Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accelerated healing of chronic sickle-cell leg ulcers treated with RGD peptide matrix. RGD Study Group.

Leg ulcers are a chronic manifestation of sickle-cell disease (SCD) and are often painful, disabling, and difficult to treat. RGD peptide matrix treatment is a novel therapy designed to provide a topical synthetic extracellular matrix that can act as a temporary substitute for the damaged natural matrix at the ulcer site. In this randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, prospective, multicenter investigation, SCD patients with full-thickness leg ulcers were treated with standard therapy plus RGD peptide matrix or saline placebo once weekly for up to 10 weeks. Healing in patients with chronic ulcers (2 months or greater in duration) was significantly accelerated (P = .0085) in RGD peptide matrix recipients compared with the placebo group. In these chronic ulcer cases, the average percent ulcer closure (decrease in ulcer surface area) in the RGD peptide matrix group (54.4% +/- 8.9%) exceeded that in the placebo group (19.0% +/- 24.3%) nearly threefold by study endpoint. Furthermore, RGD peptide matrix was equally effective in promoting healing of long persistent ulcers and ulcers of shorter duration. In contrast, standard therapy plus placebo was significantly less effective (P = .001) in promoting healing for ulcers of progressively greater duration. The results of this study provide preliminary evidence that RGD peptide matrix treatment may significantly accelerate healing of chronic sickle-cell leg ulcers.
Improved Material Constants for LiNb03 and LiTaO3

Piezoelectric substrates used for SAW devices are characterized by their linear elastic, piezo- electric and dielectric material constants. These data can be computed from precise SAW velocity measure- ments by a non-linear least squares algorithm, if the measured crystal cut is sensitive to all those material constants. For LiNb03 such a cut is the 128' rot Y- cut. New measurements on the entire surface of that cut are presented. Results for free and metallized sur- face - including mechanical loading influence - are given as trigonometric expansions. These recent measurements as well as our previous re- sults on Y-cut are the basis for the calculation of an improved dataset of LiNbOa. The same algorithm was also applied to LiTa03, for which we used our measure- ments on X-cut, published last year. Here we present datasets for both materials. Further we include er- ror bounds for each individual constant derived from its influence on the SAW velocities and from the mea- surement accuracy.
Cross-Tolerization between Nod1 and Nod2 Signaling Results in Reduced Refractoriness to Bacterial Infection in Nod2-Deficient Macrophages1

Nod2 is an intracellular innate immune receptor that plays a role in host defense and susceptibility to inflammatory disease. We show in this study that macrophages rendered refractory to TLR4 and Nod2 signaling by exposure to LPS and muramyl dipeptide (MDP) exhibit impaired TNF-α and IL-6 production in response to pathogenic Listeria monocytogenes and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis as well as commensal bacteria including Escherichia coli and Bacteroides fragilis. Surprisingly, Nod2 deficiency was associated with impaired tolerization in response to pathogenic and commensal bacteria. Mechanistically, reduced tolerization of Nod2-null macrophages was mediated by recognition of bacteria through Nod1 because it was abolished in macrophages deficient in Nod1 and Nod2. Consistently, Nod2-null macrophages tolerant to LPS and MDP showed enhanced production of TNF-α and IL-6 as well as increased NF-κB and MAPK activation in response to the dipeptide KF1B, the Nod1 agonist. Furthermore, reduced tolerization of Nod2-deficient macrophages in response to bacteria was abolished when mutant macrophages were also rendered tolerant to the Nod1 ligand. Finally, MDP stimulation induced refractoriness not only to MDP, but also to iE-DAP stimulation, providing a mechanism to explain the reduced tolerization of Nod2-deficient macrophages infected with bacteria. These results demonstrate that cross-tolerization between Nod1 and Nod2 leads to increase recognition of both pathogenic and commensal bacteria in Nod2-deficient macrophages pre-exposed to microbial ligands.
Improving TCP performance over an on-board multi-homed network

Previously, a multi-homed NEMO architecture has been proposed to improve the reliability and aggregate the bandwidth of MR by simultaneously using multiple wireless links. In this work, we propose a novel protocol called ETOM (Enhancements for TCP On a Multi-homed mobile router) to improve the performance of sending a single TCP connection over multiple wireless links on a MR. ETOM consists of three components. First, we use a reordering buffer to eliminate unnecessary retransmission caused by out-of-order packets. Second, we develop a Multi-homed Split Connection mechanism to enable the TCP connection to quickly adapt to the conditions of multiple links when packet loss occurs. Finally, a Scheduled Window-based Transmission Control algorithm is proposed to mitigate the negative effects of out-of-order packets in the case of using heterogeneous links in a multi-homed environment. We evaluate the performance of ETOM by comparing it with the Concurrent Multi-path Transfer SCTP (CMT-SCTP). ETOM resolves several performance issues that could hinder the development and practical application of multi-homed mobile router technology.
Effects of ozone, chlorine dioxide, chlorine, and monochloramine on Cryptosporidium parvum oocyst viability

