Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PPARβ/δ Agonist GW501516 Inhibits Tumorigenicity of Undifferentiated Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma in C666-1 Cells by Promoting Apoptosis

Activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor β/δ (PPARβ/δ) had been linked to inhibition on the proliferation and apoptosis in a few cancer cell lines. However, limited data exists regarding the role of PPARβ/δ in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study was undertaken to determine the effect of PPARβ/δ on cell proliferation, anchorage-dependent clonogenicity, and ectopic xenografts in the human NPC cell lines. Gene and protein expression of PPARβ/δ were reduced specifically in the poor- and un-differentiated NPC cell lines as compared with the control NP-69 cells. Ligand activation of PPARβ/δ by GW501516, a specific PPARβ/δ selective agonist, inhibited cell proliferation and colony formation strikingly, and induced a G2/M phase arrest in the EBV positive undifferentiated NPC C666-1 cells relative to the control cells. Moreover, GW501516 induced C666-1 cell apoptosis in a caspase and BAX dependent manner. In accordance with the in vitro result, GW501516 significantly suppressed the ectopic NPC xenograft tumorigenicity that derived from the C666-1 NPC cells in BALB/c nu/nu mice. This effect is greatly associated with its inhibition on the gene and protein expression of integrin-linked kinase (ILK) through activation of the AMPKα-dependent signaling pathways. Collectively, we showed that PPARβ/δ expression is in reverse correlation with the degree of differentiation in the NPC cell lines, and revealed the anti-tumorigenic effects of GW501516 in NPC cells by activation of AMPKα. This study suggested that PPARβ/δ targeting molecules may be useful for the poor-, and particularly un-differentiated NPC chemoprevention.
Effects of transcranial direct‐current stimulation on laparoscopic surgical skill acquisition

Changes in medical education may limit opportunities for trainees to gain proficiency in surgical skills. Transcranial direct‐current stimulation (tDCS) can augment motor skill learning and may enhance surgical procedural skill acquisition. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of tDCS on simulation‐based laparoscopic surgical skill acquisition.
The 72Pro Variant of the Tumor Protein 53 Is Associated with an Increased Breast Cancer Risk in the Moroccan Population

Background: The purpose of our case control study is to explore the potential association of tumor protein 53 (TP53) c.215G>C, p. (Arg72Pro) polymorphism (rs1042522) with the risk of breast cancer (BC) development in the Moroccan population. Methods and Results: The study population consisted of 125 female patients with confirmed BC and 126 healthy controls. DNA samples were genotyped by Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism assay method using BstUI restriction enzyme. We showed that the homozygous genotype of TP53 72Pro variant was significantly associated with increased BC risk (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.07–4.54, p = 0.03). The dominant and additive models of TP53 Pro allele were also correlated to the risk of BC (OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.07–4.23, p = 0.02 and OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.03–2.16, p = 0.03, respectively). Furthermore, the TP53 Arg72 variant was associated with protection against BC, either in the homozygous genotype, the dominant or the additive models (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.22–0.93, p = 0.03; OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.23–0.92, p = 0.029 and OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.46–0.97, p = 0.03, respectively). Conclusion: Our results suggest that TP53 c.215G>C, p. (Arg72Pro) polymorphism may be considered as a genetic marker for predisposition to BC in Moroccan population.
A Note on the Expected Length of the Longest Common Subsequences of two i.i.d. Random Permutations

We address a question and a conjecture on the expected length of the longest common subsequences of two i.i. d. random permutations of $[n]:=\{1,2,. ,n\}$. The question is resolved by showing that the minimal expectation is not attained in the uniform case. The conjecture asserts that $\sqrt{n}$ is a lower bound on this expectation, but we only obtain $\sqrt[3]{n}$ for it.
Does the Presence of Institutional Investors in Family Banks Affect Profitability and Risk? Evidence from an Emerging Market

This study aims to investigate whether the presence of institutional investors in family-controlled banks impacts their performance and risk. Using detailed data on Indonesian banks from 2001 to 2008 and controlling for various factors, our results first show that family-controlled banks are less profitable and more risky than other banks. Specifically, family presence, either under the form of direct ownership, pure single majority, or family directors, is related to higher default risk, income variability, and loan risk. However, the presence of institutional investors as a second stage block holder in family controlled banks tends to mitigate and even reverse such behavior by reducing risk-taking and improving performance. Our results are generally robust with regard to endogeneity issues and alternative specifications.
Spurious regression between long memory series due to mis-specified structural breaks

