Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mesenchymal Stem Cells Cancel Azoxymethane‐Induced Tumor Initiation

The role of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in tumorigenesis remains controversial. Therefore, our goal was to determine whether exogenous MSCs possess intrinsic antineoplastic or proneoplastic properties in azoxymethane (AOM)‐induced carcinogenesis. Three in vivo models were studied: an AOM/dextran sulfate sodium colitis‐associated carcinoma model, an aberrant crypt foci model, and a model to assess the acute apoptotic response of a genotoxic carcinogen (AARGC). We also performed in vitro coculture experiments. As a result, we found that MSCs partially canceled AOM‐induced tumor initiation but not tumor promotion. Moreover, MSCs inhibited the AARGC in colonic epithelial cells because of the removal of O6‐methylguanine (O6MeG) adducts through O6MeG‐DNA methyltransferase activation. Furthermore, MSCs broadly affected the cell‐cycle machinery, potentially leading to G1 arrest in vivo. Coculture of IEC‐6 rat intestinal cells with MSCs not only arrested the cell cycle at the G1 phase, but also induced apoptosis. The anti‐carcinogenetic properties of MSCs in vitro required transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β signaling because such properties were completely abrogated by absorption of TGF‐β under indirect coculture conditions. MSCs inhibited AOM‐induced tumor initiation by preventing the initiating cells from sustaining DNA insults and subsequently inducing G1 arrest in the initiated cells that escaped from the AARGC. Furthermore, tumor initiation perturbed by MSCs might potentially dysregulate WNT and TGF‐β‐Smad signaling pathways in subsequent tumorigenesis. Obtaining a better understanding of MSC functions in colon carcinogenesis is essential before commencing the broader clinical application of promising MSC‐based therapies for cancer‐prone patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Stem Cells 2014;32:913–925
Molecular Mechanisms Underlying β-Adrenergic Receptor-Mediated Cross-Talk between Sympathetic Neurons and Immune Cells

Cross-talk between the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and immune system is vital for health and well-being. Infection, tissue injury and inflammation raise firing rates of sympathetic nerves, increasing their release of norepinephrine (NE) in lymphoid organs and tissues. NE stimulation of β2-adrenergic receptors (ARs) in immune cells activates the cAMP-protein kinase A (PKA) intracellular signaling pathway, a pathway that interfaces with other signaling pathways that regulate proliferation, differentiation, maturation and effector functions in immune cells. Immune–SNS cross-talk is required to maintain homeostasis under normal conditions, to develop an immune response of appropriate magnitude after injury or immune challenge, and subsequently restore homeostasis. Typically, β2-AR-induced cAMP is immunosuppressive. However, many studies report actions of β2-AR stimulation in immune cells that are inconsistent with typical cAMP–PKA signal transduction. Research during the last decade in non-immune organs, has unveiled novel alternative signaling mechanisms induced by β2-AR activation, such as a signaling switch from cAMP–PKA to mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. If alternative signaling occurs in immune cells, it may explain inconsistent findings of sympathetic regulation of immune function. Here, we review β2-AR signaling, assess the available evidence for alternative signaling in immune cells, and provide insight into the circumstances necessary for “signal switching” in immune cells.
Surface markers of cloned human T cells with various cytolytic activities

Human T cells stimulated in secondary allogeneic mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) were cloned under limiting conditions in microculture systems using T cell growth factor and irradiated allogeneic cells. Clones with lytic activity against either phytohemagglutinin-induced blast cells bearing the stimulating alloantigen(s) (cytotoxic T lymphocyte [CTL] activity), L1210 mouse lymphoma cells coated with rabbit antibody (antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity [ADCC]), or K562 human target cells were selected, expanded, and then analyzed for different surface markers, including rosette formation with sheep erythrocytes (E rosettes), receptors for the fc portion of IgG or IgM (Fc gamma R and Fc mu R), and a group of antigens recognized by monoclonal antibodies including Ia, 4F2, OKT8,a nd OKT4. All the cytotoxic cells were E rosette+, Ia+ and 4f2+. Expression of Fc gamma R was restricted to the clones active in ADCC. CTL clones were either OKT8+ or OKT8-. Furthermore, three of the OKT8- CTL clones were OKT4+. In addition, some cytolytic clones devoid of specific CTL activity were OKT8+. It thus appears that the claim that human CTL are OKT8+, OKT4-, and Ia- is not supported by the analysis of their phenotype at the clonal level.
Suturing techniques and postoperative management in penetrating keratoplasty in the United Kingdom

