Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD4+ CD25+ CD62+ T‐Regulatory Cell Subset Has Optimal Suppressive and Proliferative Potential

CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells (Treg) are potent suppressors, and play important roles in autoimmunity and transplantation. Recent reports suggest that CD4+ CD25+ Treg are not a homogeneous cell population, but the differences in phenotype, function, and mechanisms among different subsets are unknown. Here, we demonstrate CD4+ CD25+ Treg cells can be divided into subsets according to cell‐surface expression of CD62L. While both subsets express foxp3 and are anergic, the CD62L+ population is more potent on a per cell basis, and proliferates and maintains suppressive function far better than the CD62L– population and unseparated CD4+ CD25+ Treg. The CD62L+ population preferentially migrates to CCL19, MCP‐1 and FTY720. Both CD62L+ and CD62L– subsets prevent the development of autoimmune gastritis and colitis induced by CD4+ CD25–CD45RBhigh cells in severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Overall, these results suggest CD4+ CD25+ Treg are not a homogenous cell population, but can be divided into at least two subsets according to CD62L expression. The CD62L+ subset is a more potent suppressor than the CD62L– population or unfractionated CD4+ CD25+ Treg cells, can be expanded far more easily in culture, and is more responsive to chemokine‐driven migration to secondary lymphoid organs. These properties may have significant implications for the clinical manipulation of the CD4+ CD25+ CD62L+ cells.
Mutation, selection, and evolution of the Crohn disease susceptibility gene CARD15

Three common mutations in the CARD15 (NOD2) gene are known to be associated with susceptibility to Crohn disease (CD), and genetic data suggest a gene dosage model with an increased risk of 2–4‐fold in heterozygotes and 20–40‐fold in homozygotes. However, the discovery of numerous rare variants of CARD15 indicates that some heterozygotes for the common mutations have a rare mutation on the other CARD15 allele, which would support a recessive model for CD. We addressed this issue by screening CARD15 for mutations in 100 CD patients who were heterozygous for one of the three common mutations. We also developed a strategy for evaluating potential disease susceptibility alleles (DSAs) that involves assessing the degree of evolutionary conservation of involved residues, predicted effects on protein structure and function, and genotyping in a large sample of cases and controls. The evolutionary analysis was aided by sequencing the entire coding region of CARD15 in three primates (chimp, gibbon, and tamarin) and aligning the human sequence with these and orthologs from other species. We found that 11 of the 100 CD patients screened had a second potential pathogenic mutation within the exonic and periexonic sequences examined. Assuming that there are no additional pathogenic mutations in noncoding regions, our study suggests that most carriers of the common DSAs are true heterozygotes, and supports previous evidence for a gene dosage model. Four novel nonsynonymous mutations were detected, one of which would produce premature termination of translation c.2686C>T (p.Arg896X). Two potential DSAs—c.2107C>T (p.Arg703Cys) and g.2238T>A (c.74–7T>A)—were significantly associated with CD in the case control sample. Analysis of the evolution of CARD15 revealed strong conservation of the encoded protein, with identity to the human sequence ranging from 99.1% in the chimp to 44.5% in fugu. Higher primates possess an open reading frame (ORF) upstream of the putative initiation site in other species that encodes a further 27 N‐terminal amino acids, while four regions of high conservation are observed outside of the known domains of CARD15, indicative of additional residues of functional importance. The strategy developed here may have general application to the assessment of mutation pathogenicity and genetic models in other complex disorders. Hum Mutat 27(1), 44–54, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Langevin equations for continuous time Lévy flights.

We consider the combined effects of a power law L\'evy step distribution characterized by the step index f and a power law waiting time distribution characterized by the time index g on the long time behavior of a random walker. The main point of our analysis is a formulation in terms of coupled Langevin equations which allows in a natural way for the inclusion of external force fields. In the anomalous case for f2 and g1 the dynamic exponent z locks onto the ratio f/g. Drawing on recent results on L\'evy flights in the presence of a random force field we also find that this result is independent of the presence of weak quenched disorder. For d below the critical dimension ${\mathit{d}}_{\mathit{c}}$=2f-2 the disorder is relevant, corresponding to a nontrivial fixed point for the force correlation function.
The role of immune mechanisms in alcoholic and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis: a 2015 update

ABSTRACT So far, innate immune mechanisms have been recognized as the main responsible for the evolution of both alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). However, increasing evidence points toward the possible role of adaptive immune responses, as an additional factor in promoting hepatic inflammation in steatohepatitis. In this article, we discuss recent data involving circulating antibodies and lymphocyte-mediated responses in sustaining the progression of ASH and NASH to fibrosis, as well as the possible mechanisms implicated in favoring the onset of adaptive immunity in the setting of steatohepatitis.
Deletion of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Resuscitation-Promoting Factor Rv1009 Gene Results in Delayed Reactivation from Chronic Tuberculosis

