Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of Activin‐A on periodontal ligament fibroblasts‐mediated osteoclast formation in healthy donors and in patients with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) is a genetic disease characterized by heterotopic ossification (HO). The disease is caused by a mutation in the activin receptor type 1 (ACVR1) gene that enhances this receptor's responsiveness to Activin‐A. Binding of Activin‐A to the mutated ACVR1 receptor induces osteogenic differentiation. Whether Activin‐A also affects osteoclast formation in FOP is not known. Therefore we investigated its effect on the osteoclastogenesis‐inducing potential of periodontal ligament fibroblasts (PLF) from teeth of healthy controls and patients with FOP. We used western blot analysis of phosphorylated SMAD3 (pSMAD3) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction to assess the effect of Activin‐A on the PLF. PLF‐induced osteoclast formation and gene expression were studied by coculturing control and FOP PLF with CD14‐positive osteoclast precursor cells from healthy donors. Osteoclast formation was also assessed in control CD14 cultures stimulated by macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (M‐CSF) and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa‐B ligand (RANK‐L). Although Activin‐A increased activation of the pSMAD3 pathway in both control and FOP PLF, it increased ACVR1, FK binding protein 12 (FKBP12), an inhibitor of DNA binding 1 protein (ID‐1) expression only in FOP PLF. Activin‐A inhibited PLF mediated osteoclast formation albeit only significantly when induced by FOP PLF. In these cocultures, it reduced M‐CSF and dendritic cell‐specific transmembrane protein (DC‐STAMP) expression. Activin‐A also inhibited osteoclast formation in M‐CSF and RANK‐L mediated monocultures of CD14+ cells by inhibiting their proliferation.
Regional Body Fat Changes and Metabolic Complications in Children With Dunnigan Lipodystrophy-Causing LMNA Variants

CONTEXT Familial partial lipodystrophy, Dunnigan variety (FPLD2) is a rare autosomal-dominant disorder due to heterozygous missense lamin A/C (LMNA) mutations. Subjects with FPLD2 gradually lose fat from the upper and lower extremities but gain fat in the face and neck around puberty. However, the precise onset of body fat changes and metabolic complications during childhood remains unknown. OBJECTIVE To compare metabolic parameters and regional body fat in children with FPLD2 with the sex- and age-matched controls from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005 to 2010. METHODS We measured fasting serum triglycerides, glucose, and skinfold thicknesses in all children (aged 1 to 18 years) harboring FPLD2-causing LMNA mutations and determined regional body fat by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in those aged ≥8 years. RESULTS Thirty-two affected females and 14 males participated. The lower limb fat in all affected females, except one, was below or equal to the first percentile and in two affected males was below the fifth percentile for NHANES. One female subject with FPLD2 followed from age 6 to 16 years revealed marked loss of extremity fat much before thelarche. Serum triglycerides were higher in females with FPLD2 aged 7 to 18 years compared with controls (median 208 vs 70 mg/dL; P < 0.0001) and showed inverse correlation with extremity skinfolds. Serum triglycerides in males with FPLD2 were not significantly different than controls. CONCLUSIONS The onset of fat loss from the extremities, especially in girls with FPLD2, occurs well before the onset of puberty. High serum triglycerides are seen in young females with FPLD2 with severe loss of fat from the extremities.
miR‐124 promotes neural differentiation in mouse bulge stem cells by repressing Ptbp1 and Sox9

Hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) are able to differentiate into neurons and glial cells. Distinct microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the proliferation and differentiation of HFSCs. However, the exact role of miR‐124 in the neural differentiation of HFSCs has not been elucidated. HFSCs were isolated from mouse whisker follicles. miR‐9, let‐7b, and miR‐124, Ptbp1 , and Sox9 expression levels were detected by real‐time polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR). The influence of miR‐124 transfection was evaluated using immunostaining. We demonstrated that miR‐124 and let‐7b expression levels were significantly increased after the neural differentiation. Sox9 and Ptbp1 were identified as the target of miR‐124 in the HFSCs. During neural differentiation and miR‐124 mimicking, Ptbp1 and Sox9 levels were decreased. Moreover, the miR‐124 overexpression increased MAP2 (58.43 ± 11.26) and NeuN (48.34 ± 11.15) proteins expression. The results demonstrated that miR‐124 may promote the differentiation of HFSCs into neuronal cells by targeting Sox9 and Ptbp1.
The Impact of Ideology Misfit on Open Source Software Communities and Companies

