Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IL-15 Mediates Mitochondrial Activity through a PPARδ-Dependent-PPARα-Independent Mechanism in Skeletal Muscle Cells

Molecular mediators of metabolic processes, to increase energy expenditure, have become a focus for therapies of obesity. The discovery of cytokines secreted from the skeletal muscle (SKM), termed “myokines,” has garnered attention due to their positive effects on metabolic processes. Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a myokine that has numerous positive metabolic effects and is linked to the PPAR family of mitochondrial regulators. Here, we aimed to determine the importance of PPARα and/or PPARδ as targets of IL-15 signaling. C2C12 SKM cells were differentiated for 6 days and treated every other day with IL-15 (100 ng/mL), a PPARα inhibitor (GW-6471), a PPARδ inhibitor (GSK-3787), or both IL-15 and the inhibitors. IL-15 increased mitochondrial activity and induced PPARα, PPARδ, PGC1α, PGC1β, UCP2, and Nrf1 expression. There was no effect of inhibiting PPARα, in combination with IL-15, on the aforementioned mRNA levels except for PGC1β and Nrf1. However, with PPARδ inhibition, IL-15 failed to induce the expression levels of PGC1α, PGC1β, UCP2, and Nrf1. Further, inhibition of PPARδ abolished IL-15 induced increases in citrate synthase activity, ATP production, and overall mitochondrial activity. IL-15 had no effects on mitochondrial biogenesis. Our data indicates that PPARδ activity is required for the beneficial metabolic effects of IL-15 signaling in SKM.
Globalisation and Euro Area Trade: Interactions and Challenges

As a major player in world trade, the euro area is strongly influenced by globalisation, but is far from being a passive spectator. The paper analyses how the euro area’s trade specialization has changed in response to stronger international competition and the emergence of new global players, evaluating results and possible challenges ahead. The message remains mixed. On the positive side, the export specialisation of the euro area is increasing in some mediumhigh or high-tech sectors where productivity growth is strong and demand robust, such as pharmaceuticals, also by a more intensive recourse to importing intermediate goods from low-cost countries. On the other hand, in comparison to other industrialised economies, the euro area has been somewhat slower in moving towards research-intensive goods and away from labour-intensive sectors. While this could reflect data classification issues, it may also be a sign of structural rigidities in the euro area, which hinder adjustment processes.
Analysis of some systems of partial differential equations describing cellular movement

W rozprawie rozpatruje się pewne układy nieliniowych równań różniczkowych cząstkowych opisujących różne aspekty ruchu komórek biologicznych. Dokładna motywacja biologiczna, wraz z odniesieniami bibliograficznymi, są przedstawione w rozdziale 1 (”Introduction”) rozprawy. W rozdziale 2 badane są matematyczne własności zagadnienia początkowo–brzegowego (por. [17]):  ut = ∆u+∇ · (u∇v) w Ω× (0, T ), τ vt = D∆v − βv + u w Ω× (0, T ),
Increased Migration of Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells by Autocrine Motility Factor (AMF) Resulted in Enhanced Recruitment towards Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Background and Aims Several reports described the migration of human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) towards tumor-released factors. Autocrine motility factor (AMF) is produced by several tumors including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to analyze AMF involvement on MSC migration towards human HCC. Methods Production of AMF by HCC tumors was evaluated by western analysis. The effects of AMF on MSCs from different sources (bone marrow, adipose tissue and perivascular cells from umbilical cord) were analyzed using in vitro migration assay; metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) activity and expression of critical genes were studied by zymography and qRT-PCR, respectively. To assess AMF involvement on the in vivo MSC migration, noninvasive fluorescence imaging was performed. To test the effect of AMF-primed MSCs on tumor development, in vitro proliferation and spheroids growth and in vivo tumor volume were evaluated. Results AMF produced by HCC was found to induce migration of different MSCs in vitro and to enhance their MMP2 activity. Stimulation of MSCs with recombinant AMF (rAMF) also induced the in vitro adhesion to endothelial cells in coincidence with changes in the expression levels of MMP3, AMF receptor, caveolin-1, and -2 and GDI-2. Importantly, stimulation of MSCs with rAMF increased the in vivo migration of MSCs towards experimental HCC tumors. AMF-priming of MSCs did not induce a pro-tumorigenic effect on HCC cells neither in vivo nor in vitro. Conclusion AMF plays a role in MSC recruitment towards HCC. However, its ability to increase MSC migration to HCC for therapeutic purposes merits further evaluation.
Measurements and analysis of spectrum occupancy in the 2.3–2.4 GHz band in Finland and Chicago

