Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MicroRNA-106a inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis in colorectal cancer cells

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate mammalian cell growth, differentiation and apoptosis by altering the expression of other genes, and serve multiple roles in tumorigenesis and progression. miR-106a has been implicated in several types of malignancies. However, its role in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unknown. The present study reported that in this particular cancer, miR-106a exhibits a tumor suppressive role. It was demonstrated that the high expression of miR-106a in CRC cells is negatively associated with E2F transcription factor 1 protein level and positively associated with caspase activation, suggesting a potential molecular switch.
Reading English-Language Haiku: Processes of Meaning Construction Revealed by Eye Movements

In the present study, poets and cognitive scientists came together to investigate the construction of meaning in the process of reading normative, 3-line English-language haiku (ELH), as found in leading ELH journals. The particular haiku which we presented to our readers consisted of two semantically separable parts, or images, that were set in a ‘tense’ relationship by the poet. In our sample of poems, the division, or cut, between the two parts was positioned either after line 1 or after line 2; and the images related to each other in terms of either a context–action association (context–action haiku) or a conceptually more abstract association (juxtaposition haiku). From a constructivist perspective, understanding such haiku would require the reader to integrate these parts into a coherent ‘meaning Gestalt’, mentally (re-)creating the pattern intended by the poet (or one from within the poem’s meaning potential). To examine this process, we recorded readers’ eye movements, and we obtained measures of memory for the read poems as well as subjective ratings of comprehension difficulty and understanding achieved. The results indicate that processes of meaning construction are reflected in patterns of eye movements during reading (1st-pass) and re-reading (2nd- and 3rd-pass). From those, the position of the cut (after line 1 vs. after line 2) and, to some extent, the type of haiku (context–action vs. juxtaposition) can be ‘recovered’. Moreover, post-reading, readers tended to explicitly recognize a particular haiku they had read if they had been able to understand the poem, pointing to a role of actually resolving the haiku’s meaning (rather than just attempting to resolve it) for memory consolidation and subsequent retrieval. Taken together, these first findings are promising, suggesting that haiku can be a paradigmatic material for studying meaning construction during poetry reading.
Age Estimation Robust to Optical and Motion Blurring by Deep Residual CNN

Recently, real-time human age estimation based on facial images has been applied in various areas. Underneath this phenomenon lies an awareness that age estimation plays an important role in applying big data to target marketing for age groups, product demand surveys, consumer trend analysis, etc. However, in a real-world environment, various optical and motion blurring effects can occur. Such effects usually cause a problem in fully capturing facial features such as wrinkles, which are essential to age estimation, thereby degrading accuracy. Most of the previous studies on age estimation were conducted for input images almost free from blurring effect. To overcome this limitation, we propose the use of a deep ResNet-152 convolutional neural network for age estimation, which is robust to various optical and motion blurring effects of visible light camera sensors. We performed experiments with various optical and motion blurred images created from the park aging mind laboratory (PAL) and craniofacial longitudinal morphological face database (MORPH) databases, which are publicly available. According to the results, the proposed method exhibited better age estimation performance than the previous methods.
Hyphantria cunea (Drury) (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae)’den İzole Edilen Bakterilerin İnsektisidal Aktivitesi