Corporate involvement in open source software (OSS) communities has increased substantially in recent years. Often this takes the form of company employees devoting their time to contribute code to the efforts of projects in these communities. Ideology has traditionally served to motivate, coordinate, and guide volunteer contributions to OSS communities. As employees represent an increasing proportion of the participants in OSS communities, the role of OSS ideology in guiding their commitment and code contributions is unknown. In this research, we argue that OSS ideology misfit has important implications for companies and the OSS communities to which their employees contribute, since their engagement in such communities is not necessarily voluntary. We conceptualize two different types of misfit: OSS ideology under-fit, whereby an employee embraces an OSS ideology more than their coworkers or OSS community do, and OSS ideology over-fit, whereby an employee perceives that their coworkers or OSS community embrace the OSS ideology more strongly than the employee does. To develop a set of hypotheses about the implications of these two types of misfit for employee commitment to the company and commitment to the OSS community, we draw on self-determination theory. We test the hypotheses in a field study of 186 employees who participate in an OSS community. We find that OSS ideology under-fit impacts the company and the community in the same way: it decreases employee commitment to the company and commitment to the OSS community. In contrast, we find that OSS ideology over-fit increases commitment to the company but decreases commitment to the OSS community. Finally, we find that employees’ commitment to their company reinforces the impact of their commitment to the OSS community in driving ongoing code contributions. This provides a holistic view of OSS ideology and its impacts among an increasingly pervasive yet understudied type of participant in OSS research. It provides insights for companies that are considering assigning their employees to work in OSS communities as well as for OSS communities that are partnering with these companies.
Between an ugly truth and a perfect lie: Wiping off fearful memories using beta‐adrenergic receptors antagonists

Psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, phobias, and post‐traumatic stress disorder are considered of high global prevalence. Currently, a therapeutic approach to treat these disorders using beta‐blockers, which antagonize the beta‐adrenergic receptors (B1, B2, and B3) is being studied. This approach claims that beta‐blockers, such as propranolol, inhibit fear memory reconsolidation. However, there are several studies refuting such claims by discrediting their experimental design and pointing out both the drugs pharmacokinetic properties and confounding factors. In this review, we explore the different effects of central beta‐adrenergic agonists and antagonists on the fear memory consolidation providing mixed‐evidence, limitations, and future directions.
Electrode Potential Dependency of Single-Cell Activity Identifies the Energetics of Slow Microbial Electron Uptake Process

Electrochemical measurements have been widely applied to study microbial extracellular electron transport processes. However, because electrochemistry detects not only microbial electron transport but also other reactions, background signals comparable to or larger than microbial ones hamper the identification of microbial electrochemical properties. This problem is crucial especially for the detection of electron uptake processes by slow-growing microbes in low-energy subsurface sediments, as the environmental samples contain electrochemically active humus and mineral particles. In this study, we report a cell-specific stable isotope analysis to quantify the electrode potential dependency of anabolic activity in individual cells for identifying the electron uptake energetics of slow-growing bacteria. Followed by the incubation of Desulfovibrio ferrophilus IS5 cells with isotopic 15N-ammonium as the sole N source on electrodes poised at potentials of -0.2, -0.3, -0.4, and -0.5 V [vs. standard hydrogen electrode (SHE)], we conducted nanoscale secondary ion mass spectroscopy (NanoSIMS) to quantify 15N assimilation in more than 100 individual cells on the electrodes. We observed significant 15N assimilation at potentials of -0.4 and more 15N assimilation at -0.5 V, which is consistent with the onset potential for electron uptake via outer-membrane cytochromes (OMCs). The activation of cell energy metabolism was further examined by transcriptome analysis. Our results showed a novel methodology to study microbial electron uptake energetics. The results also serve as the first direct evidence that energy acquisition is coupled to the electron uptake process in sulfate-reducing bacteria that are ubiquitous in the subsurface environments, with implications on the electron-fueled subsurface biosphere hypothesis and other microbial processes, such as anaerobic iron corrosion and anaerobic methane oxidation.
Is IT Changing the World? Conceptions of Causality for Information Systems Theorizing