ABSTRACT This article examines the spurious regression phenomenon between long memory series if the generating mechanism of individual series is assumed to follow a stationary/nonstationary process with mis-specified breaks. By using least-squares regression, the t-ratio becomes divergent and spurious regression is present. The intuition behind this is that the long memory series with change points can increase persistency in the level of regression errors and cause such spurious relationship. Simulation results indicate that the extent of spurious regression heavily relies on memory index, sample size, and location of break. As a remedy, we employ a four-stage procedure motivated by Maynard, Smallwood and Wohar (2013, Econ. Rev., 32, 318–360) to alleviate the size distortions. Finally, an empirical illustration using some stock price data from Shanghai Stock Exchange is reported.
Tetracycline and Sulfonamide Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Soils From Nebraska Organic Farming Operations

There is widespread agreement that agricultural antibiotic resistance should be reduced, however, it is unclear from the available literature what an appropriate target for reduction would be. Organic farms provide a unique opportunity to disentangle questions of agricultural antibiotic drug use from questions of antibiotic resistance in the soil. In this study, soil was collected from 12 certified organic farms in Nebraska, evaluated for the presence of tetracycline and sulfonamide resistance genes (n = 15 targets), and correlated to soil physical, chemical, and biological parameters. Tetracycline and sulfonamide antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) were found in soils from all 12 farms, and 182 of the 196 soil samples (93%). The most frequently detected gene was tetG (55% of samples), followed by tet(Q) (49%), tet(S) (46%), tet(X) (30%), and tetA(P) (29%). Soil was collected from two depths. No differences in ARGs were observed based on soil depth. Positive correlations were noted between ARG presence and soil electrical conductivity, and concentrations of Ca, Na, and Mehlich-3 phosphorus. Data from this study point to possible relationships between selected soil properties and individual tetracycline resistance genes, including tet(O) which is a common target for environmental samples. We compared organic farm results to previously published data from prairie soils and found significant differences in detection frequency for 12 genes, eight of which were more commonly detected in prairie soils. Of interest, when tetracycline ARG results were sorted by gene mechanism, the efflux genes were generally present in higher frequency in the prairie soils, while the ribosomal protection and enzymatic genes were more frequently detected in organic farm soils, suggesting a possible ecological role for specific tetracycline resistance mechanisms. By comparing soil from organic farms with prairie soils, we can start to determine baseline effects of low-chemical input agricultural production practices on multiple measures of resistance.
Adversarial Distillation of Bayesian Neural Network Posteriors

Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) allow us to reason about uncertainty in a principled way. Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) enables efficient BNN learning by drawing samples from the BNN posterior using mini-batches. However, SGLD and its extensions require storage of many copies of the model parameters, a potentially prohibitive cost, especially for large neural networks. We propose a framework, Adversarial Posterior Distillation, to distill the SGLD samples using a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). At test-time, samples are generated by the GAN. We show that this distillation framework incurs no loss in performance on recent BNN applications including anomaly detection, active learning, and defense against adversarial attacks. By construction, our framework not only distills the Bayesian predictive distribution, but the posterior itself. This allows one to compute quantities such as the approximate model variance, which is useful in downstream tasks. To our knowledge, these are the first results applying MCMC-based BNNs to the aforementioned downstream applications.
Salary, Space, and Satisfaction: An Examination of Gender Differences in the Sciences.

How can universities be more successful in recruiting and promoting the professional success of women in their science-related departments? This study examines selected pieces of the puzzle by examining actual salary and space allocations to 282 faculty members in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the social and behavioral science (SBS) departments of a research-active university. It also examines the perceived satisfaction of the faculty members related to equity and procedural justice for allocations of salary and space. The analyses of data collected suggest that the university studied is successfully reducing gender-based inequality. Other results suggest that perceived equity is an important influence on satisfaction, that the point at which procedural justice is emphasized may need to be reexamined, and that differing reactions by men and women can be difficult to predict. While the study shows that female and male faculty members tend to receive similar compensation and similar office and research space, and females even indicated a higher satisfaction with their space allocations, it points out that universities must go beyond equalizing the distribution of resources by paying careful attention to perceptions of equity and procedural justice and by striving to improve multiple aspects of their overall climate if they wish to recruit, retain and promote female faculty members.
Glucocerebrosidase Mutations and Synucleinopathies. Potential Role of Sterylglucosides and Relevance of Studying Both GBA1 and GBA2 Genes