Purified Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts were exposed to ozone, chlorine dioxide, chlorine, and monochloramine. Excystation and mouse infectivity were comparatively evaluated to assess oocyst viability. Ozone and chlorine dioxide more effectively inactivated oocysts than chlorine and monochloramine did. Greater than 90% inactivation as measured by infectivity was achieved by treating oocysts with 1 ppm of ozone (1 mg/liter) for 5 min. Exposure to 1.3 ppm of chlorine dioxide yielded 90% inactivation after 1 h, while 80 ppm of chlorine and 80 ppm of monochloramine required approximately 90 min for 90% inactivation. The data indicate that C. parvum oocysts are 30 times more resistant to ozone and 14 times more resistant to chlorine dioxide than Giardia cysts exposed to these disinfectants under the same conditions. With the possible exception of ozone, the use of disinfectants alone should not be expected to inactivate C. parvum oocysts in drinking water.
Improving Domain-independent Cloud-Based Speech Recognition with Domain-Dependent Phonetic Post-Processing

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology has been developed to such a level that off-the-shelf distributed speech recognition services are available (free of cost), which allow researchers to integrate speech into their applications with little development effort or expert knowledge leading to better results compared with previously used open-source tools. Often, however, such services do not accept language models or grammars but process free speech from any domain. While results are very good given the enormous size of the search space, results frequently contain out-of-domain words or constructs that cannot be understood by subsequent domain-dependent natural language understanding (NLU) components. We present a versatile post-processing technique based on phonetic distance that integrates domain knowledge with open-domain ASR results, leading to improved ASR performance. Notably, our technique is able to make use of domain restrictions using various degrees of domain knowledge, ranging from pure vocabulary restrictions via grammars or N-Grams to restrictions of the acceptable utterances. We present results for a variety of corpora (mainly from human-robot interaction) where our combined approach significantly outperforms Google ASR as well as a plain open-source ASR solution.
Cytokine Signature in End-Stage Renal Disease Patients on Hemodialysis

Hemodialysis is a modality of blood filtration in which accumulated toxins and water are removed from the body. This treatment is indicated for patients at the end stage of renal disease. Vascular access complications are responsible for 20–25% of all hospitalizations in dialyzed patients. The occurrence of thrombosis in the vascular access is a serious problem that may severely compromise or even make the hemodialysis impossible, which is vital for the patient. The aim of this study was to investigate inflammatory profile in patients undergoing hemodialysis as well as the association between these alterations and vascular access thrombosis. A total of 195 patients undergoing hemodialysis have been evaluated; of which, 149 patients had not experienced vascular access thrombosis (group I) and 46 patients had previously presented this complication (group II). Plasma levels of cytokines including interleukin (IL-) 2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ were measured by cytometric bead array. Our results showed that patients with previous thrombotic events (group II) had higher levels of the IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, and IFN-γ when compared to those in group I. Furthermore, a different cytokine signature was detected in dialyzed patients according to previous occurrences or not of thrombotic events, suggesting that elevated levels of T-helper 1 and T-helper 2 cytokines might, at least in part, contribute to this complication.
Epidemic Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease Caused by Human Enterovirus 71, Singapore

Singapore experienced a large epidemic of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in 2000. After reviewing HFMD notifications from doctors and child-care centers, we found that the incidence of HFMD rose in September and declined at the end of October. During this period, 3,790 cases were reported. We performed enteroviral cultures on 311 and 157 specimens from 175 HFMD patients and 107 non-HFMD patients, respectively; human enterovirus 71 (HEV71) was the most frequently isolated virus from both groups. Most of the HFMD patients were <4 years of age. Three HFMD and two non-HFMD patients died. Specimens from two HFMD and both non-HFMD patients were culture positive for HEV71; a third patient was possibly associated with the virus. Autopsies performed on all three HFMD and one of the non-HFMD case-patients showed encephalitis, interstitial pneumonitis, and myocarditis. A preparedness plan for severe HFMD outbreaks provided for the prompt, coordinated actions needed to control the epidemic.
A Long Noncoding RNA ZEB1-AS1 Promotes Tumorigenesis and Predicts Poor Prognosis in Glioma