This paper presents results from spectrum occupancy measurements in the 2.3-2.4 GHz band at Turku, Finland and Chicago, USA. The band is currently under study in European regulation and standardization for mobile communication systems. We review the recently introduced Licensed Shared Access (LSA) concept as a potential means for making the 2.3-2.4 GHz band available for mobile communications on a shared basis while protecting the rights of the incumbent spectrum users. The spectrum occupancy measurements conducted in one location in Finland show that the use of this band is rather low indicating that there might be potential for mobile communication systems to share this band with the incumbents under the LSA approach.
Terms of Trade and Economic Fluctuations

This paper aims at analyzing the existence of the Harberger-Laursen-Metzler hypothesis for Turkey. The hypothesis states that an improvement in the terms of trade improves a country’s real income level and, since part of that increase will fall on saving, the improvement in the terms of trade improves the trade balance. The models within the intertemporal optimizing framework, however, assert that the relation between the terms of trade and trade balance depends on the relative importance of consumption-smoothing and consumption-tilting motives that are governed by the intertemporal elasticity of substitutions. When there are nontradable goods the intratemporal elasticity of substitution also plays and important role. In this paper, we provide the estimates of these elasticities using a variation of the models employed in the real business cycle literature. We also compare the data obtained from the artifical economy with those of the actual data to see if a model based on intertemporal considerations is capable of replicating the characteristics of actual data on Turkey.
A New Achievable Rate Region for the Cognitive Radio Channel

Considering a general input distribution, using Gel'fand-Pinsker full binning scheme and the Han- Kobayashi (HK) jointly decoding strategy, we obtain a new achievable rate region for the cognitive radio channel (CRC) and then derive a simplified description for the region, by a combination of Cover superposition coding, binning scheme and the HK decoding technique. Our rate region (i) has an interesting interpretation, i.e., any rate in the region, as expected, has generally three additional terms in comparison with the KH region for the interference channel (IC): one term due to the input correlation, the other term due to binning scheme and the third term due to the interference dependent on the inputs, (ii) is really a generalization of the HK region for the IC to the CRC by the use of binning scheme, and as a result of this generalization we see that different versions of our region for the CRC are reduced to different versions of the previous results for the IC, and (iii) is a generalized and improved version of previous results ,i.g. , the Devroye-Mitran-Tarokh (DMT) region. I.INTRDUCTION
Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality in Swedish Industry

Income inequality has been increasing in Sweden for more than two decades. Since 1981, the skill premium has risen by 20 percent for the economy as a whole and by as much as 30 percent for men working in the private sector. At the same time, the supply of skilled workers has grown by 20 percent. Given this increase in the supply of skilled labor, why has Sweden experienced such a prolonged increase in income inequality between skilled and unskilled workers? This question is examined here in a neoclassical growth framework using data from Swedish industry. The main finding of this study is that the rise in income inequality in Swedish industry is being driven by capital-skill complementarity. Increased investments in new capital equipment, together with a higher rate of capital utilization and a slowdown in the growth rate of skilled labor, have raised the ratio of effective capital inputs per skilled worker, which, in turn, has increased the relative demand for skilled labor through the capital-skill complementarity mechanism.
A Study on the Information Environment of National Youth Service Corps Members in Kwara State, Nigeria