Gaucher’s disease (GD) is the most prevalent lysosomal storage disorder. GD is caused by homozygous mutations of the GBA1 gene, which codes for beta-glucocerebrosidase (GCase). Although GD primarily affects peripheral tissues, the presence of neurological symptoms has been reported in several GD subtypes. GBA1 mutations have recently deserved increased attention upon the demonstration that both homo- and heterozygous GBA1 mutations represent the most important genetic risk factor for the appearance of synucleinopathies like Parkinson’s disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (LBD). Although reduced GCase activity leads to alpha-synuclein aggregation, the mechanisms sustaining a role for GCase in alpha-synuclein homeostasis still remain largely unknown. Furthermore, the role to be played by impairment in the physiological function of endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria and other subcellular membranous components is currently under investigation. Here we focus on the impact of GCase loss-of-function that impact on the levels of sterylglucosides, molecules that are known to trigger a PD-related synucleinopathy upon administration in rats. Moreover, the concurrence of another gene also coding for an enzyme with GCase activity (GBA2 gene) should also be taken into consideration, bearing in mind that in addition to a hydrolytic function, both GCases also share transglycosylation as a second catalytic activity. Accordingly, sterylglycoside levels should also be considered to further assess their impact on the neurodegenerative process. In this regard—and besides GBA1 genotyping—we suggest that screening for GBA2 mutations should be considered, together with analytical measurements of cholesterol glycosides in body fluids, as biomarkers for both PD risk and disease progression.
DERIVATION OF TOLEROGENIC THERAPEUTIC VACCINES FOR MOUSE MODELS OF EXPERIMENTAL AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALOMYELITIS

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease that results in autoimmune demyelination of the human central nervous system (CNS). Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a widely-studied animal model of multiple sclerosis which reflects many of the histopathological and immunological features of MS. Because currently used therapies for multiple sclerosis result in broad-spectrum immunosuppression antigen specific vaccines may be an important alternative. Whereas the concept of traditional anti-microbial vaccination is to introduce the immune system with the foreign microbes to develop memory T and B cells self-reactive T cell suppression is the fundamental principle of tolerogenic vaccines. For EAE contemporary research is focused on the development of potent tolerogens. Fusion proteins of cytokine and neuroantigen (NAg) are assumed to be such potent tolerogens. Antigen presenting cells (APC) are targeted by the fusion proteins in a cytokine dependent manner. These APC have been shown to play a fundamental role in inducing sustainable self-tolerance. That is autoimmune effector T cells are eliminated by regulatory T (Treg) cells that are stimulated and expanded in a negative thymic selection process where dendritic cells (DC) play an inevitable role. The principle is that the cytokine domain of the fusion protein will interact with cytokine receptors on the APC and facilitate the presentation of covalently linked NAg to self reactive T cells and thereby induce a co-inhibitory signal leading to cytotoxicity and killing of NAg-specific autoreactive T cells. In an approach to induce tolerogenic response in EAE I have studied two fusion proteins consisting of interferon-beta (IFN-[beta]) fused to myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) and IFN-[beta] fused to proteolipid peptide (PLP). Both fusion proteins were potent tolerogens. The fusion genes were cloned in pIRES2 expression plasmids and then expressed stably in human embryonic kidney cells and the fusion proteins were purified by affinity chromatography. Functional integrity of the IFN-[beta] domain within the fusion protein was confirmed by a T cell anti-proliferative assay and a class-I MHC induction assay. Biological activity of NAg domains were tested by NAg specific T cell proliferative assays. The tolerogenic effect of the fusion protein was assessed in two ways. First the preventive role of IFN-[beta]-PLP was examined by administering the protein before EAE induction which inhibited the subsequent incidence of EAE. Second IFN-[beta]-MOG was administered after disease onset which halted disease progression. In both cases covalent linkage between the IFN-[beta] and NAg domain was required to restore the tolerance.
Marine vertebrate remains from the Toarcian–Aalenian succession of southern Beaujolais, Rhône, France

Abstract A previously undocumented marine vertebrate fauna comprising ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, marine crocodilian and fish remains from the Toarcian–Aalenian succession at Lafarge quarry, southern Beaujolais (Rhône, France) is described on the basis of both historical collections and new discoveries. The taxonomic composition of the Lafarge quarry marine vertebrate assemblage highlights its cosmopolitan nature and strong relationships with taxa known from elsewhere in Europe. Several groups are recorded for the first time in the Toarcian–Aalenian succession of France, implying new palaeobiogeographic interpretations and prompting discussion of marine amniote diversity during this interval.
Melioidosis in Malaysia: Incidence, Clinical Challenges, and Advances in Understanding Pathogenesis