Emerging studies show that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have important roles in carcinogenesis. lncRNA ZEB1 antisense 1 (ZEB1-AS1) is a novel lncRNA, whose clinical significance, biological function, and underlying mechanism remains unclear in glioma. Here, we found that ZEB1-AS1 was highly expressed in glioma tissues, being closely related to clinical stage of glioma. Moreover, patients with high ZEB1-AS1 levels had poor prognoses, with the evidence provided by multivariate Cox regression analysis indicating that ZEB1-AS1 expression could serve as an independent prognostic factor in glioma patients. Functionally, silencing of ZEB1-AS1 could significantly inhibit cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, as well as promote apoptosis. Knockdown of ZEB1-AS1 significantly induced the G0/G1 phase arrest and correspondingly decreased the percentage of S phase cells. Further analysis indicated that ZEB1-AS1 could regulate the cell cycle by inhibiting the expression of G1/S transition key regulators, such as Cyclin D1 and CDK2. Furthermore, ZEB1-AS1 functioned as an important regulator of migration and invasion via activating epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) through up-regulating the expression of ZEB1, MMP2, MMP9, N-cadherin, and Integrin-β1 as well as decreasing E-cadherin levels in the metastatic progression of glioma. Additionally, forced down-regulation of ZEB1-AS1 could dramatically promote apoptosis by increasing the expression level of Bax and reducing Bcl-2 expression in glioma. Taken together, our data suggest that ZEB1-AS1 may serve as a new prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target of glioma.
Parathyroid Hormone-Related Protein Promotes Rat Stem Leydig Cell Differentiation

The regulatory factors for stem Leydig cell development are largely unknown. Herein, we reported that parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) may be a factor to regulate this process. The effects of PTHrP on rat stem Leydig cell proliferation and differentiation were investigated using a stem Leydig cell culture system and an ethane dimethane sulfonate (EDS)-treated in vivo Leydig cell regeneration model. PTHrP (1,000 pg/ml) significantly increased medium testosterone level and up-regulated STAR, CYP17A1, and 17β-HSD3 expressions. Co-treatment with PKA inhibitor H-89 or PKC inhibitor U73122 reversed PTHrP-mediated increase of testosterone production in vitro. Intratesticular injection of PTHrP (100 ng/testis) into the Leydig cell-depleted testis from post-EDS day 7 to 21 significantly increased serum testosterone level, up-regulated LHCGR, SCARB1, CYP11A1, 11β-HSD1, and CYP17A1 expressions. It also enlarged Leydig cell size without affecting PCNA-labeled Leydig cell number. This indicates that PTHrP promotes stem Leydig cell differentiation. PTHrP in vivo increased CREB and p-CREB levels, suggesting that PTHrP acts via a PKA-CREB signaling pathway. In conclusion, PTHrP stimulates stem Leydig cell differentiation without affecting its proliferation, showing its novel action and mechanism on rat stem Leydig cell development.
The Devil is in the Constants: Bypassing Defenses in Browser JIT Engines

Return-oriented programming (ROP) has become the dominant form of vulnerability exploitation in both user and kernel space. Many defenses against ROP exploits exist, which can significantly raise the bar against attackers. Although protecting existing code, such as applications and the kernel, might be possible, taking countermeasures against dynamic code, i.e., code that is generated only at run-time, is much harder. Attackers have already started exploiting Just-in-Time (JIT) engines, available in all modern browsers, to introduce their (shell)code (either native code or re-usable gadgets) during JIT compilation, and then taking advantage of it. Recognizing this immediate threat, browser vendors started employing defenses for hardening their JIT engines. In this paper, we show that—no matter the employed defenses—JIT engines are still exploitable using solely dynamically generated gadgets. We demonstrate that dynamic ROP payload construction is possible in two modern web browsers without using any of the available gadgets contained in the browser binary or linked libraries. First, we exploit an open source JIT engine (Mozilla Firefox) by feeding it malicious JavaScript, which once processed generates all required gadgets for running any shellcode successfully. Second, we exploit a proprietary JIT engine, the one in the 64-bit Microsoft Internet Explorer, which employs many undocumented, specially crafted defenses against JIT exploitation. We manage to bypass all of them and create the required gadgets for running any shellcode successfully. All defensive techniques are documented in this paper to assist other researchers. Furthermore, besides showing how to construct ROP gadgets on-the-fly, we also show how to discover them on-the-fly, rendering current randomization schemes ineffective. Finally, we perform an analysis of the most important defense currently employed, namely constant blinding, which shields all three-byte or larger immediate values in the JIT buffer for hindering the construction of ROP gadgets. Our analysis suggests that extending constant blinding to all immediate values (i.e., shielding 1-byte and 2-byte constants) dramatically decreases the JIT engine’s performance, introducing up to 80% additional instructions.
Evolving fuzzy image segmentation

