Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential Induction of Peroxisomal Enzymes by Hypolipidaemics in Human (HepG2) and Rat (MH1C1) Hepatoma Cell Lines

Human (HepG2) and rat (MH1C1) hepatoblastoma cells were incubated with different concentrations of the hypolipidaemics cetaben, clofibrate and thyroxine. The enzymatic activities of catalase, peroxisomal bifunctional enzyme, succinate dehydrogenase, and 3-oxoacyl-CoA thiolase were measured. In order to determine the point of regulation of the enzymatic activities Northern and Slot blot experiments with probes for peroxisomal bifunctional enzyme, catalase and fatty acyl CoA oxidase were performed on total RNA. Catalase activity was enhanced in HepG2 cells treated with 3 mmol/l clofibric acid to 135% of control and the mRNA value to 2.6 fold, whereas in cetaben treated cells the enhancement (up to 119% of control) was less pronounced. In MH1C1 cells catalase activity was not changed by any of the drugs. The activity of the peroxisomal bifunctional enzyme was not affected in HepG2 cells by clofibric acid and cetaben, whereas the mRNA level was elevated to 2.3 fold by 10 micromol/l cetaben. At high concentrations of cetaben all enzyme activities were decreased in both cell lines due to its high cytotoxicity. Our data show that, due to the differences in the genomic organisation, the regulation of the enzyme activities is different in human and rat, but the results from the human and rat hepatoblastoma cells correlate with the findings in whole man and rat, so that a human in vitro system is more suitable for pharmacological tests. These results suggest that the human hepatoma cell line HepG2 may be a useful model system for studies of the influence of hypolipidaemics on the peroxisomal enzyme system.
Development and validation of the parent experience of child illness.

OBJECTIVE To develop a measure of parent adjustment related to caring for a child with a chronic illness and to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measure with a group of parents of children with brain tumors. METHODS One-hundred forty-nine parents of patients (age <1-17 years) diagnosed with a brain tumor were assessed using the 25-item self-report Parent Experience of Child Illness (PECI). Internal consistency, construct validity, and factor structure were assessed. RESULTS Exploratory factor analysis yielded four theoretically coherent factors including: Guilt and Worry, Emotional Resources, Unresolved Sorrow and Anger, and Long-term Uncertainty. Internal reliability for the PECI scales ranged from . 72 to . 89, suggesting acceptable reliability. As evidence of construct validity, the PECI scales show significant, positive correlations with scales from established measures of parent adjustment. CONCLUSION The PECI augments the current literature by providing a brief measure of parents' subjective distress and perceived Emotional Resources, domains that are critical but understudied in children with chronic illness and their caregivers.
TEMPO AND MODE OF MULTICELLULAR ADAPTATION IN EXPERIMENTALLY EVOLVED SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE

Multicellular complexity is a central topic in biology, but the evolutionary processes underlying its origin are difficult to study and remain poorly understood. Here we use experimental evolution to investigate the tempo and mode of multicellular adaptation during a de novo evolutionary transition to multicellularity. Multicelled “snowflake” yeast evolved from a unicellular ancestor after 7 days of selection for faster settling through liquid media. Over the next 220 days, snowflake yeast evolved to settle 44% more quickly. Throughout the experiment the clusters evolved faster settling by three distinct modes. The number of cells per cluster increased from a mean of 42 cells after 7 days of selection to 114 cells after 227 days. Between days 28 and 65, larger clusters evolved via a twofold increase in the mass of individual cells. By day 227, snowflake yeast evolved to form more hydrodynamic clusters that settle more quickly for their size than ancestral strains. The timing and nature of adaptation in our experiment suggests that costs associated with large cluster size favor novel multicellular adaptations, increasing organismal complexity.
Independent static balance training contributes to increased stability and functional capacity in community-dwelling elderly people: a randomized controlled trial