ABSTRACT Approximately one-third of the human population is latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, comprising a critical reservoir for disease reactivation. Despite the importance of latency in maintaining M. tuberculosis in the human population, little is known about the mycobacterial factors that regulate persistence and reactivation. Previous in vitro studies have implicated a family of five related M. tuberculosis proteins, called resuscitation promoting factors (Rpfs), in regulating mycobacterial growth. We studied the in vivo role of M. tuberculosis rpf genes in an established mouse model of M. tuberculosis persistence and reactivation. After an aerosol infection with the M. tuberculosis Erdman wild type (Erdman) or single-deletion rpf mutants to establish chronic infections in mice, reactivation was induced by administration of the nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor aminoguanidine. Of the five rpf deletion mutants tested, one (ΔRv1009) exhibited a delayed reactivation phenotype, manifested by delayed postreactivation growth kinetics and prolonged median survival times among infected animals. Immunophenotypic analysis suggested differences in pulmonary B-cell responses between Erdman- and ΔRv1009-infected mice at advanced stages of reactivation. Analysis of rpf gene expression in the lungs of Erdman-infected mice revealed that relative expression of four of the five rpf-like genes was diminished at late times following reactivation, when bacterial numbers had increased substantially, suggesting that rpf gene expression may be regulated in a growth phase-dependent manner. To our knowledge, ΔRv1009 is the first M. tuberculosis mutant to have a specific defect in reactivation without accompanying growth defects in vitro or during acute infection in vivo.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Binary angiographic restenosis (BAR, development of a 50% stenosis at the site where a coronary lesion has been treated) occurs in 20 to 50% of cases after coronary angioplasty. Different devices, such as rotational atherectomy, directional atherectomy, intracoronary laser, sonotherapy, and cutting balloon, did not reduce the risk of restenosis or the need for new revascularizations. Systemic administration of different drugs also failed to reduce restenosis. Only coronary stents, by providing a scaffolding of the vessel wall, reduce the risk of restenosis in comparison with balloon angioplasty. However, even with the use of baremetal stents (BMS), restenosis is still a major limitation of percutaneous coronary implantation (PCI), occurring in 15 to 40% of patients treated with this device. Neointimal hyperplasia is the leading physiopathological mechanism of instent restenosis (ISR).
Methionine synthase genetic polymorphism MS A2756G alters susceptibility to follicular but not diffuse large B‐cell non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma or multiple myeloma

Summary. Lymphoproliferative diseases are characterized by chromosomal aberrations, and susceptibility may depend on inherited activity of enzymes required for DNA synthesis and methylation. We analysed genetic polymorphisms for methionine synthase (MS) A2756G, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T and MTHFR A1298C in Caucasians with non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL; n = 151), multiple myeloma (MM; n = 90) and 299 control subjects. The MS 2756 AG/GG genotypes were significantly under‐represented in NHL (26·2%) vs control subjects (37·2%; P = 0·02), and conferred a 2·4‐fold lower risk of follicular (odds ratio = 0·41, 95% confidence interval: 0·19–0·88, p = 0·02) but not diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma. MM patients showed no significant difference in the polymorphisms compared with control subjects.
Effects of Dietary L-carnitine and Betaine on Serum Biochemical Indices of Large Yellow Croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) Cultured in Floating Net Cages

The objective of this study was to investigate the biochemical changes of large yellow croaker as affected by dietary supplements. Large yellow croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) is a marine species that is widely cultured in China due to its high commercial value. However, the cage-cultured large yellow croakers were found to be less tasty compared with wild large yellow croakers due to high lipid in their body, which significantly impacts the commercial markets. Triglycerides, cholesterol and free fatty acids are main lipid ingredients in the animal body. The fish were fed with basal diet or basal diet supplemented with L-carnitine (0.08% of dry weight diet) or betaine (0.8% of dry weight diet) for 12 weeks in seawater floating net cages (3×2×1.5 m) each holding 60 fishes. Three net cages were assigned to each dietary treatment, as replications. The seawater temperature ranged from 18 to 31°C and salinity from 25 to 28 g/kg. Fish were hand-fed one of the experimental diets to apparent satiety twice daily (05:00 and 17:30) throughout the 12 week experimental period. The results indicate that L-carnitine or betaine in diets significantly reduced Serum Triglyceride (STG) and Serum Cholesterol (SCH) levels while increased Serum Free Fatty Acids (SFFA) content (p<0.05). The diets of L-carnitine or betaine supplements on serum biochemical indices of that fish species have positive effects. These results suggested that the supplementation with L-carnitine or betaine is one of the effective ways to improve the meat quality of large yellow croakers cultured in floating net cages.
Time-to-Market Capability as a Stackelberg Growth Option

The literature on strategic growth options examines the impact of investment to gain comparative advantages. The commitment of irreversible investment may confer strategic advantages as a result of a reduction in future expansion costs (Dixit, 1980) or operating costs (Kulatilaka and Perotti, 1998); which contain competitors' production strategy and market share. In general, strategic effects have been shown to increase the appeal of early investment. Interestingly, the value of strategic investment may often increase as uncertainty on market demand or cost increases, bacause oligopolistic profits are convex in demand. However, the impact of uncertainty is often ambiguous due to the value of the option to wait. This paper examines the decision to invest in logistics, market profiling and distribution capabilities that allow a firm to seize market share by being able to deliver a product ahead of competitors under Cournot quantity competition. This has the strategic effect of restraining competitors' behavior, and may justify the early commitment capital even when waiting offers deferment option value due to demand uncertainty. The remarkable result is that the value of such time-to-market investment is unambiguously increasing in such uncertainty. However, when all competitors share this investment opportunity, the resulting "rush to the market" consumes resources without enhancing profitability.
Evidence of Motor Planning in Infant Reaching Behavior

When adults reach for an object, kinematic measures of their approach movement are affected by what they intend to do after grasping it. We examined whether such future intended actions would be reflected in the approach-to-grasp phase of infant reaching. Twenty-one 10-month-old infants were encouraged to either throw a ball into a tub or fit it down a tube. Kinematic measures of the approach phase of the reach toward the ball were obtained using a motion analysis system. Infants, like adults, reached for the ball faster if they were going to subsequently throw it as opposed to using it in the precision action. The perceptual aspects of the ball were the same and cannot account for these kinematic differences. Infants appear to be planning both segments of their actions in advance. Our findings provide evidence for a level of sophistication in infant motor planning not reported before.
Identification of ten N2-fixing bacteria using 16S rRNA and their response to various zinc concentrations

Zinc is presently being used as a micronutrient essential for plant growth in agriculture in the form of zinc sulphate in fertilizers. Considering the importance of nitrogen-fixing microorganisms in soil fertility and plant growth, and the toxic effects of zinc, this study aimed at isolating nitrogen-fixing microorganisms from the asparagus rhizosphere arable soil and examining the sensitivity of the isolated strains to different zinc concentrations. The asparagus rhizosphere soil was cultivated in a nitrogen-free environment at 30 °C for 48 hours. Strains were identified by both biochemical and molecular methods. The presence of the nitrogenase enzyme system was confirmed by testing for the presence of the nifH gene through PCR analysis. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and optimal zinc concentration for the growth of each strain were also determined. A total of 10 different bacterial species were identified in three different soil samples. The presence of the nifH gene was confirmed in seven different strains. MIC and the average optimal zinc concentration for bacterial growth were 130.7 ppm and 13 ppm, respectively. The asparagus rhizosphere soil contains different species of nitrogen stabilizing microorganisms. An optimal zinc concentration in soil of 20 ppm is suggested.
The association of bone mineral density with HIV infection and antiretroviral treatment in women

Background Low bone mineral density (BMD) has been reported in HIV-infected women and men. Methods We analysed cross-sectional BMD measured by regional dual X-ray absorptiometry at the lumbar spine (LS) and femoral neck (FN) in 152 HIV-negative and 274 HIV-positive (HIV+) women, adjusted for traditional low BMD risk factors. Results BMD was significantly lower in protease inhibitor (PI) users than in all other groups, and highest in HIV-negative women. In multivariate analyses the prevalence of T-score <-1.0 was significantly higher in the HIV+ women naive to antiretroviral therapy (ART; odds ratio [OR] 4.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.61, 11.8) and the women receiving PI-containing HAART (OR 3.72, CI 1.43, 9.68), with a non-significant difference in non-PI HAART users (OR 2.43, CI 0.92, 6.45), compared with HIV-negative women. In pair-wise adjusted comparisons, BMD was lower in ART-naive than in HIV-negative women (1.22 versus 1.30 g/cm2 at LS; P=0.004), in PI compared with non-PI HAART users (1.00 versus 1.05 g/cm2 at FN; P=0.014) and with those ART-naive (1.00 versus 1.03 g/cm2 at FN; P=0.146). Potential confounders, including duration of ART, prior treatment regimens and traditional risk factors for low BMD did not explain these differences. Longer lopinavir use was significantly correlated with lower BMD (r2=-0.39, P=0.024 and r2=-0.46, P=0.006 at LS and FN, respectively) and longer efavirenz use with higher BMD (r2=+0.32, P=0.004 at FN). Conclusions HIV infection was associated with lower BMD in women, independent of the traditional risk factors for low BMD. PI-containing HAART compared with non-PI-containing HAART, and longer lopinavir use, were both associated with lower BMD, and efavirenz use was associated with higher BMD.
Determination and confirmation of isopropyl p‐toluenesulfonate in cosmetics by HPLC‐diode array detector method and GC–MS

