Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Forkhead box p3 controls progression of oral lichen planus by regulating microRNA‐146a

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a severe T cell–mediated disorder of the mucosa, which causes chronic inflammation. Forkhead box P3 (Foxp3) regulates the immune response and plays an important role in immunological diseases. The current study aimed to determine the role of Foxp3 and microRNA (miR)‐146a in OLP. Western blot analysis and a quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction assay showed that the expression of Foxp3 and miR‐146a was upregulated in OLP tissues and in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐incubated HaCaT cells, compared with controls. Foxp3 inhibition significantly decreased miR‐146a expression, ameliorated LPS stimulation by decreased cell proliferation, and apoptosis in LPS‐incubated HaCaT cells as compared with the LPS group. Cotransfection of Foxp3 small interfering RNA and miR‐146a mimics elevated cell proliferation and apoptosis compared with the Foxp3 small interfering RNA group. In addition, miR‐146a overexpression upregulated, whereas miR‐146a inhibition downregulated, the proliferation and apoptosis of LPS‐incubated HaCaT cells. The target gene of miR‐–146a, tumor necrosis factor receptor–associated factor 6 (TRAF6), was predicted by bioinformatics software and identified by the luciferase reporter assay. Furthermore, Foxp3/miR‐146a elevated T regulatory cells and regulated TRAF6 expression in CD4+ T cells that were isolated from peripheral blood of patients with OLP. In conclusion, our study suggests that Foxp3 and miR‐146a regulate the progression of OLP by negatively regulating TRAF6, which may provide a promising therapeutic target for OLP treatment.
Oral fibrolipoma: A report of two cases and review of literature

Fibrolipoma is a benign tumor which is classified as a histological variant of conventional lipoma. It rarely occurs in oral and maxillofacial region. When present, it occurs as a soft, smooth surfaced nodular mass that can be pedunculated or sessile. Most of the lesions are less than 3 cm in size, although it may vary. Fibrolipomas mostly affect buccal mucosa and buccal vestibule and cause functional and cosmetic disabilities. Herniation of buccal pad of fat caused by trauma may also mimic lipoma. Hence, accurate histopathological examination of lipomas is important for a correct treatment plan. Here, we present 2 cases of oral fibrolipoma that presented on the retromolar triangle area and alveolar ridge in relation to missing maxillary right first molar.
Overexpression of macrophage migration inhibitory factor and functionally-related genes, D-DT, CD74, CD44, CXCR2 and CXCR4, in glioblastoma

The macrophage migration inhibition factor (MIF) is a cytokine with multiple biological functions, including the cancer-associated processes, cell cycle deregulation, angiogenesis and metastatization. The present study investigated the expression of MIF and its functionally associated genes (D-DT, CD74, CD44, CXCR2 and CXCR4) in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas databank, through the cBioportal web-based utility (cbioportal.org/). A significant increase was observed in the majority of these genes in GBM samples compared with lower grade gliomas, however no significant correlation among the selected genes and the overall survival of the patients was identified. In contrast, the expression of MIF exhibited a trend toward an increase in overall survival and a significant increase of MIF expression was observed in samples of patients who underwent neoadjuvant treatment. In conclusion these data indicate that MIF and its receptors are involved in GBM progression and maintenance. Deciphering the precise biological significance in GBM would favor the adoption of tailored approaches to modulate the function of MIF and its associated genes for the treatment of the disease.
EEG-Based Emotion Recognition Using Quadratic Time-Frequency Distribution

Accurate recognition and understating of human emotions is an essential skill that can improve the collaboration between humans and machines. In this vein, electroencephalogram (EEG)-based emotion recognition is considered an active research field with challenging issues regarding the analyses of the nonstationary EEG signals and the extraction of salient features that can be used to achieve accurate emotion recognition. In this paper, an EEG-based emotion recognition approach with a novel time-frequency feature extraction technique is presented. In particular, a quadratic time-frequency distribution (QTFD) is employed to construct a high resolution time-frequency representation of the EEG signals and capture the spectral variations of the EEG signals over time. To reduce the dimensionality of the constructed QTFD-based representation, a set of 13 time- and frequency-domain features is extended to the joint time-frequency-domain and employed to quantify the QTFD-based time-frequency representation of the EEG signals. Moreover, to describe different emotion classes, we have utilized the 2D arousal-valence plane to develop four emotion labeling schemes of the EEG signals, such that each emotion labeling scheme defines a set of emotion classes. The extracted time-frequency features are used to construct a set of subject-specific support vector machine classifiers to classify the EEG signals of each subject into the different emotion classes that are defined using each of the four emotion labeling schemes. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using a publicly available EEG dataset, namely the DEAPdataset. Moreover, we design three performance evaluation analyses, namely the channel-based analysis, feature-based analysis and neutral class exclusion analysis, to quantify the effects of utilizing different groups of EEG channels that cover various regions in the brain, reducing the dimensionality of the extracted time-frequency features and excluding the EEG signals that correspond to the neutral class, on the capability of the proposed approach to discriminate between different emotion classes. The results reported in the current study demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed QTFD-based approach in recognizing different emotion classes. In particular, the average classification accuracies obtained in differentiating between the various emotion classes defined using each of the four emotion labeling schemes are within the range of 73.8%–86.2%. Moreover, the emotion classification accuracies achieved by our proposed approach are higher than the results reported in several existing state-of-the-art EEG-based emotion recognition studies.
Novel DNA Methylation Sites Influence GPR15 Expression in Relation to Smoking

