Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deletion of the RNaseIII Enzyme Dicer in Thyroid Follicular Cells Causes Hypothyroidism with Signs of Neoplastic Alterations

Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression, mainly at mRNA post-transcriptional level. Functional maturation of most miRNAs requires processing of the primary transcript by Dicer, an RNaseIII-type enzyme. To date, the importance of miRNA function for normal organogenesis has been demonstrated in several mouse models of tissue-specific Dicer inactivation. However, the role of miRNAs in thyroid development has not yet been addressed. For the present study, we generated mouse models in which Dicer expression has been inactivated at two different stages of thyroid development in thyroid follicular cells. Regardless of the time of Dicer invalidation, the early stages of thyroid organogenesis, preceding folliculogenesis, were unaffected by the loss of small RNAs, with a bilobate gland in place. Nevertheless, Dicer mutant mice were severely hypothyroid and died soon after weaning unless they were substituted with T4. A conspicuous follicular disorganization was observed in Dicer mutant thyroids together with a strong down regulation of Nis expression. With increasing age, the thyroid tissue showed characteristics of neoplastic alterations as suggested by a marked proliferation of follicular cells and an ongoing de-differentiation in the center of the thyroid gland, with a loss of Pax8, FoxE1, Nis and Tpo expression. Together, our data show that loss of miRNA maturation due to Dicer inactivation severely disturbs functional thyroid differentiation. This suggests that miRNAs are mandatory to fine-tune the expression of thyroid specific genes and to maintain thyroid tissue homeostasis.
Expression of Vibrio salmonicida virulence genes and immune response parameters in experimentally challenged Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

The Gram-negative bacterium Vibrio salmonicida is the causative agent of cold-water vibriosis (CV), a hemorrhagic septicemia that primarily affects farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.). The mechanisms of disease development, host specificity and adaptation, as well as the immunogenic properties of V. salmonicida are largely unknown. Therefore, to gain more knowledge on the pathogenesis of CV, 90 Atlantic salmon parr were injected intraperitoneally with 6 × 106 CFU of V. salmonicida LFI1238. Samples from blood and spleen tissue were taken at different time points throughout the challenge for gene expression analysis by two-step reverse transcription (RT) quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Out of a panel of six housekeeping genes, accD, gapA, and 16S rDNA were found to be the most suitable references for expression analysis in Vibrio salmonicida. The bacterial proliferation during challenge was monitored based on the expression of the 16S rRNA encoding gene. Before day 4, the concentrations of V. salmonicida in blood and spleen tissue demonstrated a lag phase. From day 4, the bacterial proliferation was exponential. The expression profiles of eight genes encoding potential virulence factors of V. salmonicida were studied. Surprisingly, all tested virulence genes were generally highest expressed in broth cultures compared to the in vivo samples. We hypothesize that this general muting of gene expression in vivo may be a strategy for V. salmonicida to hide from the host immune system. To further investigate this hypothesis, the expression profiles of eight genes encoding innate immune factors were analyzed. The results demonstrated a strong and rapid, but short-lasting innate immune response against V. salmonicida. These results suggest that the bacterium possesses mechanisms that inhibit and/or resist the salmon innate immune system until the host becomes exhausted of fighting the on-going and eventually overwhelming infection.
Long-term treatment with EPO increases serum levels of high-density lipoprotein in patients with CKD.

BACKGROUND Among lipid abnormalities observed in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a significant decrease in serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels. In a previously published randomized control trial, we showed that early erythropoietin (EPO) administration in a predialysis population slowed the progression of CKD. In the present nested substudy, we examine whether EPO has an influence on serum HDL-C levels in comparison to other lipid parameters in this population. METHODS Eighty-eight patients with CKD stages 3 and 4 were enrolled in the study. Forty-five patients (group 1) were treated with EPO (50 U/kg/wk), targeting to increase hemoglobin levels to 13 g/dL or greater (>or=130 g/L). The other patients (group 2) remained without treatment until hemoglobin levels decreased to less than 9 g/dL (<90 g/L). The duration of the study was 12 months. RESULTS At the end of the study, we observed a statistically significant decrease in serum levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglycerides in both groups. However, serum HDL-C levels significantly increased in only group 1 (from 42.5 +/- 10.4 to 55.9 +/- 8.1 mg/dL [1.10 +/- 0.27 to 1.45 +/- 0.21 mmol/L]; P < 0.001), whereas they were unchanged in group 2. In addition, a significant decrease in atherogenic LDL-C/HDL-C ratio was observed in only group 1. Importantly, the increase in serum HDL-C levels correlated positively with the increase in hemoglobin values in EPO-treated patients. CONCLUSION Our results show that EPO treatment of predialysis patients with CKD significantly increases serum HDL-C levels, which may represent an important antiatherogenic effect of this hormone.
Appraising and Funding Participatory Research in Health Promotion

Participatory action research combines research, education and social action. Each of these elements reflects health education research and practice. Indeed, health education, health promotion and participatory research have converged in these respects. Participatory research is well suited to the philosophies and theories underpinning community-based health education and health promotion. The nature of participatory research is such that funding agencies, especially those awarding research funds, tend to be challenged in their attempts to assess proposals. This is true at least for those agencies operating under traditional criteria for reviewing standards, which may not be appropriate for participatory research. As well, it may reflect a broader lack of common understanding about the processes and expectations, the apparent untidiness of projects (comparing with traditional research) which by their nature offer no standard methods, deadlines, procedures or predetermined outcome measures. The Study of Participatory Research in Health Promotion [1], commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, attempted to clarify the topic by providing a working definition and a set of guidelines for use by funding agencies when appraising projects purporting to be participatory research. The guidelines emphasize how the nominal ways of conducting health research in populations need to adapt to meet the educational and policy expectations of participatory research. The study also examined current practical examples of participatory research in the field of health promotion in Canada. This summary of the results of the project provides detailed guidelines flowing from a review of experience in the field and consultation with groups engaged in participatory research.
Dimension inference under polymorphic recursion

Numeric types can be given polymorphic dimension parameters, in order to avoid dimension errors and unit errors. The most general dimensions can be inferred automatically. It has been observed that polymorphic recursion is more important for the dimensions than for the proper types. We show that, under polymorphic recursion, type inference amounts to syntactic semi-unification of proper types, followed by equational semi-unification of dimensions. Syntactic semi-unification is unfortunately undecidable, although there are procedures that work well in practice, and proper types given by the programmer can be checked. However, the dimensions form a vector space (provided that their exponents are rational numbers). We give a polynomial-time algorithm that decides if a semi-unification problem in a vector space can be solved and, if so, returns a most general semi-unifier.
Chronic Disease Risk Factors Among American Indian/Alaska Native Women of Reproductive Age

Introduction The magnitude of chronic conditions and risk factors among American Indian/Alaska Native women of reproductive age is unknown. The objective of our study was to estimate this magnitude. Methods We analyzed data for 2,821 American Indian/Alaska Native women and 105,664 non-Hispanic white women aged 18 to 44 years from the 2005 and 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We examined prevalence of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, body mass index (kg/m2) ≥25.0, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and frequent mental distress, and the cumulative number of these chronic conditions and risk factors (≥3, 2, 1, or 0). In a multivariable, multinomial logistic regression model, we examined whether American Indian/Alaska Native race was associated with the cumulative number of chronic conditions and risk factors. Results American Indian/Alaska Native women, compared with white women, had significantly higher rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, smoking, and frequent mental distress. Of American Indian/Alaska Native women, 41% had 3 or more chronic conditions or risk factors compared with 27% of white women (χ2 , P < .001). After adjustment for income, education, and other demographic variables, American Indian/Alaska Native race was not associated with having either 1, 2, or 3 or more chronic conditions or risk factors. Conclusion Three out of every 5 American Indian/Alaska Native women aged 18 to 44 years have 3 or more chronic conditions or risk factors. Improving economic status and education for AI/AN women could help eliminate disparities in health status.
STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR MODELS BASED ON PROBABILITY AND TIME BY USING MARKOV PROCESS AND TRANSITION MATRIX.

This paper suggests an approach to software system architecture specification based on behavior models. The behavior of the system is defined as an event occurring probability and time. The behavior of the system over a time of stationary Markov process is completely characterized by the one step transition matrix, the matrix of instantaneous transition rates. Given the element of the appropriative matrix, it is possible to calculate probability of event of the process. Keyword: software architecture, behavior models, transition matrix, Markov process.
Differential effects of constitutively active phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase on glucose transport, glycogen synthase activity, and DNA synthesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) activation is necessary for many insulin-induced metabolic and mitogenic responses. However, it is unclear whether PI3K activation is sufficient for any of these effects. To address this question we increased PI3K activity in differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes by adenovirus-mediated expression of both the inter-SH2 region of the regulatory p85 subunit of PI3K (iSH2) and the catalytic p110 alpha subunit (p110). Coexpression resulted in PI3K activity that exceeded insulin-stimulated activity by two- to fivefold in cytosol, total membranes, and the low density microsome (LDM) fraction, the site of greatest insulin stimulation. While insulin increased glucose transport 15-fold, coexpression of iSH2-p110 increased transport (5.2-) +/- 0.7-fold with a parallel increase in GLUT4 translocation to the plasma membrane. Constitutive activation of PI3K had no effect on maximally insulin-stimulated glucose transport. Neither basal nor insulin-stimulated activity of glycogen synthase or mitogen-activated protein kinase was altered by iSH2-p110 coexpression. DNA synthesis was increased twofold by insulin in control 3T3-L1 adipocytes transduced with beta-galactosidase-encoding recombinant adenovirus, while iSH2-p110 coexpression increased DNA synthesis fivefold. These data indicate that (i) increased PI3K activity is sufficient to activate some but not all metabolic responses to insulin, (ii) activation of PI3K to levels exceeding the effect of insulin in adipocyte LDM results in only a partial stimulation of glucose transport, and (iii) increased PI3K activity in the absence of growth factor or oncoprotein stimulation is a potent stimulus of DNA synthesis.
Collective Digital Storytelling in Community-based co-design projects. An Emergent Approach

Digital storytelling (DST) can play a critical role in co-design initiatives involving local communities, as a method for bridging exploratory phases and co-design processes. The paper draws on three case studies of collective DST in underserved locations. While DST enabled groups to present themselves and their communities, its evolution showed that activities crystallized into creative concepts and community-driven projects that generated new ideas, new collaboration pathways and new networking capabilities. The structured analysis of these case studies can be used by researchers looking to spur grassroots initiative and encourage local participation and engagement in community-based design.La narration numerique peut jouer un role essentiel dans les initiatives de co-design avec des communautes locales, en tant que methode pour passer de la phase exploratoire de la recherche au processus de co-design. L’article se fonde sur trois etudes de cas de narration numeriques collectives dans des communautes defavorisees. La narration numerique a donnee aux groups la possibilite de se presenter tandis que son processus generatif a cristallise dans des concepts creatifs et des projets communautaires porteurs de nouvelles idees, voies de collaboration et capacites de reseautage. L'analyse structuree de ces etudes peut etre utilisee par les chercheurs interesses a stimuler l'initiative locale et a encourager la participation et l'engagement communautaires.
Surface charging of a crater near lunar terminator

Past lunar missions have shown the presence of dust particles in the lunar exosphere. These particles originate from lunar surface and are due to the charging of lunar surface by the solar wind and solar UV flux. Near the lunar terminator region, the low conductivity of the surface and small scale variations in surface topology could cause the surface to charge to different surface potentials. This paper simulates the variation of surface potential for a crater located in the lunar terminator regions using Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS). SPIS employs particle in cell method to simulate the motion of solar wind particles and photoelectrons. Lunar crater has been found to create mini-wake which affects both electron and ion density and causes small scale potential differences. Simulation results show potential difference of 300 V between sunlit area and shadowed area which creates suitable condition for dust levitation to occur.
NADPH Oxidase/ROS-Dependent VCAM-1 Induction on TNF-α-Challenged Human Cardiac Fibroblasts Enhances Monocyte Adhesion

The inflammation-dependent adhesion molecule expressions are characterized in cardiovascular diseases and myocardial tissue infiltrations. Several pro-inflammatory cytokines are elevated in the acute myocardial injury and infarction. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, is raised in the injury tissues and inflammatory regions and involved in the pathogenesis of cardiac injury, inflammation, and apoptosis. In fibroblasts, TNF-α-triggered expression of vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM)-1 aggravated the heart inflammation. However, the mechanisms underlying TNF-α-mediated VCAM-1 expression in cardiac fibroblasts remain unclear. Here, the primary cultured human cardiac fibroblasts (HCFs) were used to investigate the effects of TNF-α on VCAM-1 expression. The molecular evidence, including protein, mRNA, and promoter analyses, indicated that TNF-α-induced VCAM-1 gene expression is mediated through the TNFR-dependent manner. Activation of TNF-α/TNFR system triggered PKCα-dependent NADPH oxidase (Nox)/reactive oxygen species (ROS) signal linking to MAPK cascades, and then led to activation of the transcription factor, AP-1. Moreover, the results of mRNA and promoter assay demonstrated that c-Jun/AP-1 phosphorylated by TNF-α turns on VCAM-1 gene expression. Subsequently, up-regulated VCAM-1 on the cell surface of TNF-α-challenged HCFs increased the number of monocytes adhering to these cells. These results indicated that in HCFs, activation of AP-1 by PKCα-dependent Nox/ROS/MAPKs cascades is required for TNF-α-induced VCAM-1 expression. To clarify the mechanisms of TNF-α-induced VCAM-1 expression in HCFs may provide therapeutic strategies for heart injury and inflammatory diseases.
Boosting Combinatorial Search Through Randomization

Unpredictability in the running time of complete search procedures can often be explained by the phenomenon of "heavy-tailed cost distributions", meaning that at any time during the experiment there is a non-negligible probability of hitting a problem that requires exponentially more time to solve than any that has been encountered before (Gomes et al. 1998a). We present a general method for introducing controlled randomization into complete search algorithms. The "boosted" search methods provably eliminate heavy-tails to the right of the median. Furthermore, they can take advantage of heavy-tails to the left of the median (that is, a nonnegligible chance of very short runs) to dramatically shorten the solution time. We demonstrate speedups of several orders of magnitude for state-of-the-art complete search procedures running on hard, real-world problems.
Inferring generic activities and events from image content and bags of geo-tags

The use of contextual information in building concept detectors for digital media has caught the attention of the multimedia community in the recent years. Generally speaking, any information extracted from image headers or tags, or from large collections of related images and used at classification time, can be considered as contextual. Such information, being discriminative in its own right, when combined with pure content-based detection systems using pixel information, can improve the overall recognition performance significantly. In this paper, we describe a framework for probabilistically modeling geographical information using a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) database for event and activity recognition in general-purpose consumer images, such as those obtained from Flickr. The proposed framework discriminatively models the statistical saliency of geo-tags in describing an activity or event. Our work leverages the inherent patterns of association between events and their geographical venues. We use descriptions of small local neighborhoods to form bags of geo tags as our representation. Statistical coherence is observed in such descriptions across a wide range of event classes and across many different users. In order to test our approach, we identify certain classes of activities and events wherein people commonly participate and take pictures. Images and corresponding metadata, for the identified events and activities, are obtained from Flickr. We employ visual detectors obtained from Columbia University (Columbia 374), which perform pure visual event and activity recognition. In our experiments, we present the performance advantage obtained by combining contextual GPS information with pixel-based detection systems.
Managing Redundancy in Distributed Computer Networks: A State Transition Graph Approach for the Stashing Problem

Managing redundant information is becoming an important issue in today's increasingly large distributed computer networks. As total redundancy is extremely costly to achieve, it has been proposed to keep perfectly updated information only at the servers, while keeping old copies of that information on local computers. For such copies to be useful, a maximum lifetime length is assigned to them. Before the lifetime has elapsed, the local devices must be stashed with a new updated copy. The problem of optimizing the updates so that the maximum lifetime length constraints are respected has been previously formulated as a binary problem and proved to be NP-hard through a reduction to the Steiner tree problem in graphs. In this paper we explore the properties of another formulation, based on a state transition graph approach. We prove that only a subset of states and transitions will be in the optimal solution and that, thanks to those properties, it is possible to greatly reduce the size of the graph. A solution algorithm that is based on an efficient evaluation of similar Steiner tree problems with similar properties is presented. We discuss extensions of this problem to future applications of broadband multicast services.
The CNN Paradigm: Shapes and Complexity

The paper stresses the universal role that Cellular Nonlinear Networks (CNNs) are assuming today. It is shown that the dynamical behavior of 3D CNN-based models allows us to approach new emerging problems, to open new research frontiers as the generation of new geometrical forms and to establish some links between art, neuroscience and dynamical systems.
Posttraumatic stress and growth in student service members and veterans: The role of personal growth initiative

ABSTRACT Objective: This study explored the extent to which personal growth initiative (PGI) may predict posttraumatic stress and growth in student service members/veterans (SSM/V). Participants: Participants were 136 SSM/V (79% men) representing multiple branches of the armed forces. Forty-four percent of participants reported having combat experience. Methods: Data collection occurred from October 2013 to February 2014. Data were collected via a Web-based survey that included demographics and measures of personal growth initiative, posttraumatic stress, posttraumatic growth, and perceived social support. Results: Results indicated that PGI is not a unique predictor of posttraumatic stress but is a unique predictor of higher levels of posttraumatic growth. PGI appears to be at least as important as perceived social support in facilitating growth in SSM/V. Conclusions: This study provides further evidence for PGI's potential to facilitate growth after a traumatic event.
On the minimum mean p-th error in Gaussian noise channels and its applications

The problem of estimating an arbitrary random variable from its observation corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise, where the cost function is taken to be the minimum mean p-th error (MMPE), is considered. The classical minimum mean square error (MMSE) is a special case of the MMPE. Several bounds and properties of the MMPE are derived and discussed. As applications of the new MMPE bounds, this paper presents: (a) a new upper bound for the MMSE that complements the `single-crossing point property' for all SNR values below a certain value at which the MMSE is known, (b) an improved characterization of the phase-transition phenomenon which manifests, in the limit as the length of the capacity achieving code goes to infinity, as a discontinuity of the MMSE, and (c) new bounds on the second derivative of mutual information, or the first derivative of MMSE, that tighten previously known bounds.