Image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label are connected and meaningful, and share certain visual characteristics. Pixels in a region are similar with respect to some features or property, such as color, intensity, or texture. Adjacent regions may be significantly different with respect to the same characteristics. Therefore, it is difficult for a static (non-learning) segmentation technique to accurately segment different images with different characteristics. In this paper, an evolving fuzzy system is used to segment medical images. The system uses some training images to build an initial fuzzy system which then evolves online as new images are encountered. Each new image is segmented using the evolved fuzzy system and may contribute to updating the system. This process provides better segmentation results for new images compared to static paradigms. The average of segmentation accuracy for test images is calculated by comparing every segmented image with its gold standard image prepared manually by an expert.
Stochastic Approximation approach to Stochastic Programming

In this paper we consider optimization problems where the objective function is given in a form of the expectation. A basic difficulty of solving such stochastic optimization problems is that the involved multidimensional integrals (expectations) cannot be computed with high accuracy. The aim of this paper is to compare two computational approaches based on Monte Carlo sampling techniques, namely, the Stochastic Approximation (SA) and the Sample Average Approximation (SAA) methods. Both approaches, the SA and SAA methods, have a long history. Current opinion is that the SAA method can efficiently use a specific (say linear) structure of the considered problem, while the SA approach is a crude subgradient method which often performs poorly in practice. We intend to demonstrate that a properly modified SA approach can be competitive and even significantly outperform the SAA method for a certain class of convex stochastic problems. We extend the analysis to the case of convex-concave stochastic saddle point problems, and present (in our opinion highly encouraging) results of numerical experiments.
Adaptation of C 4 Bioenergy Crop Species to Various Environments within the Southern Great Plains of USA

As highly productive perennial grasses are evaluated as bioenergy feedstocks, a major consideration is biomass yield stability. Two experiments were conducted to examine some aspects of yield stability for two biofuel species: switchgrass ( Panicum vigratum L.) and Miscanthus x giganteus ( Mxg ). Biomass yields of these species were evaluated under various environmental conditions across the Southern Great Plains (SGP), including some sites with low soil fertility. In the first experiment, measured yields of four switchgrass ecotypes and Mxg varied among locations. Overall, plants showed optimal growth performance in study sites close to their geographical origins. Lowland switchgrass ecotypes and Mxg yields simulated by the ALMANAC model showed reasonable agreement with the measured yields across all study locations, while the simulated yields of upland switchgrass ecotypes were overestimated in northern locations. In the second experiment, examination of different N fertilizer rates revealed switchgrass yield increases over the range of 0, 80, or 160 kg N ha −1 year −1 , while Mxg only showed yield increases between the low and medium N rates. This provides useful insights to crop management of two biofuel species and to enhance the predictive accuracy of process-based models, which are critical for developing bioenergy market systems in the SGP.
The Influence of Theory of Planned Behavior, Technology Acceptance Model, and Information System Success Model on the Acceptance of Electronic Tax Filing System in an Emerging Economy

Adoption studies on electronic tax-filing system using data from emerging nations are rare. The present paper studies the influence of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction on taxpayers’ behavioral intentions to adopt electronic tax filing services in an emerging economy. For this study, constructs from Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991), Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), and Information System Success Model (DeLone & McLean, 1992) are used. In order to test the impact of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction on behavioral intentions to adopt online tax filing system, we develop several hypotheses. The data is collected from 201 respondents who filed taxes using government or private vendor websites. A structural equation modelling scheme using PLS is used to analyse the model. The measurement model not only shows structural validity but also demonstrates adequate predictive and explanatory quality. A strong support for a majority of hypotheses is found.
Exercise training‐induced improvements in insulin action

Individuals with insulin resistance are characterized by impaired insulin action on whole‐body glucose uptake, in part due to impaired insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake into skeletal muscle. A single bout of exercise increases skeletal muscle glucose uptake via an insulin‐independent mechanism that bypasses the typical insulin signalling defects associated with these conditions. However, this ‘insulin sensitizing’ effect is short‐lived and disappears after ∼48 h. In contrast, repeated physical activity (i.e. exercise training) results in a persistent increase in insulin action in skeletal muscle from obese and insulin‐resistant individuals. The molecular mechanism(s) for the enhanced glucose uptake with exercise training have been attributed to the increased expression and/or activity of key signalling proteins involved in the regulation of glucose uptake and metabolism in skeletal muscle. Evidence now suggests that the improvements in insulin sensitivity associated with exercise training are also related to changes in the expression and/or activity of proteins involved in insulin signal transduction in skeletal muscle such as the AMP‐activated protein kinase (AMPK) and the protein kinase B (Akt) substrate AS160. In addition, increased lipid oxidation and/or turnover is likely to be another mechanism by which exercise improves insulin sensitivity: exercise training results in an increase in the oxidative capacity of skeletal muscle by up‐regulating lipid oxidation and the expression of proteins involved in mitochondrial biogenesis. Determination of the underlying biological mechanisms that result from exercise training is essential in order to define the precise variations in physical activity that result in the most desired effects on targeted risk factors, and to aid in the development of such interventions.