Malaysia is an endemic hot spot for melioidosis; however, a comprehensive picture of the burden of disease, clinical presentations, and challenges faced in diagnosis and treatment of melioidosis is not available. This review provides a nonexhaustive overview of epidemiological data, clinical studies, risk factors, and mortality rates from available literature and case reports. Clinical patterns of melioidosis are generally consistent with those from South and Southeast Asia in terms of common primary presentations with diabetes as a major risk factor. Early diagnosis and appropriate management of Malaysian patients is a key limiting factor, which needs to be addressed to reduce serious complications and high mortality and recurrence rates. Promoting awareness among the local healthcare personnel is crucial to improving diagnostics and early treatment, as well as educating the Malaysian public on disease symptoms and risk factors. A further matter of urgency is the need to make this a notifiable disease and the establishment of a national melioidosis registry. We also highlight local studies on the causative agent, Burkholderia pseudomallei, with regards to bacteriology and identification of virulence factors as well as findings from host–pathogen interaction studies. Collectively, these studies have uncovered new correlations and insights for further understanding of the disease.
Why Do Women with Breast Cancer Get Diagnosed and Treated Late in Sub-Saharan Africa Perspectives from Women and Patients in Bamako, Mali

Background: Breast cancer, the most common cancer among women worldwide, has a high mortality rate in low-income countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, most breast cancer patients are diagnosed with advanced disease. Some studies have quantified the time delay to diagnosis in sub-Saharan Africa, but very few have used qualitative methods to understand barriers leading to delay. This study analyses barriers throughout a breast cancer patient's pathway from symptom recognition to treatment in Mali. Method: Three focus group discussions were conducted. The model of pathways to treatment was used to structure the results into 4 time intervals: appraisal, help-seeking, diagnosis, and treatment, with a focus on barriers during each interval. Results: The main barriers during the appraisal interval were a low level of breast cancer knowledge among women, their families, and medical professionals, and during the help-seeking interval, mistrust in the community health care centers and economic hardship. Barriers during the diagnosis interval were low quality of health care services and lack of social support, and during the pretreatment interval high costs and lack of specialized services. Conclusion: Multilevel interventions are needed to ensure access, availability, and affordability of a minimum standard of care for breast cancer patients in sub-Saharan Africa.
The challenge of realistic music generation: modelling raw audio at scale

Realistic music generation is a challenging task. When building generative models of music that are learnt from data, typically high-level representations such as scores or MIDI are used that abstract away the idiosyncrasies of a particular performance. But these nuances are very important for our perception of musicality and realism, so in this work we embark on modelling music in the raw audio domain. It has been shown that autoregressive models excel at generating raw audio waveforms of speech, but when applied to music, we find them biased towards capturing local signal structure at the expense of modelling long-range correlations. This is problematic because music exhibits structure at many different timescales. In this work, we explore autoregressive discrete autoencoders (ADAs) as a means to enable autoregressive models to capture long-range correlations in waveforms. We find that they allow us to unconditionally generate piano music directly in the raw audio domain, which shows stylistic consistency across tens of seconds.
SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY ARE INDEPENDENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH CLINICAL RECURRENCE IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE Short title: Depression and IBD activity over time Word count: 2,580

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ZoKrates - Scalable Privacy-Preserving Off-Chain Computations

Scalability and privacy are two challenges for today's blockchain systems. Processing transactions at every node in the system limits the system's ability to scale. Furthermore, the requirement to publish all corporate or individual information for processing at every node, essentially making the data public, is - despite of all other advantages - often considered a major obstacle to blockchain adoption. In this paper, we make two main contributions to address these two problems: (i)To increase efficiency, we propose a processing model which employs noninteractive proofs to off-chain computations, thereby reducing on-chain computational efforts to the verification of correctness of execution rather than the execution itself. Due to the verifiable computation scheme's zero-knowledge property, private information used in the off-chain computation does not have to become public to verify correctness. (ii)We introduce ZoKrates, a toolbox to specify, integrate and deploy such off-chain computations. It consists of a domain-specific language, a compiler, and generators for proofs and verification Smart Contracts. ZoKrates hides significant complexity inherent to zero-knowledge proofs, provides a more familiar and higher level of programming abstractions to developers and enables circuit integration, hence fostering adoption.
Growing up gay and religious. Conflict, dialogue, and religious identity strategies

Homosexuality has become a divisive issue in many religious communities. Partly because of that, individuals growing up in such a community and experiencing same sex attractions need to negotiate the messages about homosexuality with their own experiences. This paper explores the identity strategies of religious communities as the background of individual identity struggles. Following a discussion of Bauman's grammars of identity/alterity, it describes four different discourses employed in conservative protestant and evangelical circles: holiness, subjectivity, obedience, and responsibility and four modes of negotiation: Christian lifestyle, gay lifestyle, commuting (compartmentalisation), and integration. By combining an analysis of discourses on the community level with individual strategies, this narrative research helps to better understand the interactions of (group) culture and individual coping.