Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prophylactic Administration of Fucoidan Represses Cancer Metastasis by Inhibiting Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) and Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs) in Lewis Tumor-Bearing Mice

Fucoidan, a heparin-like sulfated polysaccharide, is rich in brown algae. It has a wide assortment of protective activities against cancer, for example, induction of hepatocellular carcinoma senescence, induction of human breast and colon carcinoma apoptosis, and impediment of lung cancer cells migration and invasion. However, the anti-metastatic mechanism that fucoidan exploits remains elusive. In this report, we explored the effects of fucoidan on cachectic symptoms, tumor development, lung carcinoma cell spreading and proliferation, as well as expression of metastasis-associated proteins in the Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells-inoculated mice model. We discovered that administration of fucoidan has prophylactic effects on mitigation of cachectic body weight loss and improvement of lung masses in tumor-inoculated mice. These desired effects are attributed to inhibition of LLC spreading and proliferation in lung tissues. Fucoidan also down-regulates expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Moreover, the tumor-bearing mice supplemented with fucoidan indeed benefit from an ensemble of the chemo-phylacticity. The fact is that fucoidan significantly decreases viability, migration, invasion, and MMPs activities of LLC cells. In summary, fucoidan is suitable to act as a chemo-preventative agent for minimizing cachectic symptoms as well as inhibiting lung carcinoma metastasis through down-regulating metastatic factors VEGF and MMPs.
A Regional System to Provide Timely Access to Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Background— Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is superior to fibrinolysis when performed in a timely manner in high-volume centers. Recent European trials suggest that transfer for PCI also may be superior to fibrinolysis and increase access to PCI. In the United States, transfer times are consistently long; therefore, many believe a transfer for PCI strategy for STEMI is not practical. Methods and Results— We developed a standardized PCI-based treatment system for STEMI patients from 30 hospitals up to 210 miles from a PCI center. From March 2003 to November 2006, 1345 consecutive STEMI patients were treated, including 1048 patients transferred from non-PCI hospitals. The median first door-to-balloon time for patients <60 miles (zone 1) and 60 to 210 miles (zone 2) from the PCI center was 95 minutes (25th and 75th percentiles, 82 and 116 minutes) and 120 minutes (25th and 75th percentiles, 100 and 145 minutes), respectively. Despite the high-risk unselected patient population (cardiogenic shock, 12.3%; cardiac arrest, 10.8%; and elderly [≥80 years of age], 14.6%), in-hospital mortality was 4.2%, and median length of stay was 3 days. Conclusions— Rapid transfer of STEMI patients from community hospitals up to 210 miles from a PCI center is safe and feasible using a standardized protocol with an integrated transfer system.
The size of the sucrose, raffinose, and inulin spaces in the gastrocnemius muscle in the rat

1. The sucrose, raffinose and inulin spaces within the gastrocnemius of the female rat have been estimated at 12·0 ± 2·2%, 10·7 ± 0·6%, and 10·0 ± 0·3% respectively, expressed as a percentage of the total muscle volume.
Modeling the Translation of Predicate-Argument Structure for SMT

Predicate-argument structure contains rich semantic information of which statistical machine translation hasn't taken full advantage. In this paper, we propose two discriminative, feature-based models to exploit predicate-argument structures for statistical machine translation: 1) a predicate translation model and 2) an argument reordering model. The predicate translation model explores lexical and semantic contexts surrounding a verbal predicate to select desirable translations for the predicate. The argument reordering model automatically predicts the moving direction of an argument relative to its predicate after translation using semantic features. The two models are integrated into a state-of-the-art phrase-based machine translation system and evaluated on Chinese-to-English translation tasks with large-scale training data. Experimental results demonstrate that the two models significantly improve translation accuracy.
The CoNLL 2007 Shared Task on Dependency Parsing

The Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning features a shared task, in which participants train and test their learning systems on the same data sets. In 2007, as in 2006, the shared task has been devoted to dependency parsing, this year with both a multilingual track and a domain adaptation track. In thispaper, we definethe tasksof the different tracks and describe how the data sets were created from existing treebanks for ten languages. In addition, we characterize the different approaches of the participating systems, report the test results, and provide a first analysis of these results.
Adaptive plasticity of mammalian sperm production in response to social experience

Sperm competition theory predicts that males should invest prudently in ejaculates according to levels of female promiscuity. Males may therefore be sensitive to cues in their social environment associated with sexual competition, and tailor investment in sperm production accordingly. We tested this idea experimentally for the first time, to our knowledge, in a mammal by comparing reproductive traits of male house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) that had experienced contrasting encounter regimes with potential sexual competitors. We found that daily sperm production and numbers of sperm in the caput epididymis were significantly higher in subjects that had experienced a high encounter rate of social cues from three other males compared to those that had experienced a low encounter rate of social cues from just one other male. Epididymal sperm counts were negatively correlated with the frequency of scent-marking behaviour across all males in our study, suggesting that investment in ejaculate production may be traded off against traits that function in gaining copulations, although there was no difference in overall levels of scent marking between treatment groups. We conclude that social experience-mediated phenotypic plasticity in mammalian spermatogenesis is likely to be adaptive under sperm competition, enabling males to balance the energetic costs and paternity-enhancing benefits of ejaculate production, and is a potentially widespread explanation for intraspecific variation in ejaculate expenditure.
Studies Combination of Protein Coding and Noncoding Gene Expression as a Robust Prognostic Classi fi er in Stage I Lung Adenocarcinoma

Prognostic tests for patients with early-stage lung cancer may provide needed guidance on postoperative surveillance and therapeutic decisions.We used a novel strategy to develop and validate a prognostic classifier for early-stage lung cancer. Specifically, we focused on 42 genes with roles in lung cancer or cancer prognosis. Expression of these biologically relevant genes and their association with relapse-free survival (RFS) were evaluated usingmicroarray data from148patientswith stage I lung adenocarcinoma. Seven genes associatedwith RFS were further examined by quantitative reverse transcription PCR in 291 lung adenocarcinoma tissues from Japan, the United States, and Norway. Only BRCA1, HIF1A, DLC1, and XPO1 were each significantly associated with prognosis in the Japan and US/Norway cohorts. A Cox regression-based classifier was developed using these four genes on the Japan cohort and validated in stage I lung adenocarcinoma from the US/Norway cohort and three publicly available lung adenocarcinoma expression profiling datasets. The results suggest that the classifier is robust across ethnically and geographically diverse populations regardless of the technology used to measure gene expression. We evaluated the combination of the four-gene classifier with miRNA miR-21 (MIR21) expression and found that the combination improved associations with prognosis, which were significant in stratified analyses on stage IA and stage IB patients. Thus, the four coding gene classifier, alone or with miR-21 expression, may provide a clinically useful tool to identify high-risk patients and guide recommendations regarding adjuvant therapy and postoperative surveillance of patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma. Cancer Res; 73(13); 3821–32. 2013 AACR.
Energy requirements of glutamatergic pathways in rabbit retina

In vitro rabbit retina was used as an example of CNS tissue in experiments designed to measure the energy requirements associated with the activation of different types of glutamate receptors. Retinas were exposed to glutamate and to four analogs: kainate, 2-amino-4- phosphonobutyric acid (APB), 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX), and 2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (APV). The changes in O2 consumption and lactate production were determined using a recently developed experimental system that permitted simultaneous measurements of the rates at which O2 was removed from the medium and acid was added. The glutamatergic agents had relatively little effect on oxidative metabolism, but they caused large changes in glycolysis. Kainate increased retinal lactate production by 50%, whereas APB, CNQX, and APV reduced it by 23%, 19%, and 35%, respectively. Glutamate increased lactate production by 16% when administered after APB, but decreased it by 12% when administered after CNQX. The changes in energy metabolism coincided with changes in electrophysiological function. Since the energy metabolism of many retinal cells was presumably not much affected by the glutamatergic agents, the changes measured as a percent of total retinal glycolysis must have reflected considerably larger fractional changes in the cells most affected. From the response to inhibitors, it seems probable that even under resting conditions in darkness, activity in glutamatergic pathways is responsible for more than 50% of the glycolytically derived energy used by the cells involved. It also seems probable (particularly from the response to kainate) that under some circumstances the cells' energy metabolism and/or transport capability cannot meet the requirements imposed by glutamate-induced increases in function. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Circulating Interleukin-10 and Risk of Cardiovascular Events: A Prospective Study in the Elderly at Risk

Objective—The goal of this study was to examine the association of the antiinflammatory interleukin-10 (IL-10) with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Methods and Results—In the PROSPER (PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk) cohort, we related baseline concentrations of circulating IL-10 to risk of CVD events in a nested case (n=819)-control (n=1618) study of 3.2 years of follow-up. Circulating IL-10 showed few strong associations with classical risk factors but was positively correlated with IL-6 and C-reactive protein. IL-10 was positively associated with risk of CVD events (odds ratio [OR] 1.17, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.31 per unit increase in log IL-10) after adjusting for classical risk factors and C-reactive protein. Furthermore, IL-10 was associated more strongly with CVD risk among those with no previous history of CVD (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.70), compared with those with previous CVD (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.19; P=0.018). Overall, IL-10 showed a modest ability to add discrimination to classical risk factors (C-statistic +0.005, P=0.002). Conclusion—Baseline circulating levels of the antiinflammatory IL-10 are positively associated with risk of CVD among the elderly without prior CVD events, although the association is less evident in those with a history of CVD. Additional epidemiological and mechanistic studies investigating the role of IL-10 in CVD are warranted.
Characterization of the Burkholderia cenocepacia TonB Mutant as a Potential Live Attenuated Vaccine

Burkholderia cenocepacia is an opportunistic pathogen prevalent in cystic fibrosis patients, which is particularly difficult to treat, causing chronic and eventually fatal infections. The lack of effective treatment options makes evident the need to develop alternative therapeutic or prophylactic approaches. Vaccines, and live attenuated vaccines, are an unexplored avenue to treat B. cenocepacia infections. Here we constructed and characterized a B. cenocepacia tonB mutant strain, which was unable to actively transport iron, to test whether this single gene deletion mutant (strain renamed GAP001) protected against an acute respiratory B. cenocepacia lethal infection. Here we show that the mutant strain GAP001 is attenuated, and effective at protecting against B. cenocepacia challenge. Intranasal administration of GAP001 to BALB/c mice resulted in almost complete survival with high degree of bacterial clearance.
The influence of the cementation margin position on the amount of undetected cement. A prospective clinical study.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the amount of undetected cement after cementation and cleaning of implant-supported restorations. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty three patients were treated with 53 single implant-supported metal-ceramic restorations. The subgingival location of the margin of each implant was measured with a periodontal probe mesially, distally, buccaly, and lingually(,) resulting in 212 measurements. The data were divided into four groups: equally with tissue level (14 samples), 1 mm subgingivally (56), 2 mm (74), and 3 mm (68) below tissues contour. Metal-ceramic restorations were fabricated with occlusal openings and cemented on standard abutments with resin-reinforced glass-ionomer. After cleaning, a radiograph was taken to assess if all cement had been removed. Then the abutment/crown unit was unscrewed for evaluation. All quadrants of the specimens and peri-implant tissues were photographed and analyzed with Adobe Photoshop. Two proportions were calculated: (1) the relation between the cement remnants area and the total area of the abutment/restoration and (2) the relation between the cement remnants and the total area of implant soft tissue contour. Significance set to 0.05. RESULTS Excess on the crown groups: 1 (0.002 ± 0.001); 2 (0.024 ± 0.005); 3 (0.036 ± 0.004); 4 (0.055 ± 0.007). Undetected excess increased when the margin was located deeper subgingivally (P = 0.000), significant difference was found among all groups (P ≤ 0.05). Remnants in the soft tissue groups: 1 (0.014 ± 0.006); 2 (0.052 ± 0.011); 3 (0.057 ± 0.009); 4 (0.071 ± 0.012). The increase of the remnants was statistically reliable (P = 0.0045), significant difference was found between group 1 and 2 (P ≤ 0.05). Radiographic evaluation showed that cement remnants mesially were visible in four cases of 53 or 7.5%, and in six cases of 53 distally (11.3%). CONCLUSIONS The deeper the position of the margin, the greater amount of undetected cement was discovered. Dental radiographs should not be considered as a reliable method for cement excess evaluation.
Effect of coir fiber loading on mechanical and morphological properties of oil palm fibers reinforced polypropylene composites