Isopropyl p‐toluenesulfonate (IPTS) is a potentially genotoxic by‐product formed during the esterification of palm oil‐based palmitic and palm kernel oil‐based myristic acid with isopropanol to produce isopropyl palmitate or isopropyl myristate. There are no methods described for the analysis of IPTS in cosmetic products. In this work, we have established a simple, precise and accurate method to determine the presence and level of IPTS in various finished cosmetic products which contain palm‐based esters in their formulations.
Compressed cooperative reception for the uplink of C-RAN with wireless fronthaul

This work deals with a joint design of radio access and fronthaul links for the uplink of cloud radio access network (C-RAN) equipped with wireless fronthaul link. A conventional uplink system based on per-cell decode-and-forward (DF) relaying, in which the message sent by each user equipment (UE) is decoded by the closest remote radio head (RRH) and forwarded to a baseband processing unit (BBU) via wireless fronthaul link, is first reviewed. Since decoding at each RRH might be affected by the interference signals of the other UEs, we present a compress-and-forward (CF) based cooperative reception scheme whereby each RRH quantizes and compresses its received signal and transmits the quantization output to the BBU through the fronthaul link. For the both approaches based on the DF and CF relaying, we tackle the problem of maximizing the sum-rate of the UEs subject to the per-UE and per-RRH power constraints. Link-level simulation results are reported that validate the advantages of the CF-based cooperative scheme compared to the DF-based per-cell reception scheme.
Problems with the use of autopsy results as a yardstick in medical audit and epidemiology.

Autopsy can represent a key instrument in auditing clinical diagnosis performance, on which in turn the accuracy of diagnoses, as used in a variety of epidemiological investigations, depend. This audit can be implemented through clinico-pathological surveys which require both accurate pathological examinations and validity of study design and analysis. To this end, estimates of sensitivity and specificity of the clinical diagnosis, using the autopsy diagnosis as a yardstick, should be obtained, which can however be severely distorted by factors such as nonrandom selection of cases for autopsy or by unrecognized errors in post-mortem diagnosis. Such distortion may be minimized by (a) estimating the likely magnitude of errors in postmortem diagnosis, (b) specifying standard conditions for performing autopsies and (c) ensuring an unbiased sample of moderate size rather than a large biased sample. Considerable improvement in the validity of clinico-pathological surveys as carried out up until now is possible, and there is room for research to provide the necessary information (e.g. on necropsy diagnosis variability and feasible sampling schemes).
The Use of Vaginal Electrical Resistance to Diagnose Estrus and Early Pregnancy and Its Relation with Size of the Dominant Follicle in Dairy Cattle

The use of vaginal electrical resistance (VER) for estrous detection and early pregnancy diagnosis were evaluated using three experiments in dairy cattle, in Ethiopia. VER was measured: 1) during the natural estrous (n = 60) cycle, 2) during estrus induced by GnRH+ PGF2· (n = 11) and 3) during post insemination in dairy cows synchronized with GnRH+CIDR+PGF2· (n = 25). Results from Experiment 1 indicated that VER (mean ± SD) during pro-estrus, estrus, metestrus, diestrus and anestrous was 89.6 ± 3.1, 82.2 ± 2.2 102.9 ± 3.1, 106.8 ± 1.4 and 119.7 ± 1.7 ohm, respectively. Results from Experiment 2 indicated that VER was highest (102.4 ± 2.0 ohm; P < 0.001) at the time of PGF2· injection and significantly declined to 82.3 ± 0.7 ohm at the time of estrus and increased (94.9 ± 2.0 ohm; P < 0.001) 24 h after estrus. The mean diameter of the largest follicle (DLF) was highest (14.3 ± 0.1 mm; P < 0.001) at estrus and lowest (10.0 ± 0.1) at the time of PGF2· injection. The VER value was inversely correlated (r = -0.50; P < 0.001) with DLF. Results from Experiment 3 showed that VER significantly (P < 0.01) declined from day 19 to day 21 post insemination in non pregnant cows compared with pregnant cows. The study proved that VER can effectively be used for estrus detection and can be used to diagnose early pregnancy (day 18–21 post insemination) in dairy cows.
The effect of propylthiouracil and 131-I on rat thyroid chromosomes.

Rat chromosomes prepared from thyroid cells grown in culture did not differ from those described for other tissues of this species. The incidence of thyroid cells with abnormal chromosomes was not increased by giving propylthiouracil to rats for 15 weeks. The thyroid chromosomes were damaged by injection of 1\p=n-\25 \g=m\cof 131I. The damage persisted in the unstimulated thyroid for 15 weeks. Administration of propylthiouracil to rats after 131I caused significant reduction in the frequency of thyroid cells with radiation-damaged chromo-