Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pancreatic Cancer-Induced Neutrophil Extracellular Traps: A Potential Contributor to Cancer-Associated Thrombosis

Pancreatic cancer (PaCa) is a highly metastatic cancer, and patients are at high risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE). Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) have been associated with cancer metastasis and cancer-associated thrombosis, but the ability of cancer to stimulate NET release is not known. The release of NETs has been shown to be a slow process and requires reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Studies suggest that activated platelets are important mediators in the release. Here, we show that PaCa cells can stimulate the rapid release of NETs, independently of ROS production. We further assessed the role of platelets in PaCa-induced NETs and observed a trend of increased the NET release by PaCa-primed platelets. Additionally, NETs promoted thrombus formation under venous shear stress ex vivo. Taken together, our results suggest that PaCa-induced NETs can contribute to the high risk of venous thromboembolism development in PaCa patients, and reveal NETs as a potential therapeutic target.
P53-Rb signaling pathway is involved in tubular cell senescence in renal ischemia/reperfusion injury.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the course of tubular cell senescence and expressions of p53, p21, and Rb during the late phase of ischemia/reperfusion (IRI) in the kidney, and assess the effects of the p53-Rb pathway on tubular cell senescence. METHODS Experimental models of unilateral renal IRI were used in p53 (+/+) and p53 (-/-) mice. Histological changes at the tubular level, progress of cell senescence, and the expression of Rb, p21, and/or p53 proteins in tubular cells were studied at different moments in time after IRI. RESULTS Chronic tubulointerstitial fibrosis was much more severe and widely distributed in IRI kidneys of p53 (+/+) mice in later stages than in earlier stages. Senescent tubular cells were significantly increased at 3 and 6 months after IRI. In contrast, in contralateral kidneys of p53 (+/+) mice and in both kidneys of p53 (-/-) mice, almost no senescent cells were observed at 1 and 3 months after IRI, and only a few senescent cells were detected in IRI kidneys of p53 (-/-) mice at 6 months. In mice of both genotypes, cell senescence was correlated with the expression levels of p53, p21, and Rb proteins. CONCLUSION The IRI accelerated tubular cell senescence is presumed to be one of the mechanisms of the "long-term effect" of IRI. Furthermore, the activation of p53-Rb signaling pathway may play a vital role in tubular cell senescence induced by IRI.
Situated Motivation: An Empirical Test in an Accounting Course

The enhanced motivation and performance benefits associated with the use of enriched work environments (i.e., high task identity, variety, and significance; worker autonomy; and frequent performance feedback) have been well established (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976, 1980). The present study tests whether these benefits can also be achieved in the classroom setting. Students from a compulsory final-year accounting course were asked to report their level of motivation in and their perceptions about the enrichment of the course. As hypothesized, a positive and significant correlation was found between student perceptions of enrichment and their reported motivation. The results, obtained by running a series of regression equations which included a variety of teaching context and student level variables, are also reported. These regression results offer further insight into the relationship between enriched learning environments and motivation. Resume Une motivation rehaussee et une augmentation des performances sont associees a la mise en place d'un environnement de travail enrichi (par exemple grâce a une «high task identity» ou l'ouvrier recoit une explication globale de son processus de travail et s'epanouit dans cette connaissance, la variete et l'importance de ce travail, l'autonomie de l'ouvrier et de frequentes appreciations sur ses performances), comme cela a ete clairement etabli (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976, 1980). Cette etude a pour but d'examiner si ces ameliorations peuvent etre etendues a la salle de classe. Des etudiants de derniere annee dans un cours obligatoire de comptabilite ont ete sollicites pour rendre compte de leur niveau de motivation pour le cours et de la proportion de tâches enrichissantes qu'ils avaient trouvee dans celui-ci. Conformement a l'hypothese de depart, une forte correlation a ete trouvee entre la perception des etudiants quant au nombre de tâches enrichissantes dans le cours et leur niveau de motivation. Les resultats obtenus a partir d'une serie d'equations regressives, qui incluaient une diversite de contextes d'enseignement et des etudiants de niveaux variables sont egalement inclus. Ces resultats approfondissent encore la relation entre un environnement d'apprentissage enrichi et la motivation qui en decoule.
Information revelation in the Diamond-Dybvig banking model

Three recent papers, Green and Lin, Peck and Shell, and Andolfatto et. al., study optima in almost identical versions of the Diamond-Dybvig model. They di¤er about what agents know when they make early withdrawals. We view all three as special cases of a framework in which the planner chooses how much to reveal. It is shown that (i) the Peck-Shell conclusion, the best weakly implementable outcome can be subject to a bank run, is robust to a planner choice about what to reveal; (ii) the solution to the strong implementability problem can be something other than reveal nothing and reveal everything.
Initial Diversification of Living Amphibians Predated the Breakup of Pangaea

The origin and divergence of the three living orders of amphibians (Anura, Caudata, Gymnophiona) and their main lineages are one of the most hotly debated topics in vertebrate evolution. Here, we present a robust molecular phylogeny based on the nuclear RAG1 gene as well as results from a variety of alternative independent molecular clock calibrations. Our analyses suggest that the origin and early divergence of the three living amphibian orders dates back to the Palaeozoic or early Mesozoic, before the breakup of Pangaea, and soon after the divergence from lobe‐finned fishes. The resulting new biogeographic scenario, age estimate, and the inferred rapid divergence of the three lissamphibian orders may account for the lack of fossils that represent plausible ancestors or immediate sister taxa of all three orders and the heretofore paradoxical distribution of some amphibian fossil taxa. Furthermore, the ancient and rapid radiation of the three lissamphibian orders likely explains why branch lengths connecting their early nodes are particularly short, thus rendering phylogenetic inference of implicated relationships especially difficult.
Tracers of discs and winds around intermediate- and high-mass young stellar objects

We present a study of the kinematical properties of a small sample of nearby near-infrared bright massive and intermediate-mass young stellar objects using emission lines sensitive to discs and winds. We show for the first time that the broad (∼500 km s−1) symmetric line wings on the H i Brackett series lines are due to Stark broadening or electron scattering, rather than pure Doppler broadening due to high-speed motion. The results are consistent with the presence of a very dense circumstellar environment. In addition, many of these lines show evidence for weak line self-absorption, suggestive of a wind or disc–wind origin for that part of the absorbing material. The weakness of the self-absorption suggests a large opening angle for such an outflow. We also study the fluorescent 1.688 μm Fe ii line, which is sensitive to dense material. We fitted a Keplerian disc model to this line, and find reasonable fits in all bar one case, in agreement with previous finding for classical Be stars that fluorescent iron transitions are reasonable disc tracers. Overall, the evidence suggests these stars still have accretion discs, with a very dense ionized inner circumstellar environment which may be tracing either the inner regions of the disc or of a stellar wind, and in which ionized outflow is also present. The similarity with lower mass stars is striking, suggesting that at least in this mass range they form in a similar fashion.
Determinant of Lecturers Work Satisfaction and Implication on Lecturers Performance at Maritime Higher Education in DKI Jakarta

This study aimed to examine the determinants of lecturers job satisfaction and their implication on the lecturers performance in conducting research at Maritime Higher Education in DKI Jakarta. The sample data is 286 people and the retrieval for instrument test is 30 people so the research population is 316 people. To prove the hypothesis of this study using data collected by statistics, both descriptive and inferential, ie Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), consisting of sub-structures: perceived organizational support, work-life balance, and career development as exogenous variables and job satisfaction and performance as an endogenous variable. The main structure consists of perceived organizational support, work-life balance and career development as exogenous variables and job satisfaction as intervening variables and performance as endogenous variables. Through SEM analysis can be taken policy and priority related to improving the lecturers performance at Maritime Higher Education in DKI Jakarta. The results showed: (1) Partially influences positive and significant perceived organizational support to the job satisfaction (2) Partially, there are positive and significant impact of work life balance on job satisfaction. (3) Partially there is a positive and significant influence of career development on job satisfaction. (4) Simultaneously there is positive and significant influence perceived organizational support, work life balance and career development together to the job satisfaction. (5) Partially there is positive and significant influence perceived organizational support to lecturers performance (6) Partially, there are positive and significant impact of work life balance on lecturers performance (7) Partially there is a positive and significant influence of career developers on the lecturers performance (8) Partially influences positive and significant satisfaction on the lecturers performance. (9) Simultaneously there are positive and significant influence perceived organizational support, work life balance, career development and job satisfaction together to the lecturers performance at Maritime Higher Education in DKI JakartaKeywords
Critical pedagogies of place: Some considerations for early childhood care and education in a superdiverse ‘bicultural’ Aotearoa (New Zealand).

© 2019, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. All rights reserved. It is important that national education policy respond to demographic changes. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), recent immigration policy changes have produced the new challenge of ‘superdiversity’, which overlays the ‘bicultural’ context of Māori and settler populations and the longstanding impacts of the colonisation of the Indigenous Māori. The lack of equity in this ‘bicultural’ arrangement remains to be fully resolved due to the dominance of the settler culture and the historical (and in many instances ongoing) reluctance of this majority group to recognise and address injustices. The early childhood care and education (ECCE) sector requires of its teachers deep cultural understandings of and engagement with all those children and families present in the education settings. This article provides a discussion of the tensions arising when the new reality of superdiversity interacts with a ‘bicultural’ ECCE policy environment. It then describes the results of a study that utilised a process of documentary analysis to critically examine the macro-and micro-level policy statements and reports with regard to bicultural, cultural diversity, equity, social justice, and place-connectedness matters in ECCE settings in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The implications of the findings point to challenges faced by teachers when translating policy commitments into pedagogical enactment, and highlight the importance for teachers to not only engage deeply with the Indigenous Māori language, culture, and local histories of connectedness with place, but that this engagement should also be made available to all children and families present, including immigrant children and their families.
Quantization of the Gaudin System

In this article we exploit the known commutative family in Y(gl(n)) - the Bethe subalgebra - and its special limit to construct quantization of the Gaudin integrable system. We give explicit expressions for quantum hamiltonians QI_k(u), k=1,. , n. At small order k=1,. ,3 they coincide with the quasiclassic ones, even in the case k=4 we obtain quantum correction.
Combining Preprocessor Slicing with C/C++ Language Slicing

Slicing C programs has been one of the most popular ways for the implementation of slicing algorithms; out of the very few practical implementations that exist many deal with this programming language. Yet, preprocessor related issues have been addressed very marginally by these slicers, despite the fact that ignoring (or handling poorly) these constructs may lead to serious inaccuracies in the slicing results and hence in the comprehension process. An accurate slicing method for preprocessor related constructs has been proposed which - when combined with existing C/C++ language slicers - can provide a more complete comprehension of these languages. In this paper, we overview our approach for this combination and report its benefits in terms of the completeness of the resulting slices.
Local Council Governance and Audit Committees - The missing link?

Purpose – This paper examines the level of compliance of NSW Local Government councils with the Internal Audit Guidelines developed and published by the NSW State Government to address the identified weaknesses in the governance structures of the councils. The specific focus is on a key component of good governance, in this instance whether an audit committee was established accordance with the guidelines. Design / methodology - Archival data was used to research the 2009/2010 Annual Reports and websites of NSW Local Government councils to collect data on the existence and structure of their audit committees. The data is presented and analysed using basic quantitative analysis from which inferences are drawn. Findings - There is only minimal compliance by NSW Local Councils to the Internal Audit Guidelines in relation to the establishment of an audit committee. The audit committees, which have been established, were reviewed and the structure and membership of a number of these committees were found to not meet the level of independence required as outlined in the guidelines. Practical implications - This paper highlights the potential risk exposure in Local Government councils. The findings indicate that the current approach of merely recommending the establishment of an audit committee, is not as robust as legislation. Originality / value - While there is a relatively large amount of literature on Local Government practices there is little on the level of compliance of Local Government councils with specific governance requirements such as the establishment of an audit committee.
A Pseudonym Management System to Achieve Anonymity in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper we propose a framework for providing anonymity to communicating cars in VANETs. The anonymity is accomplished based on a system of pseudonym generation, distribution, and replenishing. The road side units (RSUs) play a key role in the framework by receiving the originally generated pseudonyms from the trusted authority, and then distributing pseudonym sets to cars while shuffling the sets amongst themselves to maximize anonymity. The pseudonym distribution process among the RSUs and to the vehicles is highly adaptive to accommodate the needs of the vehicles. We develop a distributed optimization algorithm for the shuffling process and a novel mechanism for cars to change their pseudonyms. Experimental evaluations based on ns3 simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework through showing relatively high values of the used metric, namely the anonymity set.
Who spends and who does not: Clustering visitors at a national arts festival

The Grahamstown National Arts Festival is the oldest National Arts Festival in South Africa and was founded in 1974. This celebration of the arts takes place over a period of eleven days with the main festival running over eight days, which also makes it the longest (in terms of number of days) arts festival in the country. The literature review revealed that high spenders at arts festivals are also the visitors who buy the most show tickets. The success of these events is determined by ticket sales and not necessarily by the number of visitors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine who the high spenders at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival are. Data obtained during the festival in 2008 by means of a questionnaire survey (N=446) was statistically analysed by means of K-means clustering, Pearson‟s chi-square test and ANOVAs. Results indicated two clusters, namely high and low spenders and can assist festival organisers in developing a more focused marketing strategy and festival programme. This was the first time that K-means clustering was applied to festival data in South Africa.
Image Enhancement using Bio-inspired Algorithms on mammogram for cancer detection

Image preprocessing and image enhancement plays a critical role in medical image processing. Considering the case study of breast cancer detection, it was found that there are various schemes of optimization techniques which is either training based or leads to recursive iterations leading to computationally complex process. Hence, the proposed system implements a unique and novel optimization technique called as Image Enhancement using Bio-inspired Algorithms. Different from existing bio-inspired algorithm, the proposed system doesn't use any training sequences, or depends on single fitness function or performs recursive operation for exploring elite population. The algorithm performs automatic segmentation process followed by three level of enhancement operation for achieving local to global best optimization without using any forms of recursive functions. The outcomes are visually defined and well resolution to prove success factor.
PML/TRIM19-Dependent Inhibition of Retroviral Reverse-Transcription by Daxx

PML (Promyelocytic Leukemia protein), also known as TRIM19, belongs to the family of tripartite motif (TRIM) proteins. PML is mainly expressed in the nucleus, where it forms dynamic structures known as PML nuclear bodies that recruit many other proteins, such as Sp100 and Daxx. While the role of PML/TRIM19 in antiviral defense is well documented, its effect on HIV-1 infection remains unclear. Here we show that infection by HIV-1 and other retroviruses triggers the formation of PML cytoplasmic bodies, as early as 30 minutes post-infection. Quantification of the number and size of PML cytoplasmic bodies revealed that they last approximately 8 h, with a peak at 2 h post-infection. PML re-localization is blocked by reverse-transcription inhibitors and is not observed following infection with unrelated viruses, suggesting it is specifically triggered by retroviral reverse-transcription. Furthermore, we show that PML interferes with an early step of retroviral infection since PML knockdown dramatically increases reverse-transcription efficiency. We demonstrate that PML does not inhibit directly retroviral infection but acts through the stabilization of one of its well-characterized partners, Daxx. In the presence of PML, cytoplasmic Daxx is found in the vicinity of incoming HIV-1 capsids and inhibits reverse-transcription. Interestingly, Daxx not only interferes with exogenous retroviral infections but can also inhibit retrotransposition of endogenous retroviruses, thus identifying Daxx as a broad cellular inhibitor of reverse-transcription. Altogether, these findings unravel a novel antiviral function for PML and PML nuclear body-associated protein Daxx.
An Acausal Li-Ion Battery Pack Model for Automotive Applications

In this work, a novel acausal and reconfigurable battery pack model is presented. The model structure adopted for the battery cell is based on an equivalent circuit representation. The circuit elements are modified to take account of both hysteresis and diffusion limitation. The latter is known to be a nonlinear function of large operating currents or long operating times. It is shown that the integration of a current dependent time constant within the cell model better emulates the solid diffusional dynamics of lithium intercalation into the active material under large electrical loads. The advantages of an acausal modeling approach, when scaling-up individual cell models into a complete battery system are also presented. Particular consideration is given to emulating the impact of cell to cell variations on pack performance. Using statistical analysis of battery tests, cell model parameter variations are characterized and quantified. The cell and scaled-up pack model are parameterized for a number of commercially available cell formats, energy capacities and chemistries. The new models are validated using transient, real-world, electrical data measured from an electric vehicle (EV) operating within an urban environment.
Reemergence of recombinant vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreak in Madagascar.

BACKGROUND After the 2001-2002 poliomyelitis outbreak due to recombinant vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) in the Toliara province of Madagascar, another outbreak reoccurred in the same province in 2005. METHODS We conducted epidemiological and virological investigations for each polio case patient and for their contacts. RESULTS From May to August 2005, a total of 5 cases of acute flaccid paralysis were reported among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children 2-3 years old. Type-3 or type-2 VDPV was isolated from case patients and from healthy contacts. These strains were classified into 4 recombinant lineages that showed complex mosaic genomic structures originating from different vaccine strain serotypes and probably from human enterovirus C (HEV-C) species. Genetic relatedness could be observed among these 4 lineages. Vaccination coverage of the population was very low (<50%). CONCLUSIONS The broad distribution of VDPVs in the province and their close genetic relationship indicate intense and rapid cocirculation and coevolution of the vaccine strains and of their related HEV-C strains. The occurrence of an outbreak due to VDPV 3 years after a previous outbreak indicates that a short period with low vaccination coverage is enough to create favorable conditions for the emergence of VDPV in this setting.