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of independently conducted static balance exercises within a fall-safe environment in elderly participants engaging in independent training. Design: Randomized two-group parallel controlled study. Setting: Retirement center, community dwelling. Subjects: Subjects, 25 male and female volunteers (aged 82.6 ± 6.1 years; weight 69.9 ± 97 kg; height 165 ± 6.9 cm; body mass index (BMI) 25.6 ± 2.6) residing in independent living facilities were randomly assigned to an experimental group or a control group. Intervention: The experimental group engaged in standing, static balancing, and mild leg exercise 12 minutes per session, three times per week for 12 weeks. Exercises were done independent of spotters within a rigid frame consisting of tethers connected to the subject so that he or she could not fall. The control group were given literature on prevention of falls. Main outcome measures: Functional ability and balance was assessed using the following tests: 30-second chair stand test, 8-foot up and go test, Berg Balance Scale, and a step-up test. Results: Comparison by repeated-measures ANOVA of the performance before and after the 12-week intervention yielded significant (P < 0.01) improvement for the experimental group over the control group in the 30-second chair test repetitions, in the 8-foot up and go test, in the balance assessment and in the leg function assessments. Conclusion: Standing, static balance exercises conducted independently without safety supervision led to improvements in balance, functional ability, and leg functioning in frail elderly people.
Semi-Automated Questions as a Cognitive Stimulus in Idea Generation

Creativity is the source for innovation and is responsible for ongoing and sustainable progress within companies. Over the years, different theories and practices have been established to enhance creativity and to produce innovative ideas. A number of creativity support systems have been designed, implemented and tested to foster and optimize creativity processes. However, the full potential of information technology has not yet been fully exhausted. For this research we have implemented an innovative creativity support system, which stimulates a user during the stage of idea generation. The system semi-automatically generates external stimuli in the form of questions that represent the core issues of a task. The experiment we conducted shows, that individuals, who are exposed to the semi-automated questions produce better and more versatile ideas than individuals that are not exposed to the semi-automated questions. Our findings endorse the use of novel algorithms for creativity support systems.
On Empirical Comparison of Checklist-based Reading and Adhoc Reading for Code Inspection

nspection is a proven approach that is commonly used to manage software quality. To this end many inspection techniques such as Checklist-Based Reading (CBR), Perspective-Based Reading (PBR), Usage-Based Reading (UBR), and Defect-Based Reading (DBR) have been proposed in the literature. Unfortunately, plethora of empirical studies carried out to evaluate these reading techniques have produced inconsistent and conflicting results. Consequently, ad hoc reading and CBR still remain the standard reading techniques in software organizations. This paper investigates the performance of ad hoc and CBR techniques in a traditional paper-based environment. Seventeen undergraduate students of computer science majority of whom are in their final year were used as subjects in a controlled experiment. Results of the experiment indicate that CBR is significantly superior to ad hoc reading in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, effort, and number of false positives. On the average, 4 faults were detected in 69 minutes using ad hoc reading while 11 faults were detected in 42.5 minutes using Checklist-based reading. Also the average number of false positive is about 3.13 in checklist-based approach as against about 6.44 in ad hoc approach.
Teeth in Fire - Morphologic and Radiographic Alterations: An In Vitro Study

Teeth are the components of the body that often survive severe fires because of their high resistant composition and also because they are protected by the soft and hard tissues of the face. The damage caused by heat can make medico legal identification of human remains difficult in mass disasters associated with fire. The morphologic and radiographic evaluation of dental remains represents a significant aspect in the forensic identification process, particularly after an exposure to fire. Aim: The aim of this ''in vitro'' study was to evaluate the morphologic and radiographic features of teeth after exposure to an experimental range of high temperatures. Methods: A total of 60 extracted permanent teeth were exposed to heat in an Unident digital muffle furnace at five different temperatures (100, 300, 500, 700 and 1000°C). Before and after each exposure, periapical radiographs of all the teeth were taken. The morphologic and radiographic appearances of all the teeth before and after exposure to heat were evaluated and the differences were recorded. Results: The general progression of the colour change from lower temperature to higher was typical light yellow colour, yellowish brown, greyish brown, bluish grey and neutral white. In radiographic evaluation we observed intact teeth at 100°C, a progressive formation of fissures at 300°C and fractures between enamel and dentin at 700°C, large fractures spreading through the dentin and crown crushing at 1000°C. Longitudinal and transverse cracks of root were observed at 1000°C. Conclusion: Morphologic and radiographic alterations caused by incineration may provide useful information about the temperature and duration of exposure to fire. It can also aid in understanding the circumstances surrounding the fire.
Representation Learning of Knowledge Graphs with Entity Descriptions

Representation learning (RL) of knowledge graphs aims to project both entities and relations into a continuous low-dimensional space. Most methods concentrate on learning representations with knowledge triples indicating relations between entities. In fact, in most knowledge graphs there are usually concise descriptions for entities, which cannot be well utilized by existing methods. In this paper, we propose a novel RL method for knowledge graphs taking advantages of entity descriptions. More specifically, we explore two encoders, including continuous bag-of-words and deep convolutional neural models to encode semantics of entity descriptions. We further learn knowledge representations with both triples and descriptions. We evaluate our method on two tasks, including knowledge graph completion and entity classification. Experimental results on real-world datasets show that, our method outperforms other baselines on the two tasks, especially under the zero-shot setting, which indicates that our method is capable of building representations for novel entities according to their descriptions. The source code of this paper can be obtained from https://github.com/xrb92/DKRL.
Reply to GC Ligthart-Melis et al.

generated can be incorporated into the ureido group of citrulline and subsequently the guanidino group of arginine, thus labeling the third nitrogen group of these compounds. Furthermore, [2-N]glutamine can contribute the other nitrogen in the guanidino group of arginine via aspartate through transamination. These pathways are shown in Figure 1. In addition, the infusion of [2-N]glutamine also generates [5-N] glutamine (8). By using LC–tandem MS (LC-MS/MS) and looking at different fragments we have shown this scrambling of the amino nitrogen of glutamine and the labeling of the 3 nitrogen groups of citrulline in mouse models (8). We recently confirmed using the same analytic approach these findings in postprandial surgical patients who received alanyl-[2-N]glutamine as a stable isotope to investigate the precursor relation between glutamine, citrulline, and arginine (GC Ligthart-Melis GC, unpublished results, 2014). Had Buijs et al. used a similar LCMS/MS analytic approach that allows for the measurement of the positional isomers of glutamine and citrulline (10), they would have observed this same phenomenon. For this reason and because every single assumption on the use of [2-N]glutamine to determine precursor-product relations is violated, the conversion data generated by Buijs et al. cannot be interpreted. We agree with Buijs et al. that “the development of optimal nutrition strategies relies on distinct insights into the effect of a supplemental component on metabolic pathways. ” For these reasons, we believe that the correct approach to the interpretation of glutamine supplementation in surgical patients has to be done on the basis of fluxes and that the precursor-product relation between glutamine and citrulline can only be determined utilizing tracers that follow the carbon skeleton of these compounds.
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: measuring the cosmic growth rate with the two-point galaxy correlation function

The growth history of large-scale structure in the Universe is a powerful probe of the cosmological model, including the nature of dark energy. We study the growth rate of cosmic structure to redshift z = 0.9 using more than 162 000 galaxy redshifts from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. We divide the data into four redshift slices with effective redshifts z = [0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.76] and in each of the samples measure and model the two-point galaxy correlation function in parallel and transverse directions to the line of sight. After simultaneously fitting for the galaxy bias factor we recover values for the cosmic growth rate which are consistent with our assumed Λcold dark matter (ΛCDM) input cosmological model, with an accuracy of around 20 per cent in each redshift slice. We investigate the sensitivity of our results to the details of the assumed model and the range of physical scales fitted, making close comparison with a set of N-body simulations for calibration. Our measurements are consistent with an independent power-spectrum analysis of a similar data set, demonstrating that the results are not driven by systematic errors. We determine the pairwise velocity dispersion of the sample in a non-parametric manner, showing that it systematically increases with decreasing redshift, and investigate the Alcock–Paczynski effects of changing the assumed fiducial model on the results. Our techniques should prove useful for current and future galaxy surveys mapping the growth rate of structure using the two-dimensional correlation function.
Nanoemulsion Components Screening and Selection: a Technical Note

