Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Properties of the mean momentum balance in turbulent boundary layer, pipe and channel flows

The properties of the mean momentum balance in turbulent boundary layer, pipe and channel flows are explored both experimentally and theoretically. Available high-quality data reveal a dynamically relevant four-layer description that is a departure from the mean profile four-layer description traditionally and nearly universally ascribed to turbulent wall flows. Each of the four layers is characterized by a predominance of two of the three terms in the governing equations, and thus the mean dynamics of these four layers are unambiguously defined. The inner normalized physical extent of three of the layers exhibits significant Reynolds-number dependence. The scaling properties of these layer thicknesses are determined. Particular significance is attached to the viscous/Reynolds-stress-gradient balance layer since its thickness defines a required length scale. Multiscale analysis (necessarily incomplete) substantiates the four-layer structure in developed turbulent channel flow. In particular, the analysis verifies the existence of at least one intermediate layer, with its own characteristic scaling, between the traditional inner and outer layers. Other information is obtained, such as (i) the widths (in order of magnitude) of the four layers, (ii) a flattening of the Reynolds stress profile near its maximum, and (iii) the asymptotic increase rate of the peak value of the Reynolds stress as the Reynolds number approaches infinity. Finally, on the basis of the experimental observation that the velocity increments over two of the four layers are unbounded with increasing Reynolds number and have the same order of magnitude, there is additional theoretical evidence (outside traditional arguments) for the asymptotically logarithmic character of the mean velocity profile in two of the layers; and (in order of magnitude) the mean velocity increments across each of the four layers are determined. All of these results follow from a systematic train of reasoning, using the averaged momentum balance equation together with other minimal assumptions, such as that the mean velocity increases monotonically from the wall.
Spin-Coated vs. Electrodeposited Mn Oxide Films as Water Oxidation Catalysts

Manganese oxides (MnOx), being active, inexpensive and low-toxicity materials, are considered promising water oxidation catalysts (WOCs). This work reports the preparation and the physico-chemical and electrochemical characterization of spin-coated (SC) films of commercial Mn2O3, Mn3O4 and MnO2 powders. Spin coating consists of few preparation steps and employs green chemicals (i.e., ethanol, acetic acid, polyethylene oxide and water). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time SC has been used for the preparation of stable powder-based WOCs electrodes. For comparison, MnOx films were also prepared by means of electrodeposition (ED) and tested under the same conditions, at neutral pH. Particular interest was given to α-Mn2O3-based films, since Mn (III) species play a crucial role in the electrocatalytic oxidation of water. To this end, MnO2-based SC and ED films were calcined at 500 °C, in order to obtain the desired α-Mn2O3 crystalline phase. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were performed to study both electrode charge transport properties and electrode–electrolyte charge transfer kinetics. Long-term stability tests and oxygen/hydrogen evolution measurements were also made on the highest-performing samples and their faradaic efficiencies were quantified, with results higher than 95% for the Mn2O3 SC film, finally showing that the SC technique proposed here is a simple and reliable method to study the electrocatalytic behavior of pre-synthesized WOCs powders.
Evaluation of the urinary kidney injury molecule-1 levels in patients with diabetic nephropathy.

PURPOSE Kidney Injury Molecule-1 is a protein that increases in urine following tubular damage. Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels were correlated with the level of chronic kidney disease secondary to diabetic nephropathy in patients with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. METHODS Clinical and laboratory findings of 142 patients with diabetic nephropathy and 34 control subjects were analysed. Creatinine and HbA1c levels in blood samples and albumin, creatinine and Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels in urine samples were assessed. RESULTS Urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels were significantly increased both in subgroups of diabetic nephropathy (normo-/micro-/macro-albuminuria) and in chronic kidney disease (stage 2-4) compared with controls. Urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels in stage 2 chronic kidney disease patients were significantly higher than those of the patients with stage 3-4 chronic kidney disease. Urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels, along with urinary albumin excretion and the duration of diabetes, were found to be independent risk factors associated with low glomerular filtration rates. CONCLUSION Urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels seems to predict renal injury secondary to diabetic nephropathy in early period independent of albuminuria, because urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 was elevated despite normal urinary albumin excretion in the normoalbuminuric subgroup. Urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels, which are elevated in primarily in stage 2, shows a gradual decrease in patients with chronic kidney disease stages 3 and 4; thus, urinary Kidney Injury Molecule-1 levels may be useful in tracking the progression of kidney disease.
Protective Effects of Fluvastatin on Reproductive Function in Obese Male Rats Induced by High-Fat Diet through Enhanced Signaling of mTOR