The investigation focused on the information environment of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Kwara State with emphasis on their information needs, sources, seeking behaviour and perceptions of libraries and the profession of Library and Information Science (LIS). It adopted survey research method with a self-constructed questionnaire as the tool for data collection, which was administered and retrieved from 170 respondents. Descriptive statistics of frequency count and percentages were used in reporting the findings. It was found out that the information needs of the NYSC members are centred on job opportunities and vacancies, business and entrepreneurial opportunities as well as scholarship for postgraduate education; their information seeking behaviour and major source of information is the Internet; and they have positive perception of libraries and LIS profession in the society. Recommendations were made on measures to put in place to address the information needs of NYSC members in Kwara State, Nigeria. Keywords: Information Environment, Information Needs, NYSC Members, Kwara State, Nigeria.
HIV-1 Transmitting Couples Have Similar Viral Load Set-Points in Rakai, Uganda

It has been hypothesized that HIV-1 viral load set-point is a surrogate measure of HIV-1 viral virulence, and that it may be subject to natural selection in the human host population. A key test of this hypothesis is whether viral load set-points are correlated between transmitting individuals and those acquiring infection. We retrospectively identified 112 heterosexual HIV-discordant couples enrolled in a cohort in Rakai, Uganda, in which HIV transmission was suspected and viral load set-point was established. In addition, sequence data was available to establish transmission by genetic linkage for 57 of these couples. Sex, age, viral subtype, index partner, and self-reported genital ulcer disease status (GUD) were known. Using ANOVA, we estimated the proportion of variance in viral load set-points which was explained by the similarity within couples (the ‘couple effect’). Individuals with suspected intra-couple transmission (97 couples) had similar viral load set-points (p = 0.054 single factor model, p = 0.0057 adjusted) and the couple effect explained 16% of variance in viral loads (23% adjusted). The analysis was repeated for a subset of 29 couples with strong genetic support for transmission. The couple effect was the major determinant of viral load set-point (p = 0.067 single factor, and p = 0.036 adjusted) and the size of the effect was 27% (37% adjusted). Individuals within epidemiologically linked couples with genetic support for transmission had similar viral load set-points. The most parsimonious explanation is that this is due to shared characteristics of the transmitted virus, a finding which sheds light on both the role of viral factors in HIV-1 pathogenesis and on the evolution of the virus.
Task Bubbles, Artifacts, Shared Emotion, and Mutual Focus of Attention: A Comparative Study of the Microprocesses of Group Engagement

Based on a comparative field study of two software development projects, we use ethnographic methods of observation and interview to examine the question of how interdependent individuals develop and maintain mutual focus of attention on a shared task, which we define as the group engagement process. Drawing on Randall Collins' interaction ritual theory, we identify how mutual focus of attention develops through the presence of a task bubble that focuses attention by creating barriers to outsiders and through the effective use of task-related artifacts. Shared emotion both results from mutual focus of attention and reinforces it. Through our comparison between the two projects, we show that the group engagement process is enabled by factors at the individual individual engagement, interaction frequency and informality of interactions, and project compelling direction of the overall group levels. Our focus on group interaction episodes as the engine of the group engagement process illuminates what individuals do when they are performing the focal work of the group i.e., solving problems related to the task at hand and how they develop and sustain the mutual focus of attention that is required for making collective progress on the task itself. We also show the relationship between the group engagement process and effective problem solving.
Impact of Heme and Heme Degradation Products on Vascular Diameter in Mouse Visual Cortex