Hybrid composites were fabricated by compounding process with varying the relative weight fraction of oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) and coir fibers to assess the effect of hybridization of oil palm EFB with coir fibers in polypropylene (PP) matrix. The mechanical and morphological properties of oil palm/coir hybrid composites were carried out. Tensile and flexural properties of oil EFB-PP composites enhanced with hybridization of coir fibers except coir/oil palm EFB (25:75) hybrid composite, whereas highest impact properties at oil palm:coir fibers with 50:50 ratios. Results shown that hybrid composites with oil palm:coir fibers with 50:50 ratios display optimum mechanical properties. In this study, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) had been used to study morphology of tensile fractured surface of hybrid composites. Its clear from SEM micrograph that coir/EFB (50:50) hybrid composites display better tensile properties due to strong fiber/matrix bonding as compared with other formulations which lead to even and effective distribution of stress among fibers. The combination of oil palm EFB/coir fibers with PP matrix produced hybrid biocomposites material can be used to produce components such as rear mirrors' holder and window levers, fan blades, mallet, or gavel. POLYM. COMPOS. , 35:1418–1425, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers
Hypoellipticity in the infinitely degenerate regime

Let {Xj} be a collection of real vector fields with C∞ coefficients, defined in a neighborhood of a point x0 ∈ R. Consider a second order differential operator L = − ∑ j X 2 j + ∑ j αjXj + β where αj, β are C ∞ real coefficients. A well known sufficient condition [17] for L to be C∞ hypoelliptic is that the Lie algebra generated by {Xj} should span the tangent space to R at x0. This bracket condition is by no means necessary; no satisfactory characterization of hypoellipticity exists, and it appears unlikely that one could be found. The purposes of this note are: 1. To establish a general sufficient condition for C∞ hypoellipticity which is one respect optimal. 2. To unify diverse partial results already known. 3. To emphasize the parallel between the theories of C∞ and analytic/Gevrey class hypoellipticity. 4. To give an alternative proof of a regularity theorem first established by stochastic techniques. 5. To establish a sufficient condition for hypoellipticity of the ∂̄–Neumann problem for certain pseudoconvex domains of infinite type.
Multimodality Imaging of β-Cells in Mouse Models of Type 1 and 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE β-Cells that express an imaging reporter have provided powerful tools for studying β-cell development, islet transplantation, and β-cell autoimmunity. To further expedite diabetes research, we generated transgenic C57BL/6 “MIP-TF” mice that have a mouse insulin promoter (MIP) driving the expression of a trifusion (TF) protein of three imaging reporters (luciferase/enhanced green fluorescent protein/HSV1-sr39 thymidine kinase) in their β-cells. This should enable the noninvasive imaging of β-cells by charge-coupled device (CCD) and micro-positron emission tomography (PET), as well as the identification of β-cells at the cellular level by fluorescent microscopy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS MIP-TF mouse β-cells were multimodality imaged in models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. RESULTS MIP-TF mouse β-cells were readily identified in pancreatic tissue sections using fluorescent microscopy. We show that MIP-TF β-cells can be noninvasively imaged using microPET. There was a correlation between CCD and microPET signals from the pancreas region of individual mice. After low-dose streptozotocin administration to induce type 1 diabetes, we observed a progressive reduction in bioluminescence from the pancreas region before the appearance of hyperglycemia. Although there have been reports of hyperglycemia inducing proinsulin expression in extrapancreatic tissues, we did not observe bioluminescent signals from extrapancreatic tissues of diabetic MIP-TF mice. Because MIP-TF mouse β-cells express a viral thymidine kinase, ganciclovir treatment induced hyperglycemia, providing a new experimental model of type 1 diabetes. Mice fed a high-fat diet to model early type 2 diabetes displayed a progressive increase in their pancreatic bioluminescent signals, which were positively correlated with area under the curve–intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test (AUC-IPGTT). CONCLUSIONS MIP-TF mice provide a new tool for monitoring β-cells from the single cell level to noninvasive assessments of β-cells in models of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes.
Two Meta-heuristics for the Minimum Connected Dominating Set Problem with an Application in Wireless Networks