Whatever answer one gives to the question “Is information technology changing the world? ,” the answer contains reasoning about causality. Causal reasoning is central to IS theorizing. This paper focuses on the concept of causal structure, defined by Markus and Robey (1988) as a theorist’s assumptions about causal influences in IS phenomena, and proposes a framework of causal structure, warranted by philosophy and social theory, specialized for the needs of Information Systems scholars. The three dimensions of the framework concern the theorist’s views about the reality and meaning of causation (causal ontology), about that which is changed in causation (causal trajectory), and about the role of humans and/or technology in bringing about the change (causal autonomy). On each dimension, mutually exclusive alternative positions are described, backed by authoritative warrants, and illustrated with IS examples. The framework aims to offer useful insights into the nature of IS theory and the conundrum of theoretical contribution.
Clinical characteristics and outcomes of hepatocellular carcinoma: results from prospective study, from a tertiary referral center in  Sri Lanka

Introduction Hepatocellular carcinoma is increasing globally. Compared to global patterns, hepatitis B and C are rare in Sri Lanka whilst non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and alcohol are the commonest causes of hepatocellular carcinoma. Objectives To determine the characteristics of a cohort of Sri Lankan patients with hepatocellular carcinoma of non-viral aetiology. Methods Details of 550 consecutive patients with hepatocellular carcinoma referred from 2012 to 2017 were collected prospectively. Demographic data, clinical and biochemical details, aetiology, comorbidities, tumor characteristics and type of treatment offered were retrospectively analyzed. Results Median age was 62.9 years (range 12 - 88) with male preponderance (n = 473; 86%). Overall median BMI was 35.8 kgm-2. Majority (n=309; 56 %) had NAFLD induced cirrhosis, second commonest cause was alcohol (n=203;36.9 %). Tumour was single nodular 233(42.4%) and diffusely infiltrating 92(16.7%). Diagnostic rise in serum alpha-fetoprotein (over 200 micrograms) was seen in 30.2%. Venous invasion was present in 28.5% [portal vein 136 (24.7%), hepatic vein 9 (1.6%) and cava 12(2.2%)]. Extra hepatic tumor spread was seen in 6.9% [lungs 20(3.6%), bones 4(0.7%), peritoneal 6 (1.1%) and metastases at other sites 8 (1.45%)]. Curative surgery was offered in 78(14.2%). Tumour embolization was done in 192(34.9%), radio frequency ablation 34(6.2%), alcohol injection 42(7.6%) and 204(37.1%) patients were offered palliative care. Overall median survival was 20.6 months. Conclusions In a large Sri Lankan cohort, most hepatocellular carcinomas were due to cryptogenic cirrhosis and it was aggressive at presentation. Screening of high-risk NAFLD patients needs to be considered and further palliative care needs to be improved.
Factors Influencing Mobile Payment Adoption in Indonesia

Mobile payment in Indonesia has been growing rapidly in recent years. Based on data from the World Bank's Global Financial Inclusion data, only 0.4 % of the population over the age of 15 used mobile payment in 2015. This study's purpose is to define all the elements that affect the adoption of using mobile payment in Indonesia. Using data from 274 respondents which obtained via online to test the hypothesis based on the designed research model. Method of partial least square - structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) used for processed the collected data. This study found that habit is the most powerful element affecting the rate of mobile payment adoption in Indonesia, followed by facilitating condition, social risk, performance expectancy, and social impact. It also found behavioral intention had a huge effect on usage behavior. Mobile payment service provider could use this outcome to make strategic decisions when implementing mobile payment in Indonesia.
Financial Regulatory Reform After the Crisis: An Assessment