Amerikan Beyaz Kelebegi, Hyphantria cunea (Drury) sayisiz konukcu bitkisi olan polifag bir zararlidir. Bu calismada, H. cunea ’nin bakteriyal florasi zararliya karsi mikrobiyal kontrol ajani olabilecek yeni organizmalari identifiye etmek icin arastirildi. H. cunea ’dan alti bakteri izole edilerek saflastirildi. Bakteriyal izolatlarin morfolojik, biyokimyasal, diger fenotipik ozellikleri ( API 20E, API 50 CH, API Staph ve API Coryne) belirlendi. Ilave olarak, 16S rRNA gen sekans analizi de yapildi. Yapilan calismalar sonucunda izolatlar; Lysinibacillus sphaericus (Abk1), Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (Abk2), Staphylococcus sciuri (Abk4), Kocuria palustris (Abk6), Arthrobacter arilaitensis (Abk7) ve Microbacterium oxydans (Abk8) olarak tanimlandi. Butun bakteriler H. cunea ’nin ucuncu-dorduncu gomlek larvalarina karsi oniki gun boyunca test edildi. En yuksek insektisidal aktivite %30 ile L. sphaericus (Abk1)’dan elde edildi (p<0.05). Bu sonuclar, L. sphaericus (Abk1)’u n, H. cunea ’nin mikrobiyal mucadelesinde dikkate alinabilecegini gostermistir. Gelecekte, L. sphaericus (Abk1)’un patojenite zenginlestirme stratejileri (diger entomopatojelerle veya insektisitlerle kombine edilmesi gibi) kullanilarak H. cunea uzerindeki etkinliginin artirilmasi yonunde calismalar yapilacaktir.
Assessing Effects of Task and Data Distribution on the Effectiveness of Visual Encodings

In addition to the choice of visual encodings, the effectiveness of a data visualization may vary with the analytical task being performed and the distribution of data values. To better assess these effects and create refined rankings of visual encodings, we conduct an experiment measuring subject performance across task types (e.g., comparing individual versus aggregate values) and data distributions (e.g., with varied cardinalities and entropies). We compare performance across 12 encoding specifications of trivariate data involving 1 categorical and 2 quantitative fields, including the use of x, y, color, size, and spatial subdivision (i.e., faceting). Our results extend existing models of encoding effectiveness and suggest improved approaches for automated design. For example, we find that colored scatterplots (with positionally‐coded quantities and color‐coded categories) perform well for comparing individual points, but perform poorly for summary tasks as the number of categories increases.
The influence of recipe modification and nutritional information on restaurant food acceptance and macronutrient intakes

Abstract Objective To examine the influences of nutritional information and consumer characteristics on meal quality expectations, food selection and subsequent macronutrient intakes of consumers offered a reduced-fat option in a restaurant. Design A target, full-fat (FF) main restaurant meal option was developed in a version substantially reduced in fat and energy (RF). Restaurant patrons were randomly placed into one of four treatment groups varying in provision of menu information about the target dish, and the actual version of that dish served (if ordered). A full-fat blind (FFB) control group was given no nutritional information in the menu and was served the FF version. The other three groups were all served the modified RF version: (i) reduced-fat blind (RFB), who were given no nutritional information; (ii) reduced-fat informed (RFI), who were given nutritional information; and (iii) reduced-fat informed with details (RFID), who were given the same nutritional information plus recipe modification details. Subjects rated their expected and actual liking, the pleasantness of taste, texture and appearance of the dish, how well the dish matched their expectations, and the likelihood of purchase again. Additional measures included the other dish selections, sociodemographic and attitudinal information. Setting A silver service (training) restaurant. Subjects Members of the public (n = 279) consuming meals in the restaurant. Results The presence of nutritional information on the menu did not significantly increase subsequent intakes of energy and fat from the rest of the meal, and did not significantly influence sensory expectations or post-meal acceptance measures (which also did not differ between the FF and RF versions). Consumer characteristics relating to fat reduction attitudes and behaviours were significantly related to the selection of different dishes. Conclusions Provision of RF alternatives in a restaurant can have significant positive dietary benefits. Menu nutritional information did not affect measures of meal acceptance. Further studies should identify which types of information formats might be most effective in enhancing the selection of ‘healthy’ options.
Performance of Faller and Nonfaller Older Adults on a Motor–Motor Interference Task

