Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced angiogenesis and increased cardiac perfusion after myocardial infarction in protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B‐deficient mice

The protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) modulates tyrosine kinase receptors, among which is the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor type 2 (VEGFR2), a key component of angiogenesis. Because PTP1B deficiency in mice improves left ventricular (LV) function 2 mo after myocardial infarction (MI), we hypothesized that enhanced angiogenesis early after MI via activated VEGFR2 contributes to this improvement. At 3 d after MI, capillary density was increased at the infarct border of PTP1B–/– mice [+ 7±2% vs. wild‐type (WT), P = 0.05]. This was associated with increased extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 2 phosphorylation and VEGFR2 activation (i.e., phosphorylated‐Src/Src/VEGFR2 and dissociation of endothelial VEGFR2/VE‐cadherin), together with higher infiltration of proangiogenic M2 macrophages within unchanged overall infiltration. In vitro, we showed that PTP1B inhibition or silencing using RNA interference increased VEGF‐induced migration and proliferation of mouse heart microvascular endothelial cells as well as fibroblast growth factor (FGF)‐induced proliferation of rat aortic smooth muscle cells. At 8 d after MI in PTP1B–/– mice, increased LV capillary density (+21 ±3% vs. WT; P<0.05) and an increased number of small diameter arteries (15‐50 μm) were likely to participate in increased LV perfusion assessed by magnetic resonance imaging and improved LV compliance, indicating reduced diastolic dysfunction. In conclusion, PTP1B deficiency reduces MI‐induced heart failure promptly after ischemia by enhancing angiogenesis, myocardial perfusion, and diastolic function. —Besnier, M. , Galaup, A. , Nicol, L. , Henry, J.‐P, Coquerel, D. , Gueret, A. , Mulder, P., Brakenhielm, E. , Thuillez, C. , Germain, S. , Richard, V. , Ouvrard‐Pascaud, A. Enhanced angiogenesis and increased cardiac perfusion after myocardial infarction in protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B‐deficient mice. FASEB J. 28, 3351–3361 (2014). www.fasebj. org
Rule-based Dependencies

We present a modiied version of the Transformation-Based Approach (TBA) and Transformation-Based Error-Driven Learning (TBEDL). We mod-iied the TBA in order to work with a dependency tree structure, which describes more eeciently the syntax of innective and free-word order languages, such as the Czech language. The major changes and characteristics are described in more detail: they mostly concern the error function and the transformation templates. Variations of these transformations and their relationship to their triggering environments is also discussed. The transformations are designed to be compatible with the structural representation used in the Prague Dependency Treebank, which is under construction.
Development of a Segway robot for an intelligent transport system

The need for an intelligent transport system has been heightened in the present day, by the ever-growing demand to combine ease of transport with maximum efficacy. The Segway robot provides a platform which balances itself and transports the user in accordance to its natural lean. However in order to achieve a truly intelligent system, challenges encapsulated in the form of stable control must first be developed. This paper discusses the various aspects of Segway control and sheds light on solutions to solve difficulties in sensor data fusion, noise filtering and time lag in accumulation and transfer of data. Unaccounted time delays necessitate a control, different from an analytically derived control, so as to achieve a stable and easily movable Segway. A proposed control method has been implemented on a real human ridable Segway platform and has achieved considerable success in actual experimentation.
The Role of Ectonucleotidases CD39 and CD73 and Adenosine Signaling in Solid Organ Transplantation

Extracellular adenosine is a potent immunomodulatory molecule that accumulates in states of inflammation. Nucleotides such as adenosine triphosphate and adenosine diphosphate are release from injured and necrotic cells and hydrolyzed to adenosine monophosphate and adenosine by the concerted action of the ectonucleotidases CD39 and CD73. Accumulating evidence suggest that purinergic signaling is involved in the inflammatory response that accompanies acute rejection and chronic allograft dysfunction. Modification of the purinergic pathway has been shown to alter graft survival in a number of solid organ transplant models and the response to ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI). Furthermore, the purinergic pathway is intrinsically involved in B and T cell biology and function. Although T cells have traditionally been considered the orchestrators of acute allograft rejection, a role for B cells in chronic allograft loss is being increasingly appreciated. This review focuses on the role of the ectonucleotidases CD39 and CD73 and adenosine signaling in solid organ transplantation including the effects on IRI and T and B cell biology.
Rubella virus infection and associated factors among pregnant women attending the antenatal care clinics of public hospitals in Hawassa City, Southern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

