Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development and Function of the Drosophila Tracheal System

The tracheal system of insects is a network of epithelial tubules that functions as a respiratory organ to supply oxygen to various target organs. Target-derived signaling inputs regulate stereotyped modes of cell specification, branching morphogenesis, and collective cell migration in the embryonic stage. In the postembryonic stages, the same set of signaling pathways controls highly plastic regulation of size increase and pattern elaboration during larval stages, and cell proliferation and reprograming during metamorphosis. Tracheal tube morphogenesis is also regulated by physicochemical interaction of the cell and apical extracellular matrix to regulate optimal geometry suitable for air flow. The trachea system senses both the external oxygen level and the metabolic activity of internal organs, and helps organismal adaptation to changes in environmental oxygen level. Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the high plasticity of tracheal development and physiology uncovered through research on Drosophila are discussed.
Phosphorus, not nitrogen, limits plants and microbial primary producers following glacial retreat

Unlike temperate soils, where N limits primary productivity, cold and dry soils exposed by retreating glaciers are P-limited. Current models of ecosystem development hold that low nitrogen availability limits the earliest stages of primary succession, but these models were developed from studies conducted in areas with temperate or wet climates. Global warming is now causing rapid glacial retreat even in inland areas with cold, dry climates, areas where ecological succession has not been adequately studied. We combine field and microcosm studies of both plant and microbial primary producers and show that phosphorus, not nitrogen, is the nutrient most limiting to the earliest stages of primary succession along glacial chronosequences in the Central Andes and central Alaska. We also show that phosphorus addition greatly accelerates the rate of succession for plants and for microbial phototrophs, even at the most extreme deglaciating site at over 5000 meters above sea level in the Andes of arid southern Peru. These results challenge the idea that nitrogen availability and a severe climate limit the rate of plant and microbial succession in cold-arid regions and will inform conservation efforts to mitigate the effects of global change on these fragile and threatened ecosystems.
Events Detection, Coreference and Sequencing: What's next? Overview of the TAC KBP 2017 Event Track

After two successful years of Event Nugget evaluation in the TAC KBP workshop, the third Event Nugget evaluation track for Knowledge Base Population(KBP) still attracts a lot of attention from the ﬁeld. In addition to the traditional event nugget and coreference tasks, we introduce a new event sequencing task in English. The new task has brought more complex event relation reasoning to the current evaluations. In this paper we try to provide an overview on the task deﬁnition, data annotation, evaluation and trending research methods. We further discuss our efforts in creating the new event sequencing task and interesting research problems related to it.
Nimotuzumab with Concurrent Chemoradiation in Inoperable Locally Advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck: An Indian Experience

Background: The prognosis of patients with Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) overexpression in inoperable Locally Advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck (LASCCHN) remains poor. Nimotuzumab is an Anti EGFR humanized monoclonal antibody approved for treatment of LASCCHN, with concurrent chemoradiation. Objective: To assess the efficacy and safety of nimotuzumab with concurrent chemoradiation in inoperable LASCCHN patients. Methodology: This is a single-centre, single arm, retrospective study evaluating 35 patients with histologically confirmed inoperable LASCCHN (stages III-IV). The patients were administered IV cisplatin 50 mg/m2 and IV nimotuzumab 200 mg for 6 - 7 weeks, along with radiotherapy of 6600 - 7000 cGy over 35 fractions. Patients were evaluated over response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST) criteria 12 weeks after the last cycle of chemotherapy. They were also followed up for overall survival and relapse free survival. Results: The median duration of follow-up was 20 months. The most common site of cancer was oropharynx (68.6%). One patient was lost to follow up. Objective Response Rate (ORR) was observed in 97% of the patients with 17 patients (48.6%) achieving complete response (CR) and 17 patients (48.6%) achieving partial response (PR). The median overall survival was 22.7 months (95% CI: 21.30, 34.27). The median relapse free survival was 16.7 months (95% CI: 9.80, 24.50). Nimotuzumab was safe and well tolerated with few mild, self-limiting adverse events. Conclusion: Nimotuzumab with chemoradiation is a safe and efficacious option in patients with LASCCHN. Larger studies are needed to verify the same.
Combined Cognitive-Motor Rehabilitation in Virtual Reality Improves Motor Outcomes in Chronic Stroke – A Pilot Study