ABSTRACT Typically, falls in older adults occur when 2 tasks are performed simultaneously, due to the increased motor demand required to maintain stability and attention to perform the other task. The authors' purpose was to investigate walking while grasping, transporting, and placing a dowel on a predetermined target while manipulating difficulty levels of the manual task. Faller and nonfaller older adults performed a walking block (manual tasks combined with gait) and a stationary block (upright stance combined with manual tasks). The manual task involved grasping, transporting, and placing the dowel over a target. The results showed that fallers underperformed when compared with nonfallers in the task of placing the dowel over the target. The main difference observed between the groups was found in the condition that required allocation of attention between tasks and greater accuracy in the final placement of the object. Fallers showed gait stability similar to the nonfallers, but fallers were less accurate than nonfallers in the object placement task, especially for the highest level of difficulty. Thus, fallers seem to use a stability-first strategy. Fallers had problems in executing the manual tasks, which suggests a more global change in motor behavior rather than specific changes to balance control.
CD47 as a potential prognostic marker for oral leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma

Cluster of differentiation (CD)47, which acts as a negative indicator for phagocytic cells, is overexpressed on the surface of multiple human solid tumor cell types. Avoiding phagocytosis by CD47 is required for the progression of solid tumors. The present study investigated the expression of CD47 in oral leukoplakia (OLK) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and preliminarily explored the impact of CD47 on the proliferation of OSCC cells. A total of 56 tissue samples, including 36 cases of OLK, 10 cases of OSCC and 10 cases of normal oral mucosa (NOM) were selected to detect the expression of CD47 by immunohistochemistry. For subgroup analysis, OLK samples were divided into OLK with low-risk dysplasia (LR-OLK) and OLK with high-risk dysplasia (HR-OLK). The subcellular localization of CD47 was determined by immunofluorescence in three OSCC cell lines (Tca8113, SCC-9 and Cal-27). The effect of CD47 antibody on the proliferation of the Cal-27 cell line was analyzed using the Cell Counting kit-8 assay. CD47 expression in OLK and OSCC lesions was significantly higher than in NOM (P<0.05). Compared with LR-OLK, the expression of CD47 in HR-OLK and OSCC cells was upregulated (P=0.0327 and P=0.0048, respectively). CD47 was highly expressed in OSCC cell lines (Tca8113, Cal-27 and SCC-9) and weakly expressed in normal oral keratinocytes. The proliferation of Cal-27 cells was inhibited by CD47 antibody in a concentration and time-dependent manner. CD47 may be a reliable biomarker for predicting the progression of oral precancer and cancer, and it may serve as an important molecular target for designing a novel therapy for oral cancer.
Secure Message Communication Protocol Among Vehicles in Smart City