Objective To assess the seroprevalence of recent/acute and past exposure to rubella virus infection and associated risk factors among pregnant women. Design A hospital-based cross-sectional study. Setting The study was conducted in two public hospitals in Hawassa City, Southern Ethiopia. Participants A total of 422 pregnant women attending antenatal care clinics were selected using a systematic random sampling technique from March to June 2016. Outcome measures Data on sociodemography and related factors were collected using a structured questionnaire. Blood samples were also collected from each study participant and tested for antirubella IgM and IgG antibodies using ELISA. IgG seropositivity indicates past exposure to rubella (protective immunity). IgM seropositivity indicates recent exposure to rubella (or reinfection). Results The seroprevalence of antirubella IgM and IgG antibodies was 2.1% and 86.3%, respectively. Thus, the rate of susceptibility to rubella virus infection among pregnant women was found to be 13.7%. A significant association between residence site and IgG seropositivity was observed, where urban dwellers had higher past rubella exposure compared with rural residents (crude OR 6.3; 95% CI 3.29 to 12.14, p<0.001). Conclusion The high rate of rubella exposure and its similar distribution by sociodemography (except residence site) suggests the continuous transmission and endemicity of the infection in the study area. These findings emphasise the importance of introducing rubella-containing vaccine into routine childhood immunisation programme and vaccinating susceptible women of childbearing age.
Galactocerebroside is expressed by non-myelin-forming Schwann cells in situ

Interest in the glycosphingolipid galactocerebroside (GC) is based on the consensus that in the nervous system it is expressed only by myelin- forming Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes, and that it has a specific role in the elaboration of myelin sheaths. We have investigated GC distribution in two rat nerves--the sciatic, containing a mixture of myelinated and non-myelinated axons, and the cervical sympathetic trunk, in which greater than 99% of axons are non-myelinated. Immunohistochemical experiments using mono- and polyclonal GC antibodies were carried out on teased nerves and cultured Schwann cells, and GC synthesis was assayed biochemically. Unexpectedly, we found that mature non-myelin-forming Schwann cells in situ and in short- term cultures express unambiguous GC immunoreactivity, comparable in intensity to that of myelinated fibers or myelin-forming cells in short- term cultures. GC synthesis was also detected in both sympathetic trunks and sciatic nerves. In the developing sympathetic trunk, GC was first seen at day 19 in utero, the number of GC-positive cells rising to approximately 95% at postnatal day 10. In contrast, the time course of GC appearance in the sciatic nerve shows two separate phases of increase, between day 18 in utero and postnatal day 1, and between postnatal days 20 and 35, at which stage approximately 94% of the cells express GC. These time courses suggest that Schwann cells, irrespective of subsequent differentiation pathway, start expressing GC at about the same time as cell division stops. We suggest that GC is a ubiquitous component of mature Schwann cell membranes in situ. Therefore, the role of GC needs to be reevaluated, since its function is clearly not restricted to events involved in myelination.
The Future Mobility Survey: Experiences in developing a smartphone-based travel survey in Singapore

: The Future Mobility Survey (FMS) is a smartphone-based prompted-recall travel survey that aims to support data collection initiatives for transport modeling purposes. This paper details the considerations that have gone into its development, including the smartphone apps for iPhone and Android platforms, the online activity diary and user interface, and the background intelligence for processing collected data into activity locations and travel traces. We discuss the various trade-offs regarding user comprehension, resource use, and participant burden, including findings from usability tests and a pilot study. We find that close attention should be paid to the simplicity of the user interaction, determinations of activity locations (such as the false positive/false negative trade-off in their automatic classification), and the clarity of interactions in the activity diary. The FMS system design and implementation provides pragmatic, useful insights into the development of similar platforms and approaches for travel/activity surveys.
Economic outcomes and levers: impacts for individuals and society

The pervasive scarcity of resources relative to the demands upon them makes it necessary for decision makers to think carefully about choices. Evidence from economics can help to inform such choices, particularly as it relates to costs, outcomes, the efficiency with which resources are used, the distribution of benefits and burdens across different individuals and budgets, and the processes by which care and treatment are delivered. However, there is still insufficient economic evidence to inform the full range of decisions to be taken in the dementia field; indeed the accumulated volume of evidence remains very modest. The measurement of cost is often too narrow, and there is some disagreement about whether and how to include the costs (direct or indirect) incurred by caregivers. The conceptualization of outcomes for certain purposes has generated argument, especially when attempts are made to introduce generic measures that apply across many clinical areas. It has not always been demonstrated that such measures have any validity in the dementia field. Other comparatively neglected areas have been research on equity and the processes by which care is delivered. Finally, the paper looks at economic barriers to implementation of evidence-based interventions, and the policy levers that might prove influential.
PATIENT PREFERENCE AND ADHERENCE