Stroke is one of the most common causes of acquired disability, leaving numerous adults with cognitive and motor impairments, and affecting patients’ capability to live independently. Virtual Reality (VR) based methods for stroke rehabilitation have mainly focused on motor rehabilitation but there is increasing interest toward the integration of cognitive training for providing more effective solutions. Here we investigate the feasibility for stroke recovery of a virtual cognitive-motor task, the Reh@Task, which combines adapted arm reaching, and attention and memory training. 24 participants in the chronic stage of stroke, with cognitive and motor deficits, were allocated to one of two groups (VR, Control). Both groups were enrolled in conventional occupational therapy, which mostly involves motor training. Additionally, the VR group underwent training with the Reh@Task and the control group performed time-matched conventional occupational therapy. Motor and cognitive competences were assessed at baseline, end of treatment (1 month) and at a 1-month follow-up through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Single Letter Cancelation, Digit Cancelation, Bells Test, Fugl-Meyer Assessment Test, Chedoke Arm and Hand Activity Inventory, Modified Ashworth Scale, and Barthel Index. Our results show that both groups improved in motor function over time, but the Reh@Task group displayed significantly higher between-group outcomes in the arm subpart of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Test. Improvements in cognitive function were significant and similar in both groups. Overall, these results are supportive of the viability of VR tools that combine motor and cognitive training, such as the Reh@Task. Trial Registration: This trial was not registered because it is a small clinical study that addresses the feasibility of a prototype device.
Foraging strategy of wasps – optimisation of intake rate or energetic efficiency?

ABSTRACT In endothermic wasps, foraging is an expensive activity. To maximise the benefit for the colony, wasps can optimise either the intake rate or energetic efficiency of a foraging trip. We investigated the foraging behaviour of vespine wasps under variable environmental and reward conditions. We trained them to forage for 0.5 mol l–1 sucrose solution from an artificial flower in a flow-through respiratory measurement chamber, and simultaneously measured their body temperature using infrared thermography to investigate interactions between thermoregulation and energetics. Measurement of carbon dioxide release (for energetic calculations) and load mass enabled the direct determination of foraging efficiency. An unlimited reward increased the wasps' energetic effort to increase the suction speed through high body temperatures. With reduced reward (limited flow), when an increased body temperature could not increase suction speed, the wasps decreased their body temperature to reduce the metabolic effort. Solar heat gain was used differently, either to increase body temperature without additional metabolic effort or to save energy. The foraging efficiency was mainly determined by the flow rate, ambient temperature and solar heat gain. In shade, an unlimited sucrose flow and a high ambient temperature yielded the highest energetic benefit. A limited flow reduced foraging efficiency in the shade, but only partly in sunshine. Solar radiation boosted the efficiency at all reward rates. Wasps responded flexibly to varying reward conditions by maximising intake rate at unlimited flow and switching to the optimisation of foraging efficiency when the intake rate could not be enhanced due to a limited flow rate. Summary: Wasps responded flexibly to varying reward conditions by maximising intake rate at unlimited flow and switching to the optimisation of foraging efficiency when the intake rate could not be enhanced due to a limited flow rate.
How Much Restricted Isometry is Needed In Nonconvex Matrix Recovery?

When the linear measurements of an instance of low-rank matrix recovery satisfy a restricted isometry property (RIP)---i.e. they are approximately norm-preserving---the problem is known to contain no spurious local minima, so exact recovery is guaranteed. In this paper, we show that moderate RIP is not enough to eliminate spurious local minima, so existing results can only hold for near-perfect RIP. In fact, counterexamples are ubiquitous: we prove that every x is the spurious local minimum of a rank-1 instance of matrix recovery that satisfies RIP. One specific counterexample has RIP constant $\delta=1/2$, but causes randomly initialized stochastic gradient descent (SGD) to fail 12% of the time. SGD is frequently able to avoid and escape spurious local minima, but this empirical result shows that it can occasionally be defeated by their existence. Hence, while exact recovery guarantees will likely require a proof of no spurious local minima, arguments based solely on norm preservation will only be applicable to a narrow set of nearly-isotropic instances.
Global, Regional, and National Cancer Incidence, Mortality, Years of Life Lost, Years Lived With Disability, and Disability-Adjusted Life-Years for 29 Cancer Groups, 1990 to 2016