Secure messages exchange among different vehicles is one of the most challenging tasks in future smart cities. Any malicious activity has the potential to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of messages exchanged between different vehicles. To ensure secure message communication among the vehicles in a smart city environment, a novel scheme using elliptic curve cryptographic (ECC) technique has been presented in this paper. For this purpose, a two-level authentication key exchange scheme has been designed. In the first level authentication, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{CH}$</tex-math></inline-formula> s are verified by series of messages exchanged between <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{CH}$</tex-math></inline-formula> s and the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{CA}$</tex-math></inline-formula>. The verified <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{CH}$</tex-math></inline-formula> s are responsible for authentication of vehicles in the second level authentication, followed by exchange of messages between <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $\text{CH}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and vehicle. The security analysis using widely accepted Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic, formal security analysis using random oracle model and verification using the widely known automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications (AVISPA) tool, and also the informal security analysis have been done with respect to various types of attacks. Moreover, a comparative analysis of the proposed scheme with existing related schemes reveals that it generates low overhead and latency, and high reliability during messages exchange between vehicles and the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{CA}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>.
Effects of Nutritional Prehabilitation, With and Without Exercise, on Outcomes of Patients Who Undergo Colorectal Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Although there have been meta-analyses of the effects of exercise-only prehabilitation on patients undergoing colorectal surgery, little is known about the effects of nutrition-only (oral nutritional supplements with and without counseling) and multimodal (oral nutritional supplements with and without counseling and with exercise) prehabilitation on clinical outcomes and patient function after surgery. We performed a systemic review and meta-analysis to determine the individual and combined effects of nutrition-only and multimodal prehabilitation compared with no prehabilitation (control) on outcomes of patients undergoing colorectal resection. METHODS We searched Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and ProQuest for cohort and randomized controlled studies of adults awaiting colorectal surgery who received at least 7 days of nutrition prehabilitation with or without exercise. We performed a random-effects meta-analysis to estimate the pooled risk ratio for categorical data and the weighted mean difference for continuous variables. The primary outcome was length of hospital stay; the secondary outcome was recovery of functional capacity based on results of a 6-minute walk test. RESULTS We identified 9 studies (5 randomized controlled studies and 4 cohort studies) composed of 914 patients undergoing colorectal surgery (438 received prehabilitation and 476 served as controls). Receipt of any prehabilitation significantly decreased days spent in the hospital compared with controls (weighted mean difference of length of hospital stay = -2.2 days; 95% confidence interval = -3.5 to -0.9). Only 3 studies reported on functional outcomes but could not be pooled owing to methodologic heterogeneity. In the individual studies, multimodal prehabilitation significantly improved results of the 6-minute walk test at 4 and 8 weeks after surgery compared with standard Enhanced Recovery Pathway care and at 8 weeks compared with standard Enhanced Recovery Pathway care with added rehabilitation. The 4 observational studies had a high risk of bias. CONCLUSIONS In a systematic review and meta-analysis, we found that nutritional prehabilitation alone or combined with an exercise program significantly decreased length of hospital stay by 2 days in patients undergoing colorectal surgery. There is some evidence that multimodal prehabilitation accelerated the return to presurgical functional capacity.
Differences between Newborn and Adult Mice in Their Response to Immune Thrombocytopenia

Background: Sick neonates frequently develop severe thrombocytopenia. Objective and Methods: In order to test the ability of fetal mice to increase their megakaryocyte size and ploidy in response to thrombocytopenia, we injected an antiplatelet antibody (MWReg30) into pregnant mice daily for 7 days, and into nonpregnant adult mice to serve as controls. After that time, platelet counts were obtained and megakaryocytes in the bone marrow, liver, and spleen were stained with anti-von Willebrand factor antibody, individually measured, and quantified. Results: Our study demonstrated that megakaryocytopoiesis in newborn mice shares many features of human fetal/neonatal megakaryocytopoiesis, including the small size of megakaryocytes. In response to thrombocytopenia, adult mice increased megakaryocyte volume and concentration, primarily in the spleen. Newborn mice, in contrast, increased the megakaryocyte concentration in the spleen, but exhibited no increase in megakaryocyte volume in any of the organs studied. In fact, the megakaryocyte mass was significantly lower in the bone marrow of thrombocytopenic neonates than in age-matched controls. Conclusions: We concluded that fetuses have a limited ability to increase their megakaryocyte mass in response to consumptive thrombocytopenia, compared to adult mice. These observations provide further evidence for the existence of biological differences between fetal/neonatal and adult megakaryocytopoiesis.
Risk of bladder cancer by disease severity in relation to metabolic factors and smoking: A prospective pooled cohort study of 800,000 men and women