Background: Many female breast cancer (FBC) patients take Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) and Western medication (WM) concurrently in Taiwan. Despite the possibility of interactions between the CHM and WM mentioned in previous studies, the pattern of these coprescriptions in FBC patients remains unclear. Hence, the aim of the present study is to investigate the utilization of coprescriptions of CHM and WM among the FBC patients in Taiwan. Methods: The study was a cross-sectional survey using the sampled cohort in 2009 obtained from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. There were 3,507 FBC patients identified from the registry for catastrophic illness patients. Ambulatory visit records, corresponding prescriptions, and the data of beneficiaries belonging to the FBC patients were further extracted. A total of 1,086 FBC patients used CHM at least once. CHM and WM prescribed within any overlapping duration were defined as coprescriptions. Results: There were 868 (80.0%) patients simultaneously receiving CHM and WM. A total of 4,927 CHM prescriptions and 6,358 WM prescriptions were prescribed concurrently. Among these coprescriptions, the most frequently used CHM was jia-wei-xiao-yao-san (21.2%), and the most frequently coprescribed WM was acetaminophen (38.9%), followed by tamoxifen (25.5%). There were 346 patients using systemic adjuvant therapy and CHM concurrently. The most commonly coprescribed CHM with chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, and trastuzumab Conclusion: The combined use of CHM with WM is prevalent. The main purpose of combining CHM with systemic cancer treatment is to alleviate the treatment-related adverse effects. However, the combination may result in the potential risk of drug–herb interactions. Further clinical studies are needed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the CHM and WM coprescrip-tions for FBC patients.
A Rule-based Method for Discovering Trajectory Profiles

The discovery of people profiles such as workers, students, families with kids, etc, is of interest for several application domains. For decades, such information has been extracted using census data, and more recently, from social networks, where people’s profile is clearly defined. A new type of data that has not been explored for discovering profiles, but which stores the real movement of people, are trajectories of moving objects. In this paper we propose a rule-based method to represent socio-demographic profiles, a moving object history model to summarize the daily movement of individuals, and define similarity functions for matching the profile model and the history model. We evaluate the method for single and multiple profile discovery.
Depression Severity Estimation from Multiple Modalities

Depression is a major debilitating disorder which can affect people from all ages. With a continuous increase in the number of annual cases of depression, there is a need to develop automatic techniques for the detection of the presence and its severity. We explore different modalities (speech, behavioral characteristics, language and visual features extracted from face) to design and develop automatic methods for the detection of depression. In psychology literature, the eight-item Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-8) is well established as a tool for measuring the severity of depression. In this paper we aim to automatically predict the total sum of PHQ-8 scores from features extracted from the different modalities. We demonstrate that among the considered modalities, behavioral characteristic features extracted from speech yield the lowest MAE, outperforming the best system at the Audio/Visual Emotion Challenge (AVEC) 2017 depression sub-challenge.
TranslatorX: multiple alignment of nucleotide sequences guided by amino acid translations

We present TranslatorX, a web server designed to align protein-coding nucleotide sequences based on their corresponding amino acid translations. Many comparisons between biological sequences (nucleic acids and proteins) involve the construction of multiple alignments. Alignments represent a statement regarding the homology between individual nucleotides or amino acids within homologous genes. As protein-coding DNA sequences evolve as triplets of nucleotides (codons) and it is known that sequence similarity degrades more rapidly at the DNA than at the amino acid level, alignments are generally more accurate when based on amino acids than on their corresponding nucleotides. TranslatorX novelties include: (i) use of all documented genetic codes and the possibility of assigning different genetic codes for each sequence; (ii) a battery of different multiple alignment programs; (iii) translation of ambiguous codons when possible; (iv) an innovative criterion to clean nucleotide alignments with GBlocks based on protein information; and (v) a rich output, including Jalview-powered graphical visualization of the alignments, codon-based alignments coloured according to the corresponding amino acids, measures of compositional bias and first, second and third codon position specific alignments. The TranslatorX server is freely available at http://translatorx.co.uk.
DREAM Mediated Regulation of GCM1 in the Human Placental Trophoblast