Background: Statins can reduce reproductive damage induced by obesity or high-fat diet (HFD), but the specific regulatory mechanisms are largely unknown. Since mTOR/p70s6k sinaling promotes spermatogonia proliferation and spermatogenesis, we hypothesized that this pathway will be involved in the protective effects of statin in HFD-induced reproductive dysfunction. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats (3 weeks old) were randomly divided into a control group (standard diet), HFD group, and a fluvastatin group (HFD + fluvastatin at 6mg/kg, once daily by oral gavage). After 8 weeks, body weight was obtain and rats were sacrificed. Weights of the testes, gross morphology, sperm parameters, circulating levels of sex hormones, lipid levels, and tissue mTOR, p-P70s6k were measured. Another set of male rats were treated with rapamycin or vehicle. Flow cytometry was used to detect the spermatogonia marker c-kit and cell cycle. p-P70s6k expression was analyzed by Western blot. Results: HFD not only results in rat obesity but also leads to spermatogenetic damage and fluvastatin was able to partially block the effects of HFD. Fluvastatin also partially reversed the suppression of mTOR and p-p70s6k expresson. Conclusion: Our data suggest that fluvastatin has protective effects on reproductive function in obese male rats most probably through enhanced signaling of mTOR.
PARAMETERS TO AID IN THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF COMMUNITY TRIALS: INTRACLASS CORRELATIONS FROM THE MINNESOTA HEART HEALTH PROGRAM

Community trials involve the assignment of intact social groups to study conditions and are becoming increasingly common in epidemiologic research. In both the design and analysis of these studies, whether cross-sectional or cohort, allowance must be made for the dependence of elements within intact groups if variances are to be properly estimated. In the design phase, the statistician needs estimates of the level of dependence likely to be encountered. In the analysis phase, external estimates of the level of dependence may be useful in preventing the erosion of power associated with small numbers of intact groups assigned to each condition. We report the intraclass correlation coefficients of the city-year component of variance as estimated in the Minnesota Heart Health Program for a variety of community survey variables and illustrate their use in both design and analysis. Of 23 variables assessed, all but two showed positive estimates of city-year intraclass correlations. In these data, estimates of intraclass correlation coefficients generally were in the range 0.002–0.012.
Efficient Subgraph Matching by Postponing Cartesian Products

In this paper, we study the problem of subgraph matching that extracts all subgraph isomorphic embeddings of a query graph q in a large data graph G. The existing algorithms for subgraph matching follow Ullmann's backtracking approach; that is, iteratively map query vertices to data vertices by following a matching order of query vertices. It has been shown that the matching order of query vertices is a very important aspect to the efficiency of a subgraph matching algorithm. Recently, many advanced techniques, such as enforcing connectivity and merging similar vertices in query or data graphs, have been proposed to provide an effective matching order with the aim to reduce unpromising intermediate results especially the ones caused by redundant Cartesian products. In this paper, for the first time we address the issue of unpromising results by Cartesian products from "dissimilar" vertices. We propose a new framework by postponing the Cartesian products based on the structure of a query to minimize the redundant Cartesian products. Our second contribution is proposing a new path-based auxiliary data structure, with the size O(|E(G)| x |V(q)|), to generate a matching order and conduct subgraph matching, which significantly reduces the exponential size O(|V(G)||V(q)|-1) of the existing path-based auxiliary data structure, where V (G) and E (G) are the vertex and edge sets of a data graph G, respectively, and V (q) is the vertex set of a query $q$. Extensive empirical studies on real and synthetic graphs demonstrate that our techniques outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms by up to $3$ orders of magnitude.
Evaluation of the Pulse‐Contour Method of Determining Stroke Volume in Man