Aims To report on the suturing techniques and aspects of postoperative management in penetrating keratoplasty in the United Kingdom. Methods A postal questionnaire was sent to 137 ophthalmic consultants identified from a Royal College of Ophthalmology database as having a special interest in anterior segment surgery. The questionnaire surveyed surgeon preferences for surgical and suturing technique for penetrating keratoplasty surgery, and the postoperative care of corneal grafts. Results In all, 68% of questionnaires were completed and returned: 73% of respondents used a Flieringa ring or equivalent, 94% routinely used cardinal sutures, with 50.5% removing them at the end of the procedure. The most common suturing technique for routine penetrating keratoplasty was a single continuous suture (35%). In these cases, a 10/0 nylon suture was used by 89%. Sixty-six percent changed their technique in high-risk cases, 52% used a 3-1-1 knot, and 75% made a distinction between a reef and granny knot, with 76% using a reef. Thirty percent buried the knots within the donor material, and 29% within the host tissue. Twenty-five percent had no routine time for graft suture removal, but 41% removed them between 1 and 2 years post-surgery. After suture removal, 98% used steroids and 88% used topical antibiotics. Thirty-four percent stopped topical steroids before suture removal, with 38% stopping topical steroids more than 3 months prior to suture removal. Conclusion This survey demonstrates that there is considerable variation in suturing techniques and postoperative care for penetrating keratoplasty. These significant variations in practice need to be considered when interpreting outcomes and research.
Factors influencing the level of use of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) in Sokoto state, Nigeria

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is paramount to the success of farming activities today in the face of the menace of climate change. This study therefore investigated the frequency of usage of CSA and the factors influencing its level of usage in the Northern agricultural zone of Sokoto State. A well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The data used for the analysis were cross sectional data collected from 120 rural farming households in six (6) villages across two (2) local government areas. Descriptive statistics, Adaptation Strategy Use Index (ASUI) and ordered probit regression model were used for data analysis. Results indicated that the majority of the respondents were male (83.33%), married (83.33%), had Quranic education (73.33%), household size of 1-10 persons (58.33%), farming experience of 16-30 years (49.17%) and were between the ages of 46 and 60 (44.17%). Similarly, the practice of conservation agriculture was the most used CSAP in the study area, while the results of the ordered probit regression showed that years of education and membership of a social group were significant explanatory variables influencing the level of use of CSAP among the low user and high user categories at the 10% and 1% level of significance respectively, while access to credit significantly influenced only the low user category at the 10% level of significance. The study therefore concluded that CSAPs were being practiced at different levels in the study area with various factors influencing their usage, and it therefore recommended that the farming households be well enlightened by extension agents on the benefits of CSAPs.
Light emission near 1.3 /spl mu/m using ITO-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/-Si/sub 0.3/Ge/sub 0.7/-Si tunnel diodes

We have fabricated Sn : In/sub 2/O/sub 3/ (ITO)-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ dielectric on Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/-Si metal-oxide-semiconductor tunnel diodes which emit light at around 1.3 /spl mu/m, for x=0.7. The emitted photon energy is smaller than the bandgap energy of Si, thus, avoiding strong light absorption by the Si substrate. The optical device structure is compatible with that of a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, since a conventional doped poly-Si gate electrode will be transparent to the emitted light. Increasing the Ge composition from 0.3 to 0.4 only slightly decreases the light-emitting efficiency.
Construction of quantized enveloping algebras by cocycle deformation

By using cocycle deformation, we construct a certain class of Hopf algebras, containing the quantized enveloping algebras and their analogues, from what we call pre-Nichols algebras. Our construction generalizes in some sense the known construction by (generalized) quantum doubles, but unlike in the known situation, it saves us from difficulties in checking complicated defining relations.
Late Ordovician high-Mg adakitic andesite in the western South China block: evidence of oceanic subduction

ABSTRACT The Early Palaeozoic was an important period in the geologic evolution of the South China block (SCB), marking the intracontinental orogen in the Wuyi-Yunkai region. One salient feature of the western SCB is the absence of Early Palaeozoic oceanic subduction-related magmatism. Here, we report the first known occurrence of Late Ordovician andesites from the Shimian area, western SCB. Zircon SHRIMP U–Pb dating reveals that the andesites formed at ca. 451 Ma. They have geochemical features of high-Mg adakitic andesite (HMAA) and are characterized by low K2O (1.09–2.24 wt.%) and Th (2.50–5.65 ppm) and high MgO (4.02–6.91 wt.%) and Mg# (56–71). Furthermore, their zircon grains display positive εHf(t) (+11.4 to +19.6) and low δ18O (4.72–6.20‰) values. The andesites are interpreted to have been derived from partial melting of a peridotitic mantle wedge in an oceanic subduction setting and subsequent fractional crystallization. Integrating previous studies of the Qinling-Dabie orogenic belt with the data presented in this contribution, we suggest that the SCB was probably involved in the Early Palaeozoic Andean-type orogeny along the Gondwanan proto-Tethyan margin. Graphical Abstract
Guanine base stacking in G-quadruplex nucleic acids