Background Delayed cerebral vasospasm is the most common cause of mortality and severe neurological impairment in patients who survive subarachnoid hemorrhage. Despite improvements in the field of diagnostic imaging, options for prevention and medical treatment—primarily with the calcium channel antagonist nimodipine or hemodynamic manipulations—are insufficient. Previous studies have suggested that heme and bilirubin oxidation end products, originating from degraded hemoglobin around ruptured blood vessels, are involved in the development of vasospasm by inhibiting large conductance BKCa potassium channels in vascular smooth muscle cells. In this study, we identify individual heme degradation products regulating arteriolar diameter in dependence of BKCa channel activity. Methods and Results Using differential interference contrast video microscopy in acute brain slices, we determined diameter changes of intracerebral arterioles in mouse visual cortex. In preconstricted vessels, the specific BKCa channel blockers paxilline and iberiotoxin as well as iron‐containing hemin caused vasoconstriction. In addition, the bilirubin oxidation end product Z‐BOX A showed a stronger vasoconstrictive potency than its regio‐isomer Z‐BOX B. Importantly, Z‐BOX A had the same vasoconstrictive effect, independent of its origin from oxidative degradation or chemical synthesis. Finally, in slices of Slo1‐deficient knockout mice, paxilline and Z‐BOX A remained ineffective in changing arteriole diameter. Conclusions We identified individual components of the oxidative bilirubin degradation that led to vasoconstriction of cerebral arterioles. The vasoconstrictive effect of Z‐BOX A and Z‐BOX B was mediated by BKCa channel activity that might represent a signaling pathway in the occurrence of delayed cerebral vasospasm in subarachnoid hemorrhage patients.
Role of Product Benefits and Potential Risks in Consumer Acceptance of Genetically Modified Foods

This study examines the role of product benefits and potential risks in consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods. The study analyzes consumer willingness to consume three meat products that confer specific benefits with an inherent risk. Results indicate that respondents who were provided both the product benefit and risk information were less likely to consume the three GM food products than those who were only provided the product benefit information. Results also suggest that males are consistently more likely to consume the three GM products than females. Those who take the time to read food labels were also consistently less likely to consume the three products considered in this study. Differences in social or political values (i.e., conservative or liberal) and trust in private and public entities were not significant factors affecting consumers’ willingness to accept GM foods.
Speech-To-Text Conversion in French

Speech-to-text conversion of French necessitates that both the acoustic level recognition and language modeling be tailored to the French language. Work in this area was initiated at LIMSI over 10 years ago. In this paper a summary of the ongoing research in this direction is presented. Included are studies on distributional properties of French text materials; problems specific to speech-to-text conversion particular of French; studies in phoneme-to-grapheme conversion for continuous, error-free phonemic strings; past work on isolated-word speech-to-text conversion; and more recent work on continuous-speech, speech-to-text conversion. Also demonstrated is the use of phone recognition for both language and speaker identification. The continuous speech-to-text conversion for French is based on a speaker-independent, vocabulary-independent recognizer. In this paper phone recognition and word recognition results are reported evaluating this recognizer on read speech taken from the BREF corpus. The recognizer was trained on over 4 hours of speech from 57 speakers, and tested on sentences from an independent set of 19 speakers. A phone accuracy of 78.7% was obtained using a set of 35 phones. The word accuracy was 88% for a 1139 word lexicon and 86% for a 2716 word lexicon, with a word pair grammar with respective perplexities of 100 and 160. Using a bigram grammar, word accuracies of 85.5% and 81.7% were obtained with 5 K and 20 K word vocabularies, with respective perplexities of 122 and 205.
Prevalence of recurrent aphthous ulceration experience in patients attending Piramird dental speciality in Sulaimani City

Objective: The aim of this study is to report the prevalence and risk factors of recurrent aphthous ulceration (RAU) in patients attending Piramird dental speciality for seeking dental treatment. Study design: A cross-sectional survey was carried out among patients (n=1100) who were visiting the department of oral medicine at Piramird dental speciality center in Sulaimani from December 2011-February 2012. The age range of the patients were between 10-79 years, with mean age of (34.27±14.14). 446 (44.6%) of participants were males and 554 (55.4%) were females, with male/female ratios of 0.80:1. All individuals had to answer specific questions including personal data (age, sex), level of education, occupation and smoking habit; etc. Additional questions were related to the risk factors that might be related to the condition. Chi Square test was used to analyze the data. Result: The life time prevalence of RAU experience was 28.2% (n=282). It was highly significantly more common among females (31.76%) (p<0.004). The most commonly affected age group was 20-29 years (36.28%). The highest prevalence of RAU experience was seen among mere students (36.8%); Among non smokers there were highly significantly more patients with RAU experience (30%) than in heavy smoker patients (12.22%), (p=0.000). 34.4% of patients had family history of RAU. Lips and buccal mucosae were the commonest sites of ulcerations (73.10%), and the major risk factor was stress (43.3%). Conclusion: This study has provided information about the epidemiologic aspects of recurrent aphthous ulceration, Based on the finding of this study, RAU is a common, recurrent painful oral ulceration. This study point to the importance of a thorough history taking to identify the patient’s main risk factors to get preventive measures, therefore treatment will be tailored for each patient accordingly. And the author concluded that stress was the major risk factor, thus, stress-management interventions suggested to be beneficial in reducing RAU recurrence episodes. Key words:Recurrent aphthous ulceration, prevalence, stress.
A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe

Acknowledgements Foreword by A. Sivanandan Introduction Xeno-Racism and the Security State 1. The Emergence of Xeno-racism 2. Anti-Muslim Racism and the Security State Islamophobia and Accusatory Processes 3. Enlightened Fundamentalism? Immigration, Feminism and the Right 4. The New McCarthyism Detention and Deportation 5. The Deportation Machine 6. 'Speech Crime' and Deportation The fight for Civil Rights 7. They Are Children Too 8. Islamophobia, Youth Resistance and the Meaning of Liberty Notes to the text Index
Implicit Contracts, Moral Hazard, and Unemployment

This paper considers a firm whose marginal (revenue) product of labor is a random variable. We derive the form of an optimal long-term contract between workers and the firm under the assumption that labor's marginal product is observed by the firm but not by the workers. We show that the existence of asymmetric information causes unemployment to be greater than in a situation where information about labor's marginal product is public, or where employment is determined in spot markets. In particular, unemployment can occur when the marginal product of labor exceeds the reservation wage.
Negative Guidance Factor-Induced Macropinocytosis in the Growth Cone Plays a Critical Role in Repulsive Axon Turning

Macropinocytosis is a type of poorly characterized fluid-phase endocytosis that results in formation of relatively large vesicles. We report that Sonic hedgehog (Shh) protein induces macropinocytosis in the axons through activation of a noncanonical signaling pathway, including Rho GTPase and nonmuscle myosin II. Macropinocytosis induced by Shh is independent of clathrin-mediated endocytosis but dependent on dynamin, myosin II, and Rho GTPase activities. Inhibitors of macropinocytosis also abolished the negative effects of Shh on axonal growth, including growth cone collapse and chemorepulsive axon turning but not turning per se. Conversely, activation of myosin II or treatment of phorbol ester induces macropinocytosis in the axons and elicits growth cone collapse and repulsive axon turning. Furthermore, macropinocytosis is also induced by ephrin-A2, and inhibition of dynamin abolished repulsive axon turning induced by ephrin-A2. Macropinocytosis can be induced ex vivo by high Shh, correlating with axon retraction. These results demonstrate that macropinocytosis-mediated membrane trafficking is an important cellular mechanism involved in axon chemorepulsion induced by negative guidance factors.
Restoration of attachment, virulence and nodulation of Agrobacterium tumefaciens chvB mutants by rhicadhesin

In contrast to wild‐type Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains, β‐1,2‐glucan‐deficient chvB mutants were found to be unable to attach to pea root hair tips. The mutants appeared to produce rhicadhesin, the protein that mediates the first step in attachment of Rhizobiaceae cells to plant root hairs, but the protein was inactive. Both attachment to root hairs and virulence of the ChvB mutants could be restored by treatment of the plants with active rhicadhesin, whereas treatment of plants with β‐1,2‐glucan had no effect on attachment or virulence. Moreover, nodulation ability of a chvB mutant carrying a Sym plasmid could be restored by pretreatment of the host plant with rhicadhesin. Apparently the attachment‐minus and avirulence phenotype of chvB mutants is caused by lack of active rhicadhesin, rather than directly being caused by a deficiency in β‐1,2‐glucan synthesis. The results strongly suggest that rhicadhesin is essential for attachment and virulence of A. tumefaciens cells. They also indicate that the mechanisms of binding of Agrobacterium and Rhizobium bacteria to plant target cells are similar, despite differences between these target cells.