The pulse-contour method for determining stroke volume has been employed as a continuous rapid method of monitoring the cardiovascular status of patients. Twenty-one patients with ischemic heart disease and 21 patients with mitral valve disease were subjected to a variety of hemodynamic interventions. These included exercise, isoproterenol infusion, and practolol, morphine or pentazocine administration. The pulse-contour estimations, using three different formulae derived by Warner, Kouchoukos, and Herd, were compared with indicator-dilution outputs. The pressure-pulse-contour computations were performed by a small on-line cardiac catheterization laboratory computer. A comparison of the results of the two methods for determining stroke volume yielded correlation coefficients ranging from 0.59 to 0.84. The better performing Warner formula yielded a coefficient of variation of about 20%. The type of hemodynamic interventions employed did not significantly affect the results using the pulse-contour method. This method yielded nearly as reliable results with the catheter positioned in the axillary artery as in the central aorta. Good results were obtained using the pulse-contour method in patients with atrial fibrillation as compared to those with sinus rhythm.Although the correlation of the pulse-contour and indicator-dilution stroke volumes is high, the coefficient of variation is such that small changes in stroke volume cannot be accurately assessed by the pulse-contour method. However, the simplicity and rapidity of this method compared to determination of cardiac output by Fick or indicator-dilution methods makes it a potentially useful adjunct for monitoring critically ill patients.
Ejaculation frequency and subsequent risk of prostate cancer.

CONTEXT Sexual activity has been hypothesized to play a role in the development of prostate cancer, but epidemiological data are virtually limited to case-control studies, which may be prone to bias because recall among individuals with prostate cancer could be distorted as a consequence of prostate malignancy or ongoing therapy. OBJECTIVE To examine the association between ejaculation frequency, which includes sexual intercourse, nocturnal emission, and masturbation and risk of prostate cancer. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective study using follow-up data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (February 1, 1992, through January 31, 2000) of 29 342 US men aged 46 to 81 years, who provided information on history of ejaculation frequency on a self-administered questionnaire in 1992 and responded to follow-up questionnaires every 2 years to 2000. Ejaculation frequency was assessed by asking participants to report the average number of ejaculations they had per month during the ages of 20 to 29 years, 40 to 49 years, and during the past year (1991). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incidence of total prostate cancer. RESULTS During 222 426 person-years of follow-up, there were 1449 new cases of total prostate cancer, 953 organ-confined cases, and 147 advanced cases of prostate cancer. Most categories of ejaculation frequency were unrelated to risk of prostate cancer. However, high ejaculation frequency was related to decreased risk of total prostate cancer. The multivariate relative risks for men reporting 21 or more ejaculations per month compared with men reporting 4 to 7 ejaculations per month at ages 20 to 29 years were 0.89 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73-1.10); ages 40 to 49 years, 0.68 (95% CI, 0.53-0.86); previous year, 0.49 (95% CI, 0.27-0.88); and averaged across a lifetime, 0.67 (95% CI, 0.51-0.89). Similar associations were observed for organ-confined prostate cancer. Ejaculation frequency was not statistically significantly associated with risk of advanced prostate cancer. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that ejaculation frequency is not related to increased risk of prostate cancer.
Relationships as regulators: a psychobiologic perspective on bereavement.