Importance The increasing burden due to cancer and other noncommunicable diseases poses a threat to human development, which has resulted in global political commitments reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Action Plan on Non-Communicable Diseases. To determine if these commitments have resulted in improved cancer control, quantitative assessments of the cancer burden are required. Objective To assess the burden for 29 cancer groups over time to provide a framework for policy discussion, resource allocation, and research focus. Evidence Review Cancer incidence, mortality, years lived with disability, years of life lost, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) were evaluated for 195 countries and territories by age and sex using the Global Burden of Disease study estimation methods. Levels and trends were analyzed over time, as well as by the Sociodemographic Index (SDI). Changes in incident cases were categorized by changes due to epidemiological vs demographic transition. Findings In 2016, there were 17.2 million cancer cases worldwide and 8.9 million deaths. Cancer cases increased by 28% between 2006 and 2016. The smallest increase was seen in high SDI countries. Globally, population aging contributed 17%; population growth, 12%; and changes in age-specific rates, −1% to this change. The most common incident cancer globally for men was prostate cancer (1.4 million cases). The leading cause of cancer deaths and DALYs was tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer (1.2 million deaths and 25.4 million DALYs). For women, the most common incident cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths and DALYs was breast cancer (1.7 million incident cases, 535 000 deaths, and 14.9 million DALYs). In 2016, cancer caused 213.2 million DALYs globally for both sexes combined. Between 2006 and 2016, the average annual age-standardized incidence rates for all cancers combined increased in 130 of 195 countries or territories, and the average annual age-standardized death rates decreased within that timeframe in 143 of 195 countries or territories. Conclusions and Relevance Large disparities exist between countries in cancer incidence, deaths, and associated disability. Scaling up cancer prevention and ensuring universal access to cancer care are required for health equity and to fulfill the global commitments for noncommunicable disease and cancer control.
Gestural cost of articulatory gestures : insight from segmental durations

Focusing on articulatory gestures as the minimal units of the time-varying behavior of speech organs, this paper discusses, based on a large corpus, how segmental durations are suggestive of the complexity or magnitude of articulatory gestures and their organization in connected speech. A body of evidences tends to show that segmental duration is not random. For illustration, the MOCHA database (Wrench, 1999) contains 13960 phoneme utterances (durations of vowels and consonants, based on the labeling data provided), which ranges from 20 up to about 350 ms. Interestingly, there exist a significant correlation of segmental duration between two subjects reading the same corpus (r=0.66; p<0.001). The phoneme utterances produced short by the female subject 'fsew' are also short for the male subject 'msak', and so on (figure 1a). This indicates that segmental duration is primarily conditioned by linguistic factors, rather than being due to individual or random variation. While segmental durations are well related to syllable structure (e.g. Maddieson, 1985), the intrinsic durations of the various phoneme categories (e.g. in Klatt, 1979) are not accounted for by any theory. A basic explanation would propose that segmental durations depend, at least in part, on the articulatory complexity or distance required to move from a target to the next. This proposal, in line with Redford (2004), is consistent with the fact that consonants are shorter when produced within consonant clusters (whose articulatory targets are closer) than when produced in intervocalic position (e.g. Kuhnert et al, 2006). In this study, we will focus on /s/, a sibilant fricative, that is known to be resistant to coarticulation, and to require a precise tongue posture in order to be correctly produced (e.g. Stone et al., 2007). /s/'s duration is therefore expected to be more dependent on its phonetic context rather than on its own target undershoot (under the effect of prosodic factors or whatsoever). We hypothesize that longer utterances of /s/ (see Figure 1b) would be explained by a larger distance to the preceding and following targets, or the involvement of a larger number of articulators (e.g. tongue tip and tongue dorsum). In order to verify this hypothesis, the gestural cost cued by acoustic segmental duration will be compared against the gestural cost cued by articulatory parameters (distance between articulatory targets and criticality of the articulators - cf. Ananthakrishnan and Engwall, 2008). By quantitatively assessing the cost of articulatory gestures, we hope to open new perspectives on the understanding of the various syllable structures in the world's languages, and their relation to phoneme inventories.
WMJ-8B , a novel hydroxamate derivative , induces MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell death via the SHP-1-STAT 3-survivin cascade

Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, Graduate Institute of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Landseed Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, and Graduate Institute of Pharmacognosy, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
Introduction of Human Flt3-L and GM-CSF into Humanized Mice Enhances the Reconstitution and Maturation of Myeloid Dendritic Cells and the Development of Foxp3+CD4+ T Cells