The trophoblast transcription factor glial cell missing-1 (GCM1) regulates differentiation of placental cytotrophoblasts into the syncytiotrophoblast layer in contact with maternal blood. Reduced placental expression of GCM1 and abnormal syncytiotrophoblast structure are features of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy – preeclampsia. In-silico techniques identified the calcium-regulated transcriptional repressor – DREAM (Downstream Regulatory Element Antagonist Modulator) - as a candidate for GCM1 gene expression. Our objective was to determine if DREAM represses GCM1 regulated syncytiotrophoblast formation. EMSA and ChIP assays revealed a direct interaction between DREAM and the GCM1 promoter. siRNA-mediated DREAM silencing in cell culture and placental explant models significantly up-regulated GCM1 expression and reduced cytotrophoblast proliferation. DREAM calcium dependency was verified using ionomycin. Furthermore, the increased DREAM protein expression in preeclamptic placental villi was predominantly nuclear, coinciding with an overall increase in sumolylated DREAM and correlating inversely with GCM1 levels. In conclusion, our data reveal a calcium-regulated pathway whereby GCM1-directed villous trophoblast differentiation is repressed by DREAM. This pathway may be relevant to disease prevention via calcium-supplementation.
Tolerance of combined submergence and salinity in the halophytic stem-succulent Tecticornia pergranulata.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Habitats occupied by many halophytes are not only saline, but are also prone to flooding. Few studies have evaluated submergence tolerance in halophytes. METHODS Responses to submergence, at a range of salinity levels, were studied for the halophytic stem-succulent Tecticornia pergranulata subsp. pergranulata (syn. Halosarcia pergranulata subsp. pergranulata). Growth and total sugars in succulent stems were assessed as a function of time after submergence. Underwater net photosynthesis, dark respiration, total sugars, glycinebetaine, Na(+), Cl(-) and K(+), in succulent stems, were assessed in a NaCl dose-response experiment. KEY RESULTS Submerged plants ceased to grow, and tissue sugars declined. Photosynthesis by succulent stems was reduced markedly when underwater, as compared with in air. Capacity for underwater net photosynthesis (P(N)) was not affected by 10-400 mM NaCl, but it was reduced by 30 % at 800 mM. Dark respiration, underwater, increased in succulent stems at 200-800 mM NaCl, as compared with those at 10 mM NaCl. On an ethanol-insoluble dry mass basis, K(+) concentration in succulent stems of submerged plants was equal to that in drained controls, across all NaCl treatments. Na(+) and Cl(-) concentrations, however, were elevated in stems of submerged plants, but so was glycinebetaine. Submerged stems increased in succulence, so solutes would have been 'diluted' on a tissue-water basis. CONCLUSIONS Tecticornia pergranulata tolerates complete submergence, even in waters of high salinity. A 'quiescence response', i.e. no shoot growth, would conserve carbohydrates, but tissue sugars still declined with time. A low K(+) : Na(+) ratio, typical for tissues of succulent halophytes, was tolerated even during prolonged submergence, as evidenced by maintenance of underwater P(N) at up to 400 mM NaCl. Underwater P(N) provides O(2) and sugars, and thus should enhance survival of submerged plants.
Age and sex structure.

The population age-sex profile a composite result of past births deaths and migrations is 1 of the important determinants of the future growth and structure of the population. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the main features of the Australian population profile at various points in time noting changes that have taken place. In early times the population profile was highly irregular as a result of the large and variable inputs of immigration which tended to be young adult males. Additionally there was erratic growth in the number of births and variation in the crude birthrate. The profile tended to be young again as a consequence of immigration and high birthrates. At the beginning of the 20th century 35.1% of the population were aged under 15; 60.9% were aged 15-64; and 4% were aged 65 and older. Masculinity was 110.1 males/100 females. During the present century the average age rose so that by 1979 25.7% were aged under 15 years; 64.9% aged 15-64 years; and 9.4% aged 65 years and older. The median age was 29.2 years and masculinity was 100.4. The greater number of females than males past age 57 is a reflection of greater female longevity. The excess of males in middle age and young adulthood is primarily due to the greater number of male immigrants and in childhood to the excess of male over female births. The generations nearing age of retirement now in their 50s substantially exceed older generations but the following generation born in the 1930s and now in their late 40s is smaller. The generations born immediately after World War 2 are now in their 30s. The number of women in the principal childbearing ages 20-29 will increase for several years. Australian immigration has characteristically been overrepresented by young adult males. Recently female immigrants have outnumbered male immigrants and there have been more older arrivals. The 6 States have similar age structures except that Queensland has a slightly higher proportion of persons 65 years of age and older. Western Australia has a slightly larger proportion at ages 15-44. Queenslands pattern is largely due to an older age structure of its overseas born population rather than to differences in respect of its Australian born population. The 2 Territories have substantially younger populations. The populations of the Territories are small and both have grown since World War 2 more rapidly than the State populations. The expansion of employment in the government sector has provided a stimulus to growth.
Spying Browser Extensions: Analysis and Detection

Several studies have been conducted on understanding third-party user tracking on the web. However, web trackers can only track users on sites where they are embedded by the publisher, thus obtaining a fragmented view of a user's online footprint. In this work, we investigate a different form of user tracking, where extensions enabled on a browser can capture the complete browsing behavior of a user and communicate the collected sensitive information to a remote server (untrusted by the user). We conduct the first large-scale empirical study of 218 spying browser extensions on the Chrome Web Store. We observe that these extensions steal a variety of sensitive user information, such as the complete browsing history of the users (e.g., the sequence of web traversals), online social network (OSN) access tokens, and IP address and geolocation of users. We present an in-depth analysis of the spying behavior of these extensions. Finally, we investigate the potential for automatically detecting spying extensions by applying machine learning schemes using a comprehensive set of features capturing various client-side and network behavior. Our findings highlight the importance of detecting and limiting user behavior tracking by browser extensions.