Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tumor Necrosis Factor Modulates Apoptosis of Monocytes in Areas of Developmentally Regulated Bone Remodeling

Tooth eruption is characterized by spatially segregated bone resorption along the path of eruption and bone formation in the opposite direction. Monocyte recruitment occurs in two distinct peaks in both areas of resorption and formation. Without such recruitment tooth eruption does not occur. The signals that regulate this recruitment are thought to involve the expression of cytokines and chemokines. One such cytokine is tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which can affect monocyte recruitment through the induction of chemokines and adhesion molecules and increase their lifespan by acting as antiapoptotic cell survival signals. We examined the latter by studying mice with targeted deletions of TNF receptors p55 and p75 (TNFRp55/p75). The results indicate that mice that lack functional TNF receptors have a significantly reduced number of monocytes in the apical area associated with bone formation. The reduced number of monocytes in this area can be accounted for by an increase in apoptosis in TNFRp55−/−/p75−/−. In contrast, the number of monocytes, the rate of monocyte apoptosis, and the formation of osteoclasts in the occlusal area associated with bone resorption occurred independently of TNF activity. These results suggest that TNF receptor signaling can affect tooth eruption by acting as a monocyte survival signal in some but not all areas of bone undergoing developmentally regulated remodeling.
Testing the ecological relevance of Daphnia species designations

Summary 1. Molecular approaches have increasingly revealed hidden genetic structure within ecologically important species, leading to the creation of sibling species whose ecological relevance is often unclear. A prime example is Daphnia galeata mendotae, which was split into D. dentifera and D. mendotae based on differences at two allozyme loci. 2. In a set of lake populations in Michigan USA, we test the geographical and temporal consistency of the genetic structure underlying this species split. We also test the morphological relevance of this molecular variation and its ecological significance in lakes. In essence, we ask: does recognition of these new species provide valuable information for plankton ecologists? 3. We found that D. dentifera and D. mendotae represent morphologically and ecologically distinct forms that are distributed among lakes in non-random fashion, which were remarkably stable over 6 years. Key differences between the species concern their body and head shape, vertical habitat use within lakes and distribution among lakes of different size. We hypothesise that these differences represent specialisation to habitats that differ in risk of invertebrate predation. 4. Reproductive barriers alone are insufficient to explain the pattern of genetic structure; in some lakes complete introgression is apparent. However, parent species and hybrids exhibit a stable co-existence in many lakes, which suggests that ecological specialisation reinforces divergence within this taxon.
radiation use efficiency (RUE) and instantaneous photosynthesis at different growth stages of wheat (Triticum aestivum) in semi arid ecosystem of Central Punjab, India

The instantaneous canopy net photosynthetic rate (Ac) and photosynthetic radiation use efficiency (PhRUE) were investigated diurnally at different growth stages of wheat during two seasons 2009-2010 and 2010-11. Diurnal changes in Ac were synchronized with changes in incident photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFDo) throughout the experimental period during both the seasons. Regardless of growth stages, high Ac values were always observed around noon, when there was a high photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). In addition, the highest AC values were noticed at heading stage, when compared to other growth and development stages of wheat. With respect to PhRUE, the highest values occurred in the active tillering stage and decreased gradually upto soft dough stage during both the seasons. PhRUE was lowest after heading stage for wheat crop in both seasons, corresponding to decrease in photosynthetically active leaf area, another explanation for the decrease in RUE is a decrease in crop growth rate. Regarding diurnal changes in PhRUE, study revealed that it was always higher during early morning and evening time of the day at all the stages of the crop. The seasonal PhRUE of wheat was observed to be 1.21 g MJ -1 and 1.27 g MJ -1 , respectively during two seasons.
p-Cycle-based protection of multicast connections in metropolitan area optical networks with quality-of-transmission considerations

This paper investigates the problem of protecting multicast sessions in transparent optical networks. It utilizes a novel cycle based heuristic algorithm called Q-based p-Cycles Heuristic (QBPCH), that is used for the decomposition of the graph network into a set of p-cycles, while taking into account the physical layer impairments (PLIs) via a Q-budgeting approach. In this technique the length of these cycles is constrained in order to limit the effect of the impairments for the protection paths. The proposed scheme exhibits improved performance in terms of blocking probability when compared to a traditional ring cover heuristic (RC) and to a Hamiltonian cycle (HC) approach.
Upper extremity assist exoskeleton robot