In this paper, we proposed two methods to solve Minimum Connected Dominating Set (MCDS) problem. It is known that efficient methods for computing the MCDS are essential for solving many practical problems, such as finding a minimum size backbone in ad hoc networks. We propose two methods to solve the MCDS problem. In the first method, we propose a new hybrid method based on genetic Algorithm combine with local search strategy for the MCDS problem called Memetic Algorithm for the MCDS problem (MA-MCDS). MAMCDS uses local search and intensification schemes beside the GA search methodology in order to achieve faster performance. The scorned method is called Simulated Annealing for the MCDS problem (SA-MCDS). SA-MCDS is invoked to enhance the stochastic local search (SLS) method with the ability of escaping from local solutions. In addition, proposed methods invoke a new objective function to effectively measure the solution qualities. The proposed algorithms is tested on a number of publically available benchmark test graph sets and numerical results indicate that they are working well in terms of solution qualities and computational costs.
Animated specifications of computational societies

E-markets and negotiation protocols are two types of application domains that can be viewed as open computational societies. Key characteristics of such societies are agent heterogeneity, conflicting individual goals and limited trust. The risk that members of such societies will not conform to specifications imposes the need for a framework that will facilitate the designers to determine to what extent it is desirable to deploy their agents in such societies. We address this need by presenting a formal framework for specifying, animating, and ultimately reasoning about and verifying the properties of open computational systems. We view computational systems from an external perspective, aiming to account for the institutional and social aspects of these systems. We identify the key concepts and illustrate how they are used by formalising an example employing the contract net protocol. The framework and associated logical inferences have been implemented as a software platform that provides automated animation of the global states of an open system (society) during its execution. Simulations have demonstrated that the implementation of the framework establishes a foundation for a rich, formal representation of open computational societies.
Dissection and Design of Yeast Prions

Many proteins can misfold into β-sheet-rich, self-seeding polymers (amyloids). Prions are exceptional among such aggregates in that they are also infectious. In fungi, prions are not pathogenic but rather act as epigenetic regulators of cell physiology, providing a powerful model for studying the mechanism of prion replication. We used prion-forming domains from two budding yeast proteins (Sup35p and New1p) to examine the requirements for prion formation and inheritance. In both proteins, a glutamine/asparagine-rich (Q/N-rich) tract mediates sequence-specific aggregation, while an adjacent motif, the oligopeptide repeat, is required for the replication and stable inheritance of these aggregates. Our findings help to explain why although Q/N-rich proteins are relatively common, few form heritable aggregates: prion inheritance requires both an aggregation sequence responsible for self-seeded growth and an element that permits chaperone-dependent replication of the aggregate. Using this knowledge, we have designed novel artificial prions by fusing the replication element of Sup35p to aggregation-prone sequences from other proteins, including pathogenically expanded polyglutamine.