal defect order in the AlGaN crystal becomes apparent from the analysis of the transient response characteristic of the drain pulse voltage.
Ba2+ ions evoke two kinetically distinct patterns of exocytosis in chromaffin cells, but not in neurohypophysial nerve terminals

The coupling between divalent cations and exocytosis of large dense- cored vesicles (LDCV) was studied with capacitance-detection techniques in nerve terminals of the rat neurohypophysis (NHP) and bovine chromaffin cells. Ba2+ substitution for Ca2+ produced kinetically distinct responses in the two preparations. In NHP terminals, Ba2+ ions behave as weak substitutes for Ca2+. Exocytotic events occur principally during depolarizing pulses, i.e., events are “stimulus- coupled” to Ba2+ entry through voltage-gated Ca2+ channels. Stimulus- coupled exocytosis apparently requires elevated submembrane cation concentrations that dissipate rapidly on hyperpolarization-induced Ca(2+)-channel closure. Intracellular dialysis of NHP terminals with Ba2+ does not evoke exocytosis, nor does it interfere with depolarization-evoked Ca2+ influx and exocytosis. In chromaffin cells, Ba2+ ions evoke a small quantity of stimulus-coupled secretion, but the dominant response is an additional pronounced poststimulus capacitance increase that outlasts channel closures by 20–50 sec. “Stimulus- decoupled” exocytosis is slow (approximately 25–40 fF/sec) compared with Ca(2+)-evoked stimulus-coupled exocytosis (approximately 1000 fF/sec). Decoupled secretion is not attributable to Ba2+ displacement of intracellular Ca2+ ions, because it is insensitive to 10 mM EGTA or thapsigargin. Slow exocytosis is initiated by inclusion of Ba2+ ions in the recording pipette and continues steadily for 5–12 min, producing a total increase of several thousand fF, which ultimately doubles or triples the original cell-surface area. We propose that two pathways of regulated exocytosis with distinct kinetics and divalent cation sensitivity exist in chromaffin cells. Only a single kinetic pattern is detected in NHP terminals, suggesting that mechanisms for secretion are not universally distributed in excitable cells.