Nanoemulsions are isotropic, thermodynamically stable transparent (or translucent) systems of oil, water, and surfactants with a droplet size usually in the range of 10–100 nm (1,2). Their long-term stability, ease of preparation (spontaneous emulsification), and high solubilization of drug molecules make them promising as a drug delivery tool. They have found wide applications in oral drug delivery to enhance the solubility and bioavailability of the lipophilic drugs (3–5). Recently, there has been a surge in the exploration of nanoemulsions for transdermal delivery (6–8). They are also being investigated ardently for potential applications in ocular (9,10), pulmonary (11), nasal (12,13), vaginal (14,15), and parenteral drug delivery (16–18). The use of nanoemulsions in drug delivery has been reviewed, and it was noted that most studies have not been very systematic with regard to selection of surfactants and cosurfactants. The main objective of this study was to provide an efficient screening approach for the proper selection of oils, surfactants, and cosurfactants for the nanoemulsion formulation development. Ropinirole was selected as a model lipophilic drug for this purpose (Log P = 3.32). These systems often require high surfactant concentration, and this may lead to toxicity and irritancy problems. Therefore, judicious selection of surfactants along with their optimum concentration is required, which has been discussed in this report. Determination of the influence of the surfactant-to-cosurfactant mass ratio (Smix) on the nanoemulsion formation region also formed an important aspect of the study. Optimum selection would aid in better formulation with desirable attributes.
Tuberculin manufacturing source and breakdown incidence rate of bovine tuberculosis in British cattle, 2005–2009

The single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test is the primary test used for surveillance for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle in Great Britain (GB). The tuberculin used can, with other factors, influence test accuracy. In this analysis, the detection of infected cattle in GB 2005–2009 was compared between SICCT tests using tuberculins manufacturered by different manufacturers. Higher rates of reactors (adjusted rate 209 vs 186 per 100,000 tests, P = 0.003) and herd bTB incidents (adjusted total breakdown rate 5.1 vs 4.5 per 100 herd-years at risk, P < 0.001) were detected using tuberculin manufactured at Weybridge compared with Lelystad. However, confirmation of infection in reactors by postmortem evidence was higher with Lelystad tuberculin (adjusted percent 44.1 vs 47.1, P = 0.018). The findings, overall, suggest slightly higher test sensitivity and lower test specificity associated with Weybridge tuberculin compared with Lelystad. Assuming effective adjustment for confounding, the overall impact of tuberculin manufacturing source (2007–2009), was calculated to range somewhere between 315 false positive breakdowns, and 1086 bTB breakdowns missed (624 confirmed) as a result of using Weybridge and Lelystad tuberculin, respectively. However, animals that tested negative to the SICCT were not slaughtered at the time of the tests, so definitive conclusions are not possible.
Circulating microRNAs in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

ABSTRACT Liver biopsy is currently recognized as the most accurate method for diagnosing and staging nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, this procedure is typically performed when disease has progressed to clinically significant stages, thereby limiting early diagnosis of patients who are at high risk for development of liver- and cardiovascular-related morbidity and mortality. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs), short, noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression, have been associated with histological features of NAFLD and are readily detected in the circulation. As such, miRNAs are emerging as potentially useful noninvasive markers with which to follow the progression of NAFLD. In this article, we present the evidence linking circulating miRNAs with NAFLD and discuss the potential value of circulating miRNA profiles in the development of improved methods for NAFLD diagnosis and clinical monitoring of disease progression.
Uncertainty quantification for the trailing-edge noise of a controlled-diffusion airfoil