Need to develop human body's posture supervised robots, gave the push to researchers to think over dexterous design of exoskeleton robots. It requires to develop quantitative techniques to assess motor function and generate the command for the robots to act accordingly with complex human structure. In this paper, we focus on developing new technique for the upper limb power exoskeleton in which load is handled by the human subject and not by the robot. Main challenge along with the design complexity is to find the desired human motion intention and to develop an algorithm to assist as needed accordingly. For this purpose, we used newly developed Muscle Circumference Sensor (MCS) instead of electromyogram (EMG) sensors. MCS together with the load cells is used to estimate the desired human intention by which desired trajectory is generated. The desired trajectory is then tracked by passivity based adaptive control technique. Developed Upper limb power exoskeleton has seven degrees of freedom (DOF) in which five are passive and two are active. Active joints include shoulder and elbow, powered by electric motors and move in Sagittal plane while abduction and adduction motion in shoulder joint is provided by the passive joint. Performance of the exoskeleton is evaluated experimentally by a neurologically intact subject. The results show that after adjusting the motion intention recognition algorithm for the subject, the robot assisted effectively and the subject only felt nominal load regardless of the weight in hand.
Detection and mechanisms of formation of S-(6-purinyl)glutathione and 6-mercaptopurine in rats given 6-chloropurine.

6-Chloropurine (CP) has antitumor activity against animal and human neoplasms, but the mechanism is unclear. Recently, we have shown that S-(6-purinyl)glutathione (PG), a putative metabolite of CP, is metabolized in vivo to yield the antitumor drug, 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP). In this study, CP metabolism to PG and 6-MP was investigated in an effort to provide further insights into the mechanism of CP antitumor activity. Rat hepatic and renal glutathione S-transferases metabolized CP to PG; Vmax values for liver and kidney cytosol were 166 and 24 nmol/mg of protein/min, respectively. PG was isolated and characterized by fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry from the bile of rats given CP. When rats were given CP (14 mumol/kg), PG excretion was linear with time for up to 1 hr; nearly 80% of the PG excreted at 2 hr was excreted at 1 hr. Rats given CP (10-1200 mumol/kg) excreted at 1 hr into bile nearly 18% of the dose as PG; rats given CP (400-1200 mumol/kg) excreted at 24 hr into urine nearly 4% of the dose as 6-MP and its further metabolites, 6-methylthiopurine and 6-thiouric acid. CP, PG, 6-MP, 6-methylthiopurine and 6-thiouric acid were also detected in plasma, liver and kidney of rats given CP (1200 mumol/kg); in these tissues, maximum CP concentrations were observed at 30 min, as compared to 60 to 180 min, and plasma CP concentrations were higher than those detected in liver or kidney. Liver or kidney CP metabolite concentrations at 30 to 120 min were, however, higher than those detected in plasma. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
D.I.C.E. and Co.In.S.: a data integration cache engine for a content integration system

Content integration of Web data sources is becoming increasingly important for the formation of the next generation information systems. A common performance bottleneck faced by all proposed solutions is the network overhead incurred when contacting the integrated e-sites. With this paper we contribute ongoing work on D.I. C.E. and Co.In. S. ; a domain-independent content integration system and its data integration cache engine. DICE constitutes a cache engine utilizing novel techniques for operating as a fully active semantic cache. We show how our contributions can be applied in the field of content integration in order to improve the response time of content integration systems, representative of a large class of e-commerce applications. We have implemented the proposed architecture and are currently developing a number of applications.
NIK is a new Ste20‐related kinase that binds NCK and MEKK1 and activates the SAPK/JNK cascade via a conserved regulatory domain

Nck, an adaptor protein composed of one SH2 and three SH3 domains, is a common target for a variety of cell surface receptors. We have identified a novel mammalian serine/threonine kinase that interacts with the SH3 domains of Nck, termed Nck Interacting Kinase (NIK). This kinase is most homologous to the Sterile 20 (Ste20) family of protein kinases. Of the members of this family, GCK and MSST1 are most similar to NIK in that they bind neither Cdc42 nor Rac and contain an N‐terminal kinase domain with a putative C‐terminal regulatory domain. Transient overexpression of NIK specifically activates the stress‐activated protein kinase (SAPK) pathway. Both the kinase domain and C‐terminal regulatory region of NIK are required for full activation of SAPK. NIK likely functions upstream of MEKK1 to activate this pathway; a dominant‐negative MEK kinase 1 (MEKK1) blocks activation of SAPK by NIK. MEKK1 and NIK also associate in cells and this interaction is mediated by regulatory domains on both proteins. Two other members of this kinase family, GCK and HPK1, contain C‐terminal regulatory domains with homology to that of NIK. These findings indicate that the C‐terminal domain of these proteins encodes a new protein domain family and suggests that this domain couples these kinases to the SAPK pathway, possibly by interacting with MEKK1 or related kinases.
Indexing the Earth Mover's Distance Using Normal Distributions

Querying uncertain data sets (represented as probability distributions) presents many challenges due to the large amount of data involved and the difficulties comparing uncertainty between distributions. The Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) has increasingly been employed to compare uncertain data due to its ability to effectively capture the differences between two distributions. Computing the EMD entails finding a solution to the transportation problem, which is computationally intensive. In this paper, we propose a new lower bound to the EMD and an index structure to significantly improve the performance of EMD based K-- nearest neighbor (K--NN) queries on uncertain databases. We propose a new lower bound to the EMD that approximates the EMD on a projection vector. Each distribution is projected onto a vector and approximated by a normal distribution, as well as an accompanying error term. We then represent each normal as a point in a Hough transformed space. We then use the concept of stochastic dominance to implement an efficient index structure in the transformed space. We show that our method significantly decreases K--NN query time on uncertain databases. The index structure also scales well with database cardinality. It is well suited for heterogeneous data sets, helping to keep EMD based queries tractable as uncertain data sets become larger and more complex.
A Natural Language Interface for Querying General and Individual Knowledge

Many real-life scenarios require the joint analysis of general knowledge, which includes facts about the world, with individual knowledge, which relates to the opinions or habits of individuals. Recently developed crowd mining platforms, which were designed for such tasks, are a major step towards the solution. However, these platforms require users to specify their information needs in a formal, declarative language, which may be too complicated for naive users. To make the joint analysis of general and individual knowledge accessible to the public, it is desirable to provide an interface that translates the user questions, posed in natural language (NL), into the formal query languages that crowd mining platforms support. While the translation of NL questions to queries over conventional databases has been studied in previous work, a setting with mixed individual and general knowledge raises unique challenges. In particular, to support the distinct query constructs associated with these two types of knowledge, the NL question must be partitioned and translated using different means; yet eventually all the translated parts should be seamlessly combined to a well-formed query. To account for these challenges, we design and implement a modular translation framework that employs new solutions along with state-of-the art NL parsing tools. The results of our experimental study, involving real user questions on various topics, demonstrate that our framework provides a high-quality translation for many questions that are not handled by previous translation tools.
Distributed Diagnosis of Dynamic Systems Using Dynamic Bayesian Networks ?

This paper presents a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN)-based distributed diagnosis scheme, where each distributed diagnoser generates globally correct diagnosis results without a centralized coordinator by communicating a minimal number of measurements so that each diagnoser satisfies local observability properties, and the overall diagnoser is globally observable. We present a procedure for designing the distributed diagnosers by factoring a system DBN into the maximal number of smaller DBN Factors (DBN-Fs) that are conditionally independent of other DBN-Fs, given the communicated measurements. Since each conditionally independent DBN-F is observable, Bayesian inference schemes can be applied to each factor independently for distributed tracking of system behavior for isolation and identification of faults without loss of accuracy. We prove that each local diagnoser guarantees globally correct diagnosis results, and present some experimental results for an electrical circuit to demonstrate the efficacy of our diagnosis scheme.
A Decentralized Fusion Algorithm Established in Geodetic Coordinate System for Naval Ships Cooperative Engagement

Aiming at naval cooperative engagement problem in wide sea battleground, a decentralized fusion architecture based on geodetic coordinate system for naval ships was presented. To increase the performance of maneuvering target tracking and fusion two efforts are made. On the one hand, more appropriate target motion model and observation model based on geodetic coordinate system are provided, on the other hand, by combining the square root-unscented Kalman filter methodology and the information filter framework, a decentralized fusion algorithm denoted as DSR-UKF is developed. The proposed algorithm can unify tracking and fusion algorithms in short range, intermediate range and long-distance circumstances, and simplifies the system information flow for target calculation. The simulation results show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed algorithm with high precision.
A new dynamic model of hysteresis in harmonic drives

In this paper, we propose a new dynamic model to describe the hysteresis phenomenon in harmonic drives. The experimental observation of the dynamic torque-displacement relationship for a harmonic drive shows a hysteresis characteristic indicating the simultaneous presence of energy storage and energy dissipation mechanisms. To completely characterize these mechanisms and yet have a simple representation for control, we develop a new hysteresis model using the heredity concept of dynamic systems. This model represents the hysteresis phenomenon by a combination of a nonlinear stiffness component and a nonlinear damping component leading to a mathematically well-posed nonlinear differential equation. The parameters of the model are identified using optimization techniques. We present some important mathematical properties of the model that give insight into model behavior and thus establish a mathematical basis for control. Numerical simulations in comparison with experimental data using our Harmonic Drive Test Apparatus verify the accuracy of the proposed model to represent the complex hysteresis dynamics of harmonic drives.
Synaptic Regulation of Microtubule Dynamics in Dendritic Spines by Calcium, F-Actin, and Drebrin

