Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dendritic cells at the interface of innate and acquired immunity: the role for epigenetic changes

Dendritic cells (DC) are known to be essential immune cells in innate immunity and in the initiation of adaptive immunity. The shaping of adaptive immunity by innate immunity is dependent on DC unique cellular functions and DC‐derived effector molecules such as cytokines and chemokines. Thus, it is not surprising that numerous studies have identified alterations in DC number, function, and subset ratios in various diseases, such as infections, cancers, and autoimmune diseases. Recent evidence has also identified that immunosuppression occurring after severe systemic inflammation, such as found in sepsis, is a result of depletion in DC numbers and a later dysfunction in DC activity. This correlation suggests that the sustained DC dysfunction initiated by life‐threatening inflammation may contribute to the subsequent immunoparalysis, potentially as a result of the long‐term maintenance of an abnormal gene expression pattern. In this review, we summarized the present information regarding altered DC function after a severe, acute inflammatory response and propose a mechanism, whereby epigenetic changes can influence long‐term gene expression patterns by DC, thus supporting an immunosuppression phenotype.
Quercetin-rich onion peel extract suppresses adipogenesis by down-regulating adipogenic transcription factors and gene expression in 3T3-L1 adipocytes.

BACKGROUND Onion peel contains a high amount of quercetin, which has been reported to have anti-cholesterol, antithrombotic and insulin-sensitizing properties. This study aimed to elucidate the anti-adipogenic effects of quercