Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of Bmi-1, P16, and CD44v6 in Uterine Cervical Carcinoma and Its Clinical Significance

Objective Bmi-1, a putative proto-oncogene, is a core member of the polycomb gene family, which is expressed in many human tumors. The p16 protein negatively regulated cell proliferation, whereas CD44v6 is associated with proliferation as an important protein. Additionally, CD44v6 is an important nuclear antigen closely correlated to tumor metastasis. The present study aims to investigate the expression and significance of Bmi-1, p16, and CD44v6 in uterine cervical carcinoma (UCC). Methods A total of 62 UCC, 30 cervical neoplasic, and 20 normal cervical mucosal tissues were used in the current study. The expression of Bmi-1, p16, and CD44v6 in these tissues was determined using immunohistochemical assay. The relationships among the expression of these indices, the clinicopathologic features of UCC, and the survival rate of UCC patients were also discussed. The correlation between Bmi-1 protein expression and p16 or CD44v6 protein in UCC was analyzed. Results The expression of Bmi-1, p16, and CD44v6 was significantly high in cervical carcinoma compared with that in the cervical neoplasia and normal colorectal mucosa (P<0.05). The over-expression of Bmi-1 protein in UCC was apparently related to the distant metastasis (P<0.01) and the tumor, nodes and metastasis-classification, i.e. the TNM staging, World Health Organization (P<0.05). Nevertheless, the positive expression of p16 protein in UCC was not significantly associated with the clinicopathologic features (P>0.05). The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that the over-expression of Bmi-1 significantly decreased the survival rate of UCC patients (P<0.05). A strong correlation indicated that there was statistical significance between the expression of Bmi-1 and CD44V6 proteins in UCC (r=0.419, P=0.001). Conclusions The over-expression of Bmi-1 and CD44v6 protein closely correlate to the tumorigenesis, metastasis, and prognosis of UCC. Bmi-1 and CD44v6 may be used to predict the prognosis of cervical carcinoma. Bmi-1 may indirectly regulate the expression of CD44v6 in UCC patients. The positive expression of p16 protein is possibly associated with the tumorigenesis, but not with the metastasis or prognosis of UCC.
Inflationary Cosmology: Exploring the Universe from the Smallest to the Largest Scales

Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these interconnections between particle physics and gravitation. Inflation makes several predictions about the present state of the universe—such as its overall shape, large-scale smoothness, and smaller scale structure—which are being tested to unprecedented accuracy by a new generation of astronomical measurements. The agreement between these predictions and the latest observations is extremely promising. Meanwhile, physicists are busy trying to understand inflation's ultimate implications for the nature of matter, energy, and spacetime.
Investigating Facial Mimicry Responses to Emotional Stimuli in Spanish-English Bilinguals

This research analyzed facial mimicry responses in two groups of Spanish-English bilinguals: bilinguals for whom Spanish was the first language learned (L1) and bilinguals for whom English was the L1. Prior research suggested that Spanish-English bilinguals experience emotion differently, but no research to date had examined if exposed to language primes, Spanish-English bilingual participants would mimic facial expressions differently depending on when each language was learned. The results showed that Spanish L1 bilinguals were overall more emotionally expressive, and Spanish L1 bilinguals were more likely to mimic facial expressions when stimuli were primed with English. Additional findings from the study showed that Spanish L1 bilinguals were more likely to mimic happiness in English primed expressions, while English L1 bilinguals were more likely to mimic surprise. Spanish L1 bilinguals were more likely to mimic anger in the English prime, and English L1 bilinguals were more likely to mimic anger in the Spanish prime. The results are analyzed in the context of how culture shapes appropriateness of displaying emotional expressions, and future directions are discussed.
Development and preliminary testing of an instrumented object for force analysis during grasping

This paper presents the design and realization of an instrumented object for force analysis during grasping. The object, with spherical shape, has been constructed with three contact areas in order to allow performing a tripod grasp. Force Sensing Resistor (FSR) sensors have been employed for normal force measurements, while an accelerometer has been used for slip detection. An electronic board for data acquisition has been embedded into the object, so that only the cables for power supply exit from it. Validation tests have been carried out for: (i) comparing the force measurements with a ground truth; (ii) assessing the capability of the accelerometer to detect slippage for different roughness values; (iii) evaluating object performance in grasp trials performed by a human subject.
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor and oral cancer.

BACKGROUND Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a pleiotropic cytokine with pro-inflammatory functions and involved in tumorigenesis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression and localization of the macrophage MIF in oral squamous carcinoma (OSC). In addition, the relationship between MIF expression and clinicopathological parameters such as survival data, tobacco use, alcohol habits, TNM stage, tumor graduation, and peritumoral inflammatory infiltrate were evaluated. METHODS Using immunohistochemistry, expression and localization of MIF was detected in 44 specimens of OSC. The absolute number and relative proportions of MIF-positive cells detected were also determined separately for tumor parenchyma vs. stroma. All counts were determined from 10 consecutive high-power fields using an integration graticule. Moreover, some parameters were analyzed separately for lip and intra-oral cancers. RESULTS Migration inhibitory factor-positive cells were observed in both the tumor parenchyma and in inflammatory cells of all specimens. In contrast, MIF expression was not detected in tumoral nests associated with poorly differentiated tumors. In specimens of lip cancer, a greater number of MIF-positive stromal immune cells were detected than in intra-oral cancer specimens (Mann-Whitney test, P = 0.049). CONCLUSIONS Oral squamous carcinoma cells consistently express MIF independent of their location. Lip tumors presented more MIF-positive peritumoral inflammatory cells, similar to control, suggesting that immunological differences in leukocyte activation exist between in lip and intra-oral cancers.
Microarray analysis of gene expression in vestibular schwannomas reveals SPP1/MET signaling pathway and androgen receptor deregulation

Vestibular schwannomas are benign neoplasms that arise from the vestibular nerve. The hallmark of these tumors is the biallelic inactivation of neurofibromin 2 (NF2). Transcriptomic alterations, such as the neuregulin 1 (NRG1)/ErbB2 pathway, have been described in schwannomas. In this study, we performed a whole transcriptome analysis in 31 vestibular schwannomas and 9 control nerves in the Affymetrix Gene 1.0 ST platform, validated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) using TaqMan Low Density arrays. We performed a mutational analysis of NF2 by PCR/denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC) and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA), as well as a microsatellite marker analysis of the loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of chromosome 22q. The microarray analysis demonstrated that 1,516 genes were deregulated and 48 of the genes were validated by qRT-PCR. At least 2 genetic hits (allelic loss and/or gene mutation) in NF2 were found in 16 tumors, seven cases showed 1 hit and 8 tumors showed no NF2 alteration. MET and associated genes, such as integrin, alpha 4 (ITGA4)/B6, PLEXNB3/SEMA5 and caveolin-1 (CAV1) showed a clear deregulation in vestibular schwannomas. In addition, androgen receptor (AR) downregulation may denote a hormonal effect or cause in this tumor. Furthermore, the osteopontin gene (SPP1), which is involved in merlin protein degradation, was upregulated, which suggests that this mechanism may also exert a pivotal role in schwannoma merlin depletion. Finally, no major differences were observed among tumors of different size, histological type or NF2 status, which suggests that, at the mRNA level, all schwannomas, regardless of their molecular and clinical characteristics, may share common features that can be used in their treatment.
Using a Social Experiment to Validate a Dynamic Behavioral Model of Child Schooling and Fertility: Assessing the Impact of a School Subsidy Program in Mexico

Compounds of formula (II) wherein R1 represents a branched chain alkyl group of at least 4 carbon atoms or a cycloalkyl group of at least 4 carbon atoms; R2 and R3 are the same or different and each represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group of 1-6 carbon atoms; R4, R6 and R7 are the same or different and each represent a hydrogen or halogen atom or an alkyl or alkoxy group of 1-4 carbon atoms; and R5 represents an alkyl group, a substituted alkyl group, an aryl group or a substituted aryl group, ARE OUTSTANDING HERBICIDES AND PLANT GROWTH REGULANTS.
Optimization of a Higher Throughput Microsomal Stability Screening Assay for Profiling Drug Discovery Candidates

Metabolic stability plays an important role in the success of drug candidates. First-pass metabolism is one of the major causes of poor oral bioavailability and short half-life. Traditionally, metabolic stability was evaluated at a later stage of drug discovery and required laborious manual manipulations. With the advance of high-throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry, and early profiling of drug-like properties, automated and rapid stability assays are needed to meet the increasing demand of throughput, speed, and reproducibility at earlier stages of drug discovery. The authors describe optimization of a simple, robust, high-throughput microsomal stability assay developed in a 96-well format. The assay consists of 2 automated components: robotic sample preparation for incubation and cleanup and rapid liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) analysis to determine percent remaining of the parent compound. The reagent solutions and procedural steps were optimized for automation. Variables affecting assay results were investigated. The variability introduced by microsome preparations from different sources (various vendors and batches) was studied and indicates the need for careful control. Quality control and normalization of the stability results are critical when applying the screening data, generated at different times or research sites, to discovery projects.
Insulin resistance in liver cirrhosis is not associated with circulating retinol-binding protein 4.

OBJECTIVE Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) has been identified as a novel adipokine mediating systemic insulin resistance, and elevated serum RBP4 indicates overt or impending insulin resistance in lean, obese, and type 2 diabetic subjects. As insulin resistance is present in nearly all patients with liver cirrhosis, we evaluated RBP4 in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Serum RBP4 was measured in 111 CLD patients. Ninety-nine age- and sex-matched healthy blood donors served as control subjects. RBP4 gene expression was also quantified in normal and cirrhotic rat liver. RESULTS In CLD patients, serum RBP4 was significantly reduced compared with healthy control subjects and closely correlated with the stage of liver cirrhosis. CLD patients without cirrhosis showed normal RBP4 concentrations, which correlated with serum glucose and insulin secretion and inversely correlated with insulin sensitivity. In patients with Child A-C liver cirrhosis, however, RBP4 was not correlated with glucose metabolism or other adipokines, such as adiponectin or resistin, but closely linked to the hepatic biosynthetic capacity, fibrotic changes in liver histology, or clinical complications such as portal hypertension. In an animal model of experimental cirrhosis, hepatic RBP4 gene expression decreased in cirrhotic liver. CONCLUSIONS RBP4 appears, unlike in obesity or type 2 diabetes, not to be a relevant systemic factor in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance in liver cirrhosis. Liver function has a tremendous impact on RBP4 levels, and future studies will need to take liver function into account when examining serum RBP4 levels.
An Additive Manufacturing Test Artifact

A test artifact, intended for standardization, is proposed for the purpose of evaluating the performance of additive manufacturing (AM) systems. A thorough analysis of previously proposed AM test artifacts as well as experience with machining test artifacts have inspired the design of the proposed test artifact. This new artifact is designed to provide a characterization of the capabilities and limitations of an AM system, as well as to allow system improvement by linking specific errors measured in the test artifact to specific sources in the AM system. The proposed test artifact has been built in multiple materials using multiple AM technologies. The results of several of the builds are discussed, demonstrating how the measurement results can be used to characterize and improve a specific AM system.
Endotoxin-induced uveitis in the rat. The significance of intraocular interleukin-6.

The potential role of interleukin-6 (IL-6) was studied as an inflammatory mediator of endotoxin (or lipopolysaccharide [LPS])-induced uveitis (EIU) in the rat. In young Lewis rats, levels of intraocular IL-6, but not serum IL-6, correlated with the severity of uveitis and with aqueous humor protein levels in response to foot pad injections of LPS (P less than 0.001). Adult Lewis rats did not develop uveitis and had no intraocular IL-6, although IL-6 was released systemically. Resistance to EIU and absence of IL-6 levels in the aqueous humor, despite the ability to release serum IL-6, also were observed in brown Norway rats, irrespective of age and weight. Intravitreal injection of as little as 1 ng of human recombinant IL-6 induced uveitis in young Lewis rats. In adult Lewis rats, and in young animals made tolerant to LPS, intravitreal IL-6 still caused substantial leakage of plasma proteins into the anterior chamber but no influx of inflammatory cells. As early as 2 hr after intravitreal injection of IL-6, immunohistochemical analysis showed invasion of the iris, corneal stroma, and anterior chamber by polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) and expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II antigen in the retina by large cells that were macrophage-marker ED2 negative. This was followed by massive PMN infiltration of the retinal layers and vitreous. The MHC class II antigen expression of ciliary and iris epithelium occurred at a later stage (greater than 8 hr). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Risk factors distribution and cardiovascular disease prevalence in the Italian population: the CHECK study

Objective: To evaluate the distribution of cardiovascular risk factors and the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in a sample of the Italian population. Methods: CHECK (Cholesterol and Health: Education, Control and Knowledge) is a cross-sectional observational study in a randomised sample of the Italian adult population aged 40 - 79 years, in the setting of general practice. Results: 5846 subjects (50.3% male) were included in the analysis. The mean age [±SD] of the observed cohort was 57.8 (±10.3) years. One out of five subjects smoked cigarettes and almost 80% didn’t engage in regular leisure-time physical activity. The mean blood pressure was 132.0 [±14.7]/81.2 [±7.9] mmHg. The total and LDL-cholesterol levels were respectively 205.3 [±35.9] mg/dL and 124.9 [±29.9] mg/dL. The mean glucose concentration was 98.3 [±28.2] mg/dL. The prevalence rate of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and type 2 diabetes were respectively 51.8%, 55.6%, and 13.0%. 8.9% of the observed subjects had a history of cardiovascular events, while in the primary prevention group the 10-year-risk of coronary heart disease (Framingham algorithm) was 10.1% [±8.3%] and of cardiovascular disease (CUORE algorithm) was 5.2% [±5.9%]. Conclusion: The CHECK study provides a detailed description of a randomised sample of the Italian population, contributing to evaluate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and the main cardiovascular disease in Italy and to provide a baseline to set priorities and objectives for future intervention of health policy.
Android Malware Detection using Deep Learning on API Method Sequences

Android OS experiences a blazing popularity since the last few years. This predominant platform has established itself not only in the mobile world but also in the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This popularity, however, comes at the expense of security, as it has become a tempting target of malicious apps. Hence, there is an increasing need for sophisticated, automatic, and portable malware detection solutions. In this paper, we propose MalDozer, an automatic Android malware detection and family attribution framework that relies on sequences classification using deep learning techniques. Starting from the raw sequence of the app's API method calls, MalDozer automatically extracts and learns the malicious and the benign patterns from the actual samples to detect Android malware. MalDozer can serve as a ubiquitous malware detection system that is not only deployed on servers, but also on mobile and even IoT devices. We evaluate MalDozer on multiple Android malware datasets ranging from 1K to 33K malware apps, and 38K benign apps. The results show that MalDozer can correctly detect malware and attribute them to their actual families with an F1-Score of 96%-99% and a false positive rate of 0.06%-2%, under all tested datasets and settings.
Type and degree of co-occurrence of the educational communication in a community of inquiry*

ABSTRACT The study analyzes the type and quantity of co-occurrence of social, cognitive, and teaching presence in a Community of Inquiry (CoI). Content analysis of the virtual educational communication shows units of analysis that must be assigned to more than one category. By crossing the categories of the CoI model, we observe that Social Presence is involved in all of the crossings and that graphic, linguistic, and paralinguistic elements change the meaning of the communication in the social, cognitive, and teaching interaction. We demonstrate the communicative richness of the educational encounters in which Social Presence interacts with the other elements and draw conclusions about the importance of support for communication in virtual communication. We stress the need to analyze co-occurrences to achieve a full analysis of computer-mediated communication.
Oral manifestation and salivary changes in renal patients undergoing hemodialysis

Background Salivary changes in hemodialysis patients may result in various oral manifestations. This research intended to determine oral manifestations and some salivary markers in hemodialysis patients. Material and Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 30 hemodialysis patients (the patient group) and 30 healthy individuals (the control group). Saliva urea and calcium levels and pH values of the participants were measured, and oral manifestations such as pale mucosa, xerostomia, halitosis, changes in the sense of taste, increased calculus formation, gingival bleeding, etc. were recorded in the information collection form. The data was analyzed using T-test and chi-square, and p<0.05 was considered to be significant. Results The mean salivary urea level and pH value in the patient group were significantly higher compared to those of the control group (P<0.05), but there were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to salivary calcium. Halitosis, xerostomia, and increased calculus were the most prevalent manifestations, and gum bleeding was the least prevalent among the patients. Conclusions Advanced chronic renal insufficiency can increase salivary urea level, pH value, halitosis, xerostomia, and calculus formation, and may cause pale mucosa. Key words:Renal dialysis, biomarkers, oral manifestation, saliva.
Counselling psychologists' use of self in the therapeutic relationship: the role of narcissism

6 Introduction.9 Background of research questions/ personal history.9 The structure of the research project.15 Chapter1: Literature Review.18 The myth of Narcissus.18 Different theories around narcissism and the chosen scope.23 Therapists’ narcissism and its implications for the therapeutic relationship: Symington’s view and relevant literature.33 The present study.49 Chapter 2: Methodology.53 Qualitative enquiry.53 Heuristic methodology, phenomenology and social constructionism.58
What Determines Cartel Success?

In this paper we survey several cross-section studies of cartels and a large sample of case studies of cartels in individual industries. We compare the findings of these studies of cartel activity from the 1800s through the 1980s with the characteristics of a sample of international cartels from the 1990s, and present preliminary evidence on whether the stylized facts regarding industry characteristics for historical cartels also hold for contemporary cartels. The hard lesson learned from our survey of the empirical work is that it is difficult to generalize about cartel behavior. Our examination of cartel duration concludes that cartels are neither short-lived nor long-lived; they are both. Similarly, our analysis of the effect of cartels on prices and profitability finds that there is enormous variance in cartel success at raising price to the joint-profit maximizing level. In our examination of cartel breakdowns we find, as suggested by recent theoretical literature, that cheating is a common cause. Occurring even more frequently, however, are entry, external shocks, and bargaining problems, suggesting that these issues should be given deeper consideration in future work. Stigler's hypothesis that large customers contribute to cartel breakdowns is borne out in a few case studies. But there appear to be more cases in our sample in which large customers help to stabilize the cartel. Only the oldest of suppositions, that highly concentrated industries are more prone to cartelization, seems to hold true across studies. Our inability to find more commonality among these studies and among cartels does not simply reflect our ignorance of cartel operations or secrecy on the part of cartels (or the different methodological approaches covered in this survey). Rather, it reflects the innumerable possibilities for organizing a successful cartel, and the interdependence of those factors determining cartel success.