A study that examine uncertainties associated with the prediction of trailing-edge noise, through an uncertainty quantification (UQ) framework, using RANS computations or conventional LES computations, in order to determine their respective robustness and accuracy is presented. The uncertainty is introduced at the inlet boundary of the restricted computational domain. The physical variations in the experimental flow measurements are taken into account by selecting a 2.5% error bound on the streamwise velocity U and a 10% error bound on the crosswise velocity V around the deterministic numerical solution. This observation is a significant departure from RANS computations where the second recirculation zone beyond mid-chord never occurs for low aoa. This difference is related to the used RANS modelisation that is considering fully turbulent flows and therefore cannot correctly take into account the laminar and transition regions whereas LES calculations do.
Predictors of Perioperative Complications in Higher Risk Children after Adenotonsillectomy for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Objective Retrospective studies have limitations in predicting perioperative risk following adenotonsillectomy in children with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Few prospective studies exist. We hypothesized that demographic and polysomnographic (PSG) variables would predict respiratory and general perioperative complications. Study Design Prospective, observational cohort study. Setting Pediatric tertiary center. Subjects and Methods Consecutive children undergoing adenotonsillectomy for OSAS within 12 months of PSG were evaluated for complications occurring within 2 weeks of surgery. Results There were 329 subjects, with 27% <3 years old, 24% obese, 16% preterm, and 29% with comorbidities. In this higher risk population, 28% had respiratory complications (major and/or minor), and 33% had nonrespiratory complications. Significant associations were found between PSG parameters and respiratory complications as follows: apnea hypopnea index (rank-biserial correlation coefficient [r] = 0.174, P = .017), SpO2 nadir (r = −0.332, P < .0005), sleep time with SpO2 <90% (r = 0.298, P < .0005), peak end-tidal CO2 (r = 0.354, P < .0005), and sleep time with end-tidal CO2 >50 mm Hg (r = 0.199, P = .006). Associations were also found between respiratory complications and age <3 years (r = −0.174, P = .003) or black race (r = 0.123, P = .039). No significant associations existed between PSG parameters and nonrespiratory complications. A model using age <3 years, SpO2 nadir, and peak CO2 predicted respiratory complications better than the American Academy of Pediatrics or American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation guidelines but was imperfect (area under the curve = 0.72). Conclusion Thus, PSG predicted perioperative respiratory, but not nonrespiratory, complications in children with OSAS. Age <3 years or black race are high-risk factors. Present guidelines have limitations in determining the need for postoperative admission.
Seasonal effects and fine‐scale population dynamics of Aedes taeniorhynchus, a major disease vector in the Galapagos Islands

Characterization of the fine‐scale population dynamics of the mosquito Aedes taeniorhynchus is needed to improve our understanding of its role as a disease vector in the Galapagos Islands. We used microsatellite data to assess the genetic structure of coastal and highland mosquito populations and patterns of gene flow between the two habitats through time on Santa Cruz Island. In addition, we assessed possible associations of mosquito abundance and genetic diversity with environmental variables. The coastal and highland mosquito populations were highly differentiated from each other all year round, with some gene flow detected only during periods of increased precipitation. The results support the hypothesis that selection arising from ecological differences between habitats is driving adaptation and divergence in A. taeniorhynchus, and maintaining long‐term genetic differentiation of the populations against gene flow. The highland and lowland populations may constitute an example of incipient speciation in progress. Highland populations were characterized by lower observed heterozygosity and allelic richness, suggesting a founder effect and/or lower breeding site availability in the highlands. A lack of reduction in genetic diversity over time in highland populations suggests that they survive dry periods as dormant eggs. Association between mosquito abundance and precipitation was strong in the highlands, whereas tide height was the main factor affecting mosquito abundance on the coast. Our findings suggests differences in the infection dynamics of mosquito‐borne parasites in the highlands compared to the coast, and a higher risk of mosquito‐driven disease spread across these habitats during periods of increased precipitation.