Two cytokines, fms-related tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3-L) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) are considered to be the essential regulators of dendritic cell (DC) development in vivo. However, the combined effect of Flt3-L and GM-CSF on human DCs has not been evaluated in vivo. In this study, we, therefore, aimed at evaluating this using a humanized mouse model. Humanized non-obese diabetic/SCID/Jak3null (hNOJ) mice were constructed by transplanting hematopoietic stem cells from human umbilical cord blood into newborn NOJ mice, and in vivo transfection (IVT) was performed by hydrodynamic injection-mediated gene delivery using plasmids encoding human Flt3-L and GM-CSF. Following IVT, Flt3-L and GM-CSF were successfully induced in hNOJ mice. At 10 days post-IVT, we found, in the spleen, that treatment with both Flt3-L and GM-CSF enhanced the reconstitution of two myeloid DC subsets, CD14−CD1c+ conventional DCs (cDCs) and CD14−CD141+ cDCs, in addition to CD14+ monocyte-like cells expressing CD1c and/or CD141. GM-CSF alone had less effect on the reconstitution of these myeloid cell populations. By contrast, none of the cytokine treatments enhanced CD123+ plasmacytoid DC (pDC) reconstitution. Regardless of the reconstitution levels, three cell populations (CD1c+ myeloid cells, CD141+ myeloid cells, and pDCs) could be matured by treatment with cytokines, in terms of upregulation of CD40, CD80, CD86, and CD184/CXCR4 and downregulation of CD195/CCR5. In particular, GM-CSF contributed to upregulation of CD80 in all these cell populations. Interestingly, we further observed that Foxp3+ cells within splenic CD4+ T cells were significantly increased in the presence of GM-CSF. Foxp3+ T cells could be subdivided into two subpopulations, CD45RA−Foxp3hi and CD45RA−Foxp3lo T cells. Whereas CD45RA−Foxp3hi T cells were increased only after treatment with GM-CSF alone, CD45RA−Foxp3lo T cells were increased only after treatment with both Flt3-L and GM-CSF. Treatment with Flt3-L alone had no effect on the number of Foxp3+ T cells. The correlation analysis demonstrated that the development of these Foxp3+ subpopulations was associated with the maturation status of DC(-like) cells. Taken together, this study provides a platform for studying the in vivo effect of Flt3-L and GM-CSF on human DCs and regulatory T cells.
Digitalization in engineering education research and practice

Digitalization is the ongoing trend of recent years. It covers all areas of business, society and research. This paper makes a contribution to that discourse focusing on engineering education research and practice. The contribution aims at generating new insights in a threefold way: (1) by analyzing the significance of digitalization in the research area, (2) by describing an example of the implementation of digital methods in education practice, and (3) by presenting the theoretical and methodological framework of a course that covers the digital transformation and backlash effects on society. This approach generates empirically grounded knowledge on the state-of-the-art and contributes to the translation of engineering education research to practice.
Na+ and Cl− Uptake Kinetics, Diffusive Effluxes and Acidic Equivalent Fluxes Across the Gills of Rainbow Trout: I. Responses to Environmental Hyperoxia

Endogenous respiratory acidosis and metabolic alkalosis were induced in bladder-catheterized freshwater rainbow trout by exposure to environmental hyperoxia (72 h) and its subsequent removal. Unidirectional and net fluxes of Na+, Cl− and acidic equivalents across the gills were examined over 0.5 h intervals. Hyperoxia resulted in a positive Na+ balance, negative Cl− balance and net acidic equivalent excretion. Return to normoxia caused a negative Na+ balance, a positive Cl− balance and net basic equivalent excretion (=acidic equivalent uptake). Cl−/basic equivalent exchange was more important than Na+/acidic equivalent exchange in the homeostatic responses, and alkalosis was a more potent stimulus than acidosis for change in branchial ion fluxes. Kinetic analysis demonstrated that alterations in ion fluxes were achieved by complex changes in both the K m (inverse of affinity) and the Jmax (maximal transport rate) of the branchial Cl−/HCO3−(OH−) and Na+/H+(NH4+) transporters. K mCl (control=165 μequiv l−1) and K mNa (114 μequiv l−1) were increased during hyperoxic acidosis to 250 and 445 μequiv l−1, respectively. J maxCl, (291 μequiv kg−1 h−1) and J maxNa (456 μequiv kg−1 h−1) did not change significantly. During post-hyperoxic alkalosis, K mNa was further increased to 559 μequiv l−1, J maxCl increased to 445 μequiv kg−1 h−1, while K mCl and J maxNa decreased to 137 μequiv l−1 and 309 μequiv kg−1 h−1, respectively. Diffusive efflux was examined using a novel method. There was no significant differential diffusive efflux of Na+ and Cl− during hyperoxia but diffusive Na+ efflux exceeded Cl− efflux during posthyperoxic alkalosis, thereby serving as an additional mechanism for basic equivalent excretion.
Structural basis of transcriptional regulation by CouR, a repressor of coumarate catabolism, in Rhodopseudomonas palustris

The MarR family transcriptional regulator CouR, from the soil bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009, has recently been shown to negatively regulate a p-coumarate catabolic operon. Unlike most characterized MarR repressors that respond to small metabolites at concentrations in the millimolar range, repression by CouR is alleviated by the 800-Da ligand p-coumaroyl–CoA with high affinity and specificity. Here we report the crystal structures of ligand-free CouR as well as the complex with p-coumaroyl–CoA, each to 2.1-Å resolution, and the 2.85-Å resolution cocrystal structure of CouR bound to an oligonucleotide bearing the cognate DNA operator sequence. In combination with binding experiments that uncover specific residues important for ligand and DNA recognition, these structures provide glimpses of a MarR family repressor in all possible states, providing an understanding of the molecular basis of DNA binding and the conformation alterations that accompany ligand-induced dissociation for activation of the operon.