In the spirit of adventure that has been characteristic of our Society, I am going to ask you to join me in a mental journey. The purpose is to try to look at something familiar in a new way. We are going to be looking at bereavement—something you all know a lot about—and I am going to try to get a different perspective on it by using information gathered in very different contexts and by trying to imagine what it is that experiments on infant separation in animals might be telling us about adult human bereavement. First, I would like to persuade you that there is still a mystery concerning bereavement. Actually it puzzles us on many accounts: is it a disease or a natural function, a temporary insanity or a mobilization of creative energy? The mystery I would like to examine, however, is its place in natural history, its biologic basis, particularly how the experience comes to produce biologic changes in bereaved people. George Engel asked us, in his presidential address more than 20 years ago (lj, is grief a disease? However, medicine at large
Differentiation during Acute Infection T Cell + XBP-1 Contributes to Effector CD8 Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Regulator

The transcription factor X-box-binding protein-1 (XBP-1) plays an essential role in activating the unfolded protein response in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Transcribed XBP-1 mRNA is converted to its active form by unconventional cytoplasmic splicing mediated by inositol-requiring enzyme-1 (IRE-1) upon ER stress. We report activation of the IRE-1/XBP-1 pathway in effector CD8 (cid:1) T cells during the response to acute infection. Transcription of unspliced XBP-1 mRNA is up-regulated by IL-2 signals, while its splicing is induced after TCR ligation. Splicing of XBP-1 mRNA was evident during the expansion of Ag-speciﬁc CD8 (cid:1) T cells in response to viral or bacterial infection. An XBP-1 splicing reporter revealed that splicing activity was enriched in terminal effector cells expressing high levels of killer cell lectin-like receptor G1 (KLRG1). Overexpression of the spliced form of XBP-1 in CD8 (cid:1) T cells enhanced KLRG1 expression during infection, whereas XBP-1 (cid:2) / (cid:2) CD8 (cid:1) T cells or cells expressing a dominant-negative form of XBP-1 showed a decreased proportion of KLRG1 high effector cells. These results suggest that, in the response to pathogen, activation of ER stress sensors and XBP-1 splicing contribute to the differentiation of end-stage effector CD8 (cid:1) T cells. The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 5433–5441.
Runoff behaviour of metallic materials used for roofs and facades – a 5‐year field exposure study in Switzerland

Different metallic materials, which are in use for building roofs and facades, were exposed to open atmosphere in Dübendorf (Switzerland). The following materials were investigated: copper and zinc with different surface treatment, tinned copper, galvanized steel, aluminium, stainless steel, tinned stainless steel, titanium, and lead. The runoff during rain periods were collected and chemically analysed. It could be shown that copper, zinc and lead release “measurable” amounts of metallic ions and only a small fraction of “particulate” matter. From aluminium, stainless steel and titanium the release was smaller than the detection limit (< 0.01 mg L−1) of the analysis method used. The runoff data will be compared with the corrosion data. The corrosion rate decreases in the course of time whereas the runoff rate shows relatively a constant behaviour.
Identification and characterization of candidate Rlm4 blackleg resistance genes in Brassica napus using next-generation sequencing.

A thorough understanding of the relationships between plants and pathogens is essential if we are to continue to meet the agricultural needs of the world's growing population. The identification of genes underlying important quantitative trait loci is extremely challenging in complex genomes such as Brassica napus (canola, oilseed rape or rapeseed). However, recent advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) enable much quicker identification of candidate genes for traits of interest. Here, we demonstrate this with the identification of candidate disease resistance genes from B. napus for its most devastating fungal pathogen, Leptosphaeria maculans (blackleg fungus). These two species are locked in an evolutionary arms race whereby a gene-for-gene interaction confers either resistance or susceptibility in the plant depending on the genotype of the plant and pathogen. Preliminary analysis of the complete genome sequence of Brassica rapa, the diploid progenitor of B. napus, identified numerous candidate genes with disease resistance characteristics, several of which were clustered around a region syntenic with a major locus (Rlm4) for blackleg resistance on A7 of B. napus. Molecular analyses of the candidate genes using B. napus NGS data are presented, and the difficulties associated with identifying functional gene copies within the highly duplicated Brassica genome are discussed.
A hybrid method for identifying T-S fuzzy models