Dendritic spines are actin-rich compartments that protrude from the microtubule-rich dendritic shafts of principal neurons. Spines contain receptors and postsynaptic machinery for receiving the majority of glutamatergic inputs. Recent studies have shown that microtubules polymerize from dendritic shafts into spines and that signaling through synaptic NMDA receptors regulates this process. However, the mechanisms regulating microtubule dynamics in dendrites and spines remain unclear. Here we show that in hippocampal neurons from male and female mice, the majority of microtubules enter spines from highly localized sites at the base of spines. These entries occur in response to synapse-specific calcium transients that promote microtubule entry into active spines. We further document that spine calcium transients promote local actin polymerization, and that F-actin is both necessary and sufficient for microtubule entry. Finally, we show that drebrin, a protein known to mediate interactions between F-actin and microtubules, acts as a positive regulator of microtubule entry into spines. Together these results establish for the first time the essential mechanisms regulating microtubule entry into spines and contribute importantly to our understanding of the role of microtubules in synaptic function and plasticity.
A Fault Diganosis Method Based on Bispectrum-LPP and PNN

Bi-spectrum, which has all characteristic of higherorder spectrum, is a powerful tool for processing non-linear and non-Gaussian signal. However, the selection of the time domain features is usually performed manually by field experts, whose knowledge and skill make difference in the diagnostic accuracy. Based on that, an intelligent fault diagnosis based on bi-spectrum and Locality Preserving Projection (LPP) is proposed. The proposed intelligent fault diagnosis method can overcome the limitations of traditional bi-spectrum analysis which rely heavily on expert experience and simultaneously improve diagnostic efficiency. The introduction of LPP greatly preserves the high dimensional characteristics of bi-spectrum characteristics and achieves the purpose of feature reduction. The classification results achieve a fault recognition rate of 97.83% for various hydraulic pump fault patterns, which verifies the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.
The Cultural Differences in Perceived Value of Disclosure and Cognition: Spain and Canada

A previous multicentre international study on sedation at the end of life has detected major differences between Canadian and Spanish patients. This was particularly evident in the need to sedate Spanish patients for psychological/existential distress. This study was designed to explore the hypothesis that marked differences in the value patients and families attach to disclosure and cognition were a factor. The study population included patients referred to two palliative care consulting services based in acute care hospitals in Madrid, Spain (M), and in Edmonton, Canada (E). Questions addressed the issue of clear thinking, pain/nausea-medication-induced somnolence/confusion, anxiety/antidepressant-medication-induced somnolence/confusion, details of diagnosis. One hundred patients were evaluated on each site. Patients and families in E placed a higher value on clear thinking, change in medication causing somnolence/confusion, and wanting full disclosure. Patients and families in E agreed almost 100% of the time, while agreement in M varied from 42% to 67%. These results suggest major differences in the perceived value of clear cognition and disclosure of information between patients and families in E and M. The lack of agreement between patients and families in M is a further significant factor that may complicate communication with patients and families, as well as medical management.
Impact of Aquarius Sea-Surface Salinity Assimilation in Improving the Ocean Analysis Over Indian Ocean

ABSTRACT The distribution of ocean salinity controls the density field and thereby plays a major role in influencing the ocean dynamics. It has been a challenging task to understand the variability of salinity structure in the regions of large fresh water discharge and high precipitation such as Bay of Bengal (BoB). Recent advancement in satellite technology has made possible the measurement of sea surface salinity (SSS). Aquarius is the satellite which measured the global SSS for the period 2011 to 2015. In the present study, we assimilated Aquarius SSS in the Global Ocean Data Assimilation System based on 3DVAR technique. The assimilation of Aquarius SSS resulted in reduced biases in salinity not only at the surface, but also in the vertical distribution of salinity and better captured the temporal variations of salinity structure in sensitive regions, such as the Bay of Bengal. In addition, the assimilation of SSS showed marginal improvement in ocean thermal structure over data sparse regions of Indian Ocean. It is also shown that the assimilation of Aquarius SSS has improved the stratification in the upper Ocean which is the key factor in the observed improvement in ocean analysis.
Predicting Train Occupancies based on Query Logs and External Data Sources

On dense railway networks "such as in Belgium" train travelers are frequently confronted with overly occupied trains, especially during peak hours. Crowdedness on trains leads to a deterioration in the quality of service and has a negative impact on the well-being of the passenger. In order to stimulate travelers to consider less crowded trains, the iRail project wants to show an occupancy indicator in their route planning applications by the means of predictive modeling. As there is no official occupancy data available, training data is obtained by crowd-sourcing using the iRail web app and the mobile Railer application for iPhone. Users can indicate their departure & arrival station, at what time they took a train and classify the occupancy of that train into the classes: low, medium or high. While preliminary results on a limited dataset conclude that the models do not yet perform sufficiently well, we are convinced that with further research and a larger amount of data, our predictive model will be able to achieve higher predictive performances. All datasets used in the current research are, for that purpose, made publicly available under an open license on the iRail website and in the form of a Kaggle competition. Moreover, an infrastructure is set up that automatically processes new logs submitted by users in order for our model to continuously learn. Occupancy predictions for future trains are made available through an api.