Previous studies on metabolic factors and bladder cancer (BC) risk have shown inconsistent results and have commonly not investigated associations separately by sex, smoking, and tumor invasiveness. Among 811,633 participants in six European cohorts, we investigated sex‐specific associations between body mass index (BMI), mid‐blood pressure (BP, [systolic + diastolic]/2), plasma glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol and risk of BC overall, non‐muscle invasive BC (NMIBC) and muscle invasive BC (MIBC). Among men, we additionally assessed additive interactions between metabolic factors and smoking on BC risk. During follow‐up, 2,983 men and 754 women were diagnosed with BC. Among men, triglycerides and BP were positively associated with BC risk overall (hazard ratio [HR] per standard deviation [SD]: 1.17 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.06–1.27] and 1.09 [1.02–1.17], respectively), and among women, BMI was inversely associated with risk (HR: 0.90 [0.82–0.99]). The associations for BMI and BP differed between men and women (pinteraction ≤ 0.005). Among men, BMI, cholesterol and triglycerides were positively associated with risk for NMIBC (HRs: 1.09 [95% CI 1.01–1.18], 1.14 [1.02–1.25], and 1.30 [1.12–1.48] respectively), and BP was positively associated with MIBC (HR: 1.23 [1.02–1.49]). Among women, glucose was positively associated with MIBC (HR: 1.99 [1.04–3.81]). Apart from cholesterol, HRs for metabolic factors did not significantly differ between MIBC and NMIBC, and there were no interactions between smoking and metabolic factors on BC. Our study supports an involvement of metabolic aberrations in BC risk. Whilst some associations were significant only in certain sub‐groups, there were generally no significant differences in associations by smoking or tumor invasiveness.
Your liking is my curiosity: a social popularity intervention to induce curiosity

Our actions and decisions are regularly influenced by the social environment around us. Can social environment be leveraged to induce curiosity and facilitate subsequent learning? Across two experiments, we show that curiosity is contagious: social environment can influence people’s curiosity about the answers to scientific questions. Our findings show that people are more likely to become curious about the answers to more popular questions, which in turn influences the information they choose to reveal. Given that curiosity has been linked to better learning, these findings have important implications for education.
IFRS Adoption and Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Nigerian Quoted Firms

This study examines whether International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption has impacted significantly on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in Nigeria. The study specifically investigates the views of the preparers and users of annual reports based on the impact of foreign investors on quoted companies that adopted IFRS in Nigeria. The primary method of data collection was adopted with 165 questionnaires administered while Regression method was used for data analysis. The findings revealed that the adoption of IFRS is positively and significantly related to FDI. The result also showed a significant impact of foreign investors on quoted firms that have adopted IFRS in Nigeria. The study recommends that the government should create an enabling environment to encourage investors, so as to attract foreign direct investments for the enhancement of economy status of Nigeria. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016. v7n2p99
Comparison of Naso-temporal Asymmetry During Monocular Smooth Pursuit, Optokinetic Nystagmus, and Ocular Following Response in Strabismic Monkeys

ABSTRACT Purpose: Under monocular viewing conditions, humans and monkeys with infantile strabismus exhibit asymmetric naso-temporal (N-T) responses to motion stimuli. The goal of this study was to compare and contrast these N-T asymmetries during 3 visually mediated eye tracking tasks—optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), smooth pursuit (SP) response, and ocular following responses (OFR). Methods: Two adult strabismic monkeys were tested under monocular viewing conditions during OKN, SP, or OFR stimulation. OKN stimulus was unidirectional motion of a 30°x30° random dot pattern at 20°, 40°, or 80°/s for 1 minute. OFR stimulus was brief (200 ms) unidirectional motion of a 38°x28°whitenoise at 20°, 40°, or 80°/s. SP stimulus consisted of foveal step-ramp target motion at 10°, 20°, or 40°/s. Results: Mean nasalward steady state gain (0.87±0.16) was larger than temporalward gain (0.67±0.19) during monocular OKN (P<0.001). In monocular OFR, the asymmetry is manifested as a difference in OFR velocity gain (nasalward: 0.33±0.19, temporalward: 0.22±0.12; P=0.007). During monocular SP, mean nasal gain (0.97±0.2) was larger than temporal gain (0.66±0.14; P<0.001) and the mean nasalward acceleration during pursuit initiation (156±61°/s2) was larger than temporalward acceleration (118±77°/s2; P=0.04). Comparison of N-T asymmetry ratio across the 3 conditions using ANOVA showed no significant difference. Conclusions: N-T asymmetries are identified in all 3 visual tracking paradigms in both monkeys with either eye viewing. Our data are consistent with the current hypothesis for the mechanism for N-T asymmetry that invokes an imbalance in cortical drive to brainstem circuits.