Smoking is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and has been implicated in the regulation of the G protein-coupled receptor 15 (GPR15) by affecting CpG methylation. The G protein-coupled receptor 15 is involved in angiogenesis and inflammation. An effect on GPR15 gene regulation has been shown for the CpG site CpG3.98251294. We aimed to analyze the effect of smoking on GPR15 expression and methylation sites spanning the GPR15 locus. DNA methylation of nine GPR15 CpG sites was measured in leukocytes from 1291 population-based individuals using the EpiTYPER. Monocytic GPR15 expression was measured by qPCR at baseline and five-years follow up. GPR15 gene expression was upregulated in smokers (beta (ß) = −2.699, p-value (p) = 1.02 × 10−77) and strongly correlated with smoking exposure (ß = −0.063, p = 2.95 × 10−34). Smoking cessation within five years reduced GPR15 expression about 19% (p = 9.65 × 10−5) with decreasing GPR15 expression over time (ß = 0.031, p = 3.81 × 10−6). Additionally, three novel CpG sites within GPR15 affected by smoking were identified. For CpG3.98251047, DNA methylation increased steadily after smoking cessation (ß = 0.123, p = 1.67 × 10−3) and strongly correlated with changes in GPR15 expression (ß = 0.036, p = 4.86 × 10−5). Three novel GPR15 CpG sites were identified in relation to smoking and GPR15 expression. Our results provide novel insights in the regulation of GPR15, which possibly linked smoking to inflammation and disease progression.
Alkaline Phosphatase Immobilization on New Chitosan Membranes with Mg2+ for Biomedical Applications

In this paper, we present the fabrication and characterization of new chitosan-based membranes while using a new biotechnology for immobilizing alkaline phosphatase (ALP). This technology involved metal ions incorporation to develop new biopolymeric supports. The chemical structure and morphological characteristics of proposed membranes were evaluated by infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and the scanning electron microscopy technique (SEM). The inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) evidenced the metal ion release in time. Moreover, the effect of Mg2+ on the enzymatic activity and the antibacterial investigations while using Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, hemolysis, and biocompatibility behavior were studied. Immobilizing ALP into the chitosan membranes composition followed by the incorporation of Mg2+ led to polymeric supports with enhanced cellular viability when comparing to chitosan-based membranes without Mg2+. The results obtained evidenced promising performance in biomedical applications for the new biopolymeric supports that are based on chitosan, ALP, and metal ions.
Analytical Methods for Pesticides and Herbicides

A review of the literatures published in 2017 on topics relating to analytical methods for pesticides and herbicides is presented in this paper. Based on different techniques, this review is divided into seven parts, i. e. , extraction methods, chromatographic or mass spectrometric techniques, electrochemical techniques, spectrophotometric techniques, chemiluminescence and fluorescence methods, biochemical assays and immunoassays, and miscellaneous techniques.
Influence of Season and Diet on Fiber Digestion and Bacterial Community Structure in the Rumen of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus)

We studied the relationship between fiber digestion and the composition of the bacterial community in the rumen of muskoxen at the start and the end of the annual window of plant growth from spring to fall. Eight ruminally cannulated castrated males were fed brome hay or triticale straw (69.6% vs. 84.6% neutral detergent fiber, respectively) that were similar in fiber content to the sedges consumed by wild muskoxen (64.5 to 71.7% neutral detergent fiber). Muskoxen digested fiber from both forages faster and to a greater extent when straw rather than hay was consumed. Fiber digestion was therefore inducible by diet 4 in each season. We used 16S rRNA sequences from ruminal contents to study how season and diet affected the bacterial community and how the latter related to fiber digestion. We found that Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes accounted for 90% of the sequences at the level of Phylum, which is typical for the mammal gut microbiome. Using partial least square regressions, it was found that between 48% and 72% of the variation in fiber digestion was associated with 36–43 genera of bacteria. The main fibrolytic bacteria typical of domestic ruminants were generally not among the most important bacteria associated with fiber digestion in muskoxen. This reveals that muskoxen rely upon on a large suite of bacterial genera that are largely distinct from those used by other ruminants to digest the cell walls of plants that vary widely in both abundance and nutritional quality through the year.
Experimental Investigation of the Joint Influence of Reduced Supply Voltage and Charge Sharing on Single-Event Transient Waveforms in 65-nm Triple-Well CMOS

Full waveforms of single-event transients (SETs) in inverter chains were measured under focused heavy-ion microbeam irradiation. Inverter chains of varying spacings were irradiated with 48Ca and 197Au ions. The influence of changing the supply voltage from subthreshold to nominal level on SET forming and propagation was investigated, and the role of charge sharing is discussed. Key factors that influence SET widths and cross sections are identified across the applied range of supply voltages. A simple method is presented for estimating average SET widths at decreased supply voltages, and is based on the SET width measurements at nominal supply voltage, transistor-level simulations, and extracted circuit parameters. The proposed method matches well with the measured data.
Hitag 2 Hell - Brutally Optimizing Guess-and-Determine Attacks

Cryptographic guess-and-determine (GD) attacks are occasionally mentioned in the literature, but most articles describe conceptual attack optimization while implementation details are seldom discussed. Therefore, we present in this paper not only a conceptual attack optimization, but also a fully detailed design strategy to optimize a general bit-sliced exhaustive search implementation. To demonstrate the applicability of our contribution we present a highly optimized practical brute-force attack on the Hitag2 stream cipher using a guess-anddetermine approach. Our implementation explores the full 48-bit search space on a consumer desktop PC with one GPU in approximately 1 minute. The work is specifically effective to recover secret keys from the widely deployed Hitag2 Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) system. Compared to the most practical Hitag2 RKE attack published in the literature, our implementation is more than 500 times faster. Furthermore, our approach has a 100% success rate with only two captured RF frames and is extremely practical compared to previously published unrealistic sat-solver, cube cryptanalysis and correlation attacks which require hundreds of traces or truly random nonces. We fully release our source code as reference material for related research in the future.
Flight Dynamics Modeling and Control of a Novel Catapult Launched Tandem-Wing Micro Aerial Vehicle With Variable Sweep

In this paper, the variable sweep is used as a replacement for the conventional control surfaces for flight control on a tandem-wing micro aerial vehicle (MAV). This configuration allows the MAV to be folded into and launched from a tubular catapult while also retaining an adequately high effectiveness and a simple structure. As new control inputs, the four sweep angles of the MAV are planned as symmetric and asymmetric morphing to eliminate the reactive forces between the airfoils and fuselage during morphing. The aerodynamic characteristics of the MAV are presented through numerical simulations to study the effects of variable sweep morphing. An accurate nonlinear multibody dynamic model of the variable sweep MAV is established using the Kane method. Next, open-loop dynamic responses of sweep morphing based on the nonlinear dynamic model are analyzed and compared with the responses caused by the elevons control mode to examine the control effectiveness. Moreover, a flight control law based on sweep control is designed and verified using a height and yaw tracking simulation with different actuator response rates. The results show that the sweep control mode produces weaker coupling between the longitudinal and lateral dynamics than the elevons control mode and that the innovative approach for flight control is feasible and effective.
Edge-preserving image denoising

In image denoising, high-frequency components are more notable to the human eyes than low-frequency components. While high-frequency components contain more variations and represent the detailed textures, the reconstructions of these components are much harder and it is a remaining challenge in image denoising. In this study, a novel edge-preserving image denoising algorithm is proposed, it treats the low- and high-frequency components of the image separately. For restoration of high-frequency components, a neighbourhood regression method is proposed. An energy minimisation function is developed to combine the low- and high-frequency components into one model. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in peak signal-to-noise ratio, edges preservation and visual performance.
Deep Learning Based Machine Vision: First Steps Towards a Hand Gesture Recognition Set Up for Collaborative Robots

In this paper, we present a smart hand gesture recognition experimental set up for collaborative robots using a Faster R-CNN object detector to find the accurate position of the hands in the RGB images taken from a Kinect v2 camera. We used MATLAB to code the detector and a purposely designed function for the prediction phase, necessary for detecting static gestures in the way we have defined them. We performed a number of experiments with different datasets to evaluate the performances of the model in different situations: a basic hand gestures dataset with four gestures performed by the combination of both hands, a dataset where the actors wear skin-like color clothes while performing the gestures, a dataset where the actors wear light-blue gloves and a dataset similar to the first one but with the camera placed close to the operator. The same tests have been conducted in a situation where also the face of the operator was detected by the algorithm, in order to improve the prediction accuracy. Our experiments show that the best model accuracy and Fl-Score are achieved by the complete model without the face detection. We tested the model in real-time, achieving good performances that can lead to real-time human-robot interaction, being the inference time around 0.2 seconds.
Protective effect of angiotensin II receptor blocker against oxidative stress and inflammation in an oral mucositis experimental model