G-quadruplexes constitute a class of nucleic acid structures defined by stacked guanine tetrads (or G-tetrads) with guanine bases from neighboring tetrads stacking with one another within the G-tetrad core. Individual G-quadruplexes can also stack with one another at their G-tetrad interface leading to higher-order structures as observed in telomeric repeat-containing DNA and RNA. In this study, we investigate how guanine base stacking influences the stability of G-quadruplexes and their stacked higher-order structures. A structural survey of the Protein Data Bank is conducted to characterize experimentally observed guanine base stacking geometries within the core of G-quadruplexes and at the interface between stacked G-quadruplex structures. We couple this survey with a systematic computational examination of stacked G-tetrad energy landscapes using quantum mechanical computations. Energy calculations of stacked G-tetrads reveal large energy differences of up to 12 kcal/mol between experimentally observed geometries at the interface of stacked G-quadruplexes. Energy landscapes are also computed using an AMBER molecular mechanics description of stacking energy and are shown to agree quite well with quantum mechanical calculated landscapes. Molecular dynamics simulations provide a structural explanation for the experimentally observed preference of parallel G-quadruplexes to stack in a 5′–5′ manner based on different accessible tetrad stacking modes at the stacking interfaces of 5′–5′ and 3′–3′ stacked G-quadruplexes.
Findings From a Randomized Controlled Trial of Fecal Transplantation for Patients With Ulcerative Colitis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Several case series have reported the effects of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for ulcerative colitis (UC). We assessed the efficacy and safety of FMT for patients with UC in a double-blind randomized trial. METHODS Patients with mild to moderately active UC (n = 50) were assigned to groups that underwent FMT with feces from healthy donors or were given autologous fecal microbiota (control); each transplant was administered via nasoduodenal tube at the start of the study and 3 weeks later. The study was performed at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam from June 2011 through May 2014. The composite primary end point was clinical remission (simple clinical colitis activity index scores ≤2) combined with ≥1-point decrease in the Mayo endoscopic score at week 12. Secondary end points were safety and microbiota composition by phylogenetic microarray in fecal samples. RESULTS Thirty-seven patients completed the primary end point assessment. In the intention-to-treat analysis, 7 of 23 patients who received fecal transplants from healthy donors (30.4%) and 5 of 25 controls (20.0%) achieved the primary end point (P = .51). In the per-protocol analysis, 7 of 17 patients who received fecal transplants from healthy donors (41.2%) and 5 of 20 controls (25.0%) achieved the primary end point (P = .29). Serious adverse events occurred in 4 patients (2 in the FMT group), but these were not considered to be related to the FMT. At 12 weeks, the microbiota of responders in the FMT group was similar to that of their healthy donors; remission was associated with proportions of Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa. CONCLUSIONS In this phase 2 trial, there was no statistically significant difference in clinical and endoscopic remission between patients with UC who received fecal transplants from healthy donors and those who received their own fecal microbiota, which may be due to limited numbers. However, the microbiota of responders had distinct features from that of nonresponders, warranting further study. ClinicalTrials.gov Number: NCT01650038.
Informative Shape Representations for Human Action Recognition

Shape and kinematics are two important cues in human movement analysis. Due to real difficulties in extracting kinematics from videos accurately, this paper proposes to address the problem of human action recognition by spatiotemporal shape analysis. Without explicit feature tracking and complex probabilistic modeling of human movements, we directly convert an associated sequence of human silhouettes derived from videos into two types of computationally efficient representations, i.e., average motion energy and mean motion shape, to characterize actions. Supervised pattern classification techniques using various distance measures are used for recognition. The encouraging experimental results are obtained on a recent dataset including 10 different actions from 9 subjects
Differences in genetic and environmental influences on the human cerebral cortex associated with development during childhood and adolescence

In this report, we present the first regional quantitative analysis of age‐related differences in the heritability of cortical thickness using anatomic MRI with a large pediatric sample of twins, twin siblings, and singletons (n = 600, mean age 11.1 years, range 5–19). Regions of primary sensory and motor cortex, which develop earlier, both phylogenetically and ontologically, show relatively greater genetic effects earlier in childhood. Later developing regions within the dorsal prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes conversely show increasingly prominent genetic effects with maturation. The observation that regions associated with complex cognitive processes such as language, tool use, and executive function are more heritable in adolescents than children is consistent with previous studies showing that IQ becomes increasingly heritable with maturity(Plomin et al. 1997 : Psychol Sci 8:442–447). These results suggest that both the specific cortical region and the age of the population should be taken into account when using cortical thickness as an intermediate phenotype to link genes, environment, and behavior. Hum Brain Mapp, 2009. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Implementing Role Based Access Control for Federated Information Systems on the Web

There is rapidly increasing interest in Australia in on-line sharing of information stored in corporate databases, especially within and between staff of independent government agencies. Biological collections databases and population health GIS are good examples of the frequent situation where database custodians are looking for dynamic, distributed, heterogenous federated information system models for information sharing within loosely constituted communities. This paper describes a security model for authentication and access control to federated systems. The model supports single sign-on for users; a high level of autonomy for database custodians; and a low maintenance overhead. The model's implementation using PKI and Web technology is described.
Brain development in healthy, hyperactive, and psychotic children.

Serious and chronic childhood psychiatric disorders have long been assumed to reflect relatively subtle abnormalities of brain development. Although diagnostic brain imaging is well established in pediatric neurology, it has not yet permitted quantitative assessment of brain abnormalities in children with psychiatric illnesses. Recent advances in brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allow reliable, automated, quantitative measurement of multiple brain regions. 1 The noninvasive nature of MRI also allows periodic rescanning for research purposes, making prospective longitudinal study of brain development feasible in large numbers of healthy children and those with psychiatric illness. 2,3 Longitudinal MRI of the brain also makes possible the mapping of region-specific changes in brain volume over time.
SH2- and SH3-mediated Interactions between Focal Adhesion Kinase and Src*

Intramolecular SH2 and SH3 interactions mediate enzymatic repression of the Src kinases. One mechanism of activation is disruption of these interactions by the formation of higher affinity SH2 and SH3 interactions with specific ligands. We show that a consensus Src SH3-binding site residing upstream of the Src SH2-binding site in FAK can function as a ligand for the Src SH3 domain. Surface plasmon resonance experiments indicate that a FAK peptide containing both the Src SH2- and SH3-binding sites exhibits increased affinity for Src. Furthermore, the presence of both sites in vitro more potently activates c-Src. A FAK mutant (FAKPro-2) with substitutions destroying the SH3-binding site shows reduced binding to Src in vivo. This mutation also reduces Src-dependent tyrosine phosphorylation on the mutant itself and downstream substrates, such as paxillin. These observations suggest that an SH3-mediated interaction between Src-like kinases and FAK may be important for complex formation and downstream signaling in vivo.
A bundle of problems

Delay-Tolerant Networking” (DTN) is a neologism used for a new store-and-forward architecture and protocol suite intended for disrupted networks where there is intermittent or ad-hoc connectivity. This has been proposed as one approach to supporting delay-tolerant networks. Work in the late 1990s on the “Interplanetary Internet” forms the basis for current DTN protocols and architecture. That early work considered transport protocols robust to the hours-long propagation delays of deep-space communications. DTN is also known, primarily in military circles, as Disruption-Tolerant Networking, due to the dynamic links and outages in the military tactical environment, rather than long-delay links. In both cases, DTN technologies are well-suited to applications that are mostly asynchronous and insensitive to large variations in delivery conditions. DTN networks differ sufficiently from traditional terrestrial networks in their characteristics and connectivity that link, network and transport protocols must be carefully considered and chosen to cope with these different characteristics, or new protocols can be designed that are suited for the problems that these DTN network conditions impose. The “Bundle Protocol” exists within the DTN architecture, which sends bundles over subnet-specific transport protocols, called “convergence layers. ” “Bundling” has undergone a large amount of shared development and design over a period of years as a research effort. We examine the Bundle Protocol and its related architecture closely, and discuss areas where we have found that the current Bundle approach is not well-suited to many of the operational concepts that it was intended to support. Problems with the Bundle Protocol and its convergence layers exist in mechanisms for error detection and overall reliability. This weakens the Bundle Protocol's suitability to disrupted and error-prone networks. We show that these reliability issues can lead to performance problems in DTN networks, requiring mitigation. Open research and development areas also exist with design choices in handling timing information, in determining necessary and sufficient security mechanisms, in its Quality of Service capabilities, and in other aspects of application or content identification. We show that the existing DTN bundling architecture has a number of open real-world deployment issues that can be addressed. We suggest possible remediation strategies for these weak areas of the bundle protocol that we have been working on. We also look at alternate approaches to DTN networking. Rather than only providing criticism, this paper identifies open issues, where work on modifying the Bundle Protocol is encouraged and approaches to address its various problems are suggested.