This paper presents a hybrid approach to extract compact Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models from numeric data, using subtractive clustering (SC), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and least square method. The feature of this method lies in the following: (1) the input space is partitioned and initial fuzzy rule bases are extracted by SC; (2) the optimal parameters of the membership functions are evolved by PSO, based on the initial fuzzy rule bases; (3) the consequent parameters of the rule base are analytically derived by the Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse, instead of being iteratively tuned. Simulation results in Mackey-Glass chaotic time series prediction and nonlinear plant modeling problems show that the proposed method is effective and robust in finding compact and accurate T-S fuzzy models.
Polymorphous Low-Grade Adenocarcinoma in the Lung: A Case Report

Although uncommon, it is well recognized that salivary gland-type tumors can occur as primary lung tumors, probably arising from minor salivary-type glands lining the bronchial tree. Polymorphous low-grade adenocarcinoma (PLGA) is a rare tumor that usually originates from oral minor salivary glands. There are only 2 reported cases showing metastasis to the lung; however, a primary lung tumor has not been reported so far. In this report we describe the clinical and pathological features of another case of PLGA involving the lung, but in a patient with no evidence of a previous oropharyngeal primary. While our case probably represents another example of metastatic PLGA to the lung, to our knowledge, it is the first description of a PLGA involving the lung in the absence of a history of a previous primary oral salivary gland tumor.
A feedback loop between BEX2 and ErbB2 mediated by c‐Jun signaling in breast cancer

BEX2 is a member of brain expressed X‐linked gene family that is differentially expressed in primary breast tumors. We have previously demonstrated that BEX2 expression protects breast cancer cells against mitochondrial apoptosis and G1 cell cycle arrest. In addition, we have shown that BEX2 is a c‐Jun target gene and, in turn, regulates the phosphorylation of c‐Jun in breast cancer cells. In our study, we investigated BEX2 protein expression in a tissue microarray cohort of 225 breast tissue samples with known clinical, pathological and biomarker information. We observed that BEX2 protein was overexpressed in ∼50% of malignant breast tumors compared to only 7% of benign breast samples. Notably, BEX2 positive tumors identified a subset of breast cancers with the overexpression of ErbB2 and phosphorylated c‐Jun proteins. Furthermore, using in vitro models, we demonstrated that the mechanism of this association is a functional feedback loop involving ErbB2, c‐Jun and BEX2 in breast cancer cells. In this feedback loop, ErbB2 overexpression results in an induction of c‐Jun and BEX2 expression. Importantly, ErbB2 induction of BEX2 expression was abrogated by a dominant‐negative mutant of c‐Jun, suggesting that this effect was mediated through the regulation of c‐Jun signaling. In turn, the overexpression of BEX2 led to an increase in both c‐Jun–mediated induction of ErbB2 and c‐Jun binding to the ErbB2 promoter in MCF‐7 cells. Our study suggests that BEX2 protein is overexpressed in approximately half of breast cancers and has a positive feedback loop with ErbB2 mediated by c‐Jun signaling in breast cancer cells.
The Effects of Floating Granulosa Cells Density on the Developmental Competence of Bovine Oocytes: A Study Using the Well-in-Well Culture System

In this study, we succeed to establish the well in the well (WIW) culture system. Using this system we studied the effect of floating granulosa cells density on oocyte developmental competence. Results: Apoptosis rate of the floating cells were high (73.576.3%) and did not differ (P > 0.05) among follicles of different sizes. Hatching rates of blastocysts did not differ (P > 0.05) between oocytes cultured in the WIW system (13.3%) and those cultured in the group system (16.3%). In 4-8mm follicles, oocyte developmental competence is higher (P < 0.05) in follicles with 1030×105/mL floating cells than in follicles with < 10 or >30%×105/mL floating cells.