This is a survey of progress with the postcrisis global (G20) reform of the financial system, in five key areas of new regulation: (1) making financial institutions more resilient; (2) ending “too-big-to-fail”; (3) making derivatives markets safer; (4) transforming shadow banking; and (5) improving trade competition and market transparency. The resiliency reforms, particularly bank capital regulations, have been increasingly successful in improving financial stability, but have been accompanied by some reduction in secondary-market liquidity. I review specific areas where reforms are far from complete, or have even been counterproductive. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance. Conflict of Interest Statement: The author's webpage at http://www.stanford. edu/~duffie/ provides related research and disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.
Tolerating Write Disturbance Errors in PCM: Experimental Characterization, Analysis, and Mechanisms

Constant technology scaling has enabled modern computing systems to achieve high degrees of thread-level parallelism, making the design of a highly scalable and dense main memory subsystem a major challenge, especially for data-intensive workloads. While during the past three decades DRAM has been widely used as the dominant technology to build main memory, it faces serious scalability and power consumption problems at sub-micron scales. Phase Change Memory (PCM) has been proposed as one of the most promising technologies to replace DRAM in future computing systems, because of its short access latency and high scalability. However, PCM has some reliability problems below 20nm technology. As the cell size scales down, the thermal-disturbance between the cells is exacerbated. More precisely, the generated heat during the write operation can disseminate to the adjacent cells and potentially change their values. This phenomenon is known as the write disturbance problem. In this work, we study the impact of write disturbance along the word-line and bit-line in a PCM-based main memory. We then propose two low-overhead mechanisms to address this problem in different dimensions. Our proposed schemes are based on a rank subsetting memory architecture where each chip can be accessed separately. To mitigate the write disturbance problem along the word-line, we use a combination of differential write (DW) and verify-and-correct (VnC) schemes only if the chance of having cascaded verification steps is low. Otherwise, we write into all the vulnerable cells within the target chip to avoid performance loss. To tolerate write disturbance along the bit-line, we use data compression to compact the data and place the adjacent memory lines in a non-overlapping fashion. We further use the extra space within a compressed memory line to store BCH code, in order to protect read-intensive memory lines against write-intensive addresses. Our proposed schemes guarantee reliable write operations in a super dense PCM-based main memory, and improve the system performance by 17% on average, compared to the state-of-the-art mechanism in this domain.
SocioEmpathy: A Social-Sensitivity Application to Reduce Stress and Depression of Divorce or Domestic Violence Victims

Divorce rate in Indonesia is the highest in the Asia Pacific. Meanwhile, the effects of divorce and domestic violence are so bad for children, especially for teenagers. The children of the divorce will show more anxiety, depression, and antisocial behavior than the child of a normal family. On the other side, the most important thing for people who are depressed is the presence of people who are willing to listen to them patiently and to not to underestimate the problem. However, depressed people don't always find people who are willing to do so when they are depressed. Thus, an application to facilitate them to share their stories and problems is needed, it is called SocioEmpathy. Methodology to develop SocioEmpathy is literature study based on scientific journals and books on ICT, and unstructured interviews towards divorce victim and professional psychologist. The result is a SocioEmpathy application that has features: 1) Timeline, 2) Personal Chat, 3) Panic Button, 4) Mood Tracker, and 5) Psychologist Consultation. The conclusion of this research is SocioEmpathy is expected to become a solution for divorce victims to ease their depression. On the other hand, the SocioEmpathy app also increase experience for psychology students and psychologists involved in this application.
A Deep Multi-Task Learning Approach to Skin Lesion Classification