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of olmesartan medoxomil (Olme), an angiotensin II receptor antagonist, on oral mucositis (OM) experimental model. METHODS Oral mucositis was induced in hamsters with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU; 60 mg/kg day 1 and 40 mg/kg day 2). Animals (n = 10/group) were pretreated with oral Olme (1, 5, or 10 mg/kg) or vehicle 30 minutes before 5-FU injection and daily, until day 10. Cheek pouch samples were subjected to histopathological and immunostaining analysis of IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-10, TGF-β, macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), SOD, MMP-2 and FGF-2. In addition, IL-1β and TNF-α levels were evaluated by ELISA. Myeloperoxidase activity (MPO), glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were investigated by spectroscopic UV/VIS analysis. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reactions (RT-PCRs) were used to quantify the expression of IL-1β, TNF-α, NF-κBp65, MKP1 and ACE2. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and extracellular regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 protein levels were analysed by Western blot. RESULTS Treatment with 10 mg/kg Olme reduced ulceration, inflammatory cell infiltration, MPO activity, MDA levels, iNOS and ERK1/2 proteins levels, MIF expression and TNF-α and IL-1β of levels and gene expression. These findings were associated with a significant increase in the immunostaining of IL-10, FGF-2 and TGF-β. In addition, gene expression of IL-1β, TNF-α, NF-κBp65 MKP1 and ACE2 was decreased. CONCLUSION Olmesartan at a dose of 10 mg/kg prevented the mucosal damage and inflammation associated with 5-FU-induced OM, increasing granulation and tissue repair.
An orthopantomographic study of prevalence of hypodontia and hyperdontia in permanent dentition in Vadodara, Gujarat

Background: Developmental anomalies in the number of teeth can result from disturbances in the developing dental lamina of the tooth. The dental lamina may become hyperactive leading to the formation of a supernumerary tooth or may fail to proliferate leading to the congenital absence of a primary or permanent tooth. Aims: The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence and distribution of hypodontia and hyperdontia in permanent dentition, excluding the third molars in children in Vadodara, Gujarat. Setting and Design: A descriptive, analytical, and cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the above-mentioned aims. Materials and Methods: In the study, panoramic radiographs of 1816 children (967 girls and 849 boys), aged 8 to 14 years were recorded and inspected for anomalies in the number of teeth. Statistical Analysis Used: The data was analyzed using SPSS version 10.00 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Chicago, USA). Descriptive statistics and Chi-square-test were used to compare the results. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: The prevalence of hypodontia was 11.01%, and the most frequently absent tooth was the maxillary lateral incisor. There was an increased prevalence of hypodontia in females and in the mandibular arch of the permanent dentition. The prevalence of hyperdontia was 2.97% and the most common supernumerary tooth was mesiodens. There was an increased prevalence of hyperdontia in males and in the maxillary arch of the permanent dentition. Conclusions: There was a high prevalence of hypodontia and a low incidence of hyperdontia in the studied population. Prompt diagnosis of these anomalies can help plan treatment modalities at an early age to establish a functional and esthetic dentition.
Nuclear Respiratory Factor 1 (NRF-1) Controls the Activity Dependent Transcription of the GABA-A Receptor Beta 1 Subunit Gene in Neurons

While the exact role of β1 subunit-containing GABA-A receptors (GABARs) in brain function is not well understood, altered expression of the β1 subunit gene (GABRB1) is associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. In particular, down-regulation of β1 subunit levels is observed in brains of patients with epilepsy, autism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. A pathophysiological feature of these disease states is imbalance in energy metabolism and mitochondrial dysfunction. The transcription factor, nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF-1), has been shown to be a key mediator of genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial biogenesis. Using a variety of molecular approaches (including mobility shift, promoter/reporter assays, and overexpression of dominant negative NRF-1), we now report that NRF-1 regulates transcription of GABRB1 and that its core promoter contains a conserved canonical NRF-1 element responsible for sequence specific binding and transcriptional activation. Our identification of GABRB1 as a new target for NRF-1 in neurons suggests that genes coding for inhibitory neurotransmission may be coupled to cellular metabolism. This is especially meaningful as binding of NRF-1 to its element is sensitive to the kind of epigenetic changes that occur in multiple disorders associated with altered brain inhibition.