Skin lesion identification is a key step toward dermatological diagnosis. When describing a skin lesion, it is very important to note its body site distribution as many skin diseases commonly affect particular parts of the body. To exploit the correlation between skin lesions and their body site distributions, in this study, we investigate the possibility of improving skin lesion classification using the additional context information provided by body location. Specifically, we build a deep multi-task learning (MTL) framework to jointly optimize skin lesion classification and body location classification (the latter is used as an inductive bias). Our MTL framework uses the state-of-the-art ImageNet pretrained model with specialized loss functions for the two related tasks. Our experiments show that the proposed MTL based method performs more robustly than its standalone (single-task) counterpart.
Association of Plasma Vitamin D Metabolites With Incident Type 2 Diabetes: EPIC-InterAct Case-Cohort Study

Abstract Background Existing evidence for the prospective association of vitamin D status with type 2 diabetes (T2D) is focused almost exclusively on circulating total 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] without distinction between its subtypes: nonepimeric and epimeric 25(OH)D3 stereoisomers, and 25(OH)D2, the minor component of 25(OH)D. We aimed to investigate the prospective associations of circulating levels of the sum and each of these three metabolites with incident T2D. Methods This analysis in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)–InterAct case-cohort study for T2D included 9671 incident T2D cases and 13,562 subcohort members. Plasma vitamin D metabolites were quantified by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. We used a multivariable Prentice-weighted Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) of T2D for each metabolite. Analyses were performed separately within country, and estimates were combined across countries using random-effects meta-analysis. Results The mean concentrations (SD) of total 25(OH)D, nonepimeric 25(OH)D3, epimeric 25(OH)D3, and 25(OH)D2 were 41.1 (17.2), 40.7 (17.3), 2.13 (1.31), and 8.16 (6.52) nmol/L, respectively. Plasma total 25(OH)D and nonepimeric 25(OH)D3 were inversely associated with incident T2D [multivariable-adjusted HR per 1 SD = 0.81 (95% CI, 0.77, 0.86) for both variables], whereas epimeric 25(OH)D3 was positively associated [per 1 SD HR = 1.16 (1.09, 1.25)]. There was no statistically significant association with T2D for 25(OH)D2 [per 1 SD HR = 0.94 (0.76, 1.18)]. Conclusions Plasma nonepimeric 25(OH)D3 was inversely associated with incident T2D, consistent with it being the major metabolite contributing to total 25(OH)D. The positive association of the epimeric form of 25(OH)D3 with incident T2D provides novel information to assess the biological relevance of vitamin D epimerization and vitamin D subtypes in diabetes etiology.
On the Performance of NOMA in the Two-User SWIPT System

In this paper, we investigate nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for a simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) system consisting of a battery powered access point and two energy harvesting users. In SWIPT, there exists an information-energy tradeoff. Since the adoption of NOMA may cause more energy consumption than the orthogonal multiple access (OMA), it is not known whether NOMA can always enhance the spectral efficiency in SWIPT systems compared to OMA. We prove that NOMA performs better than OMA when the decoding energy consumption is negligible. However, for the nonnegligible decoding energy consumption, we show that NOMA is not always superior to OMA. Interestingly enough, for the nonnegligible decoding energy consumption, OMA can outperform NOMA when the channel power gains of the two users are not sufficiently different. Moreover, we study the performance of cognitive radio inspired NOMA (CR-NOMA), in which the power is allocated to the user with poor channel condition such that its quality of service (QoS) requirement is met. Different from the battery powered CR-NOMA, the analytical results show that CR-NOMA can outperform OMA in SWIPT systems only if the channel power gains of users are sufficiently different and the QoS of the weak user is above a threshold.
Grouping of Provinces in Indonesia According to Digital Divide Index

National development, especially in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), contributes to the economic progress of a country, not least Indonesia. But the uneven development of ICT among provinces in Indonesia has resulted in a digital divide. In order to bridge the gap, a guideline is needed to indicate which provinces need more attention in ICT development. This research aims to measure and to classify the level of the digital divide that occurred in 34 provinces of Indonesia using Digital Divide Index (DIDIX) introduced by Hüsing and Selhofer. The result indicated that there was 1 province with the low digital divide rate, 19 provinces with the medium digital divide rate, and 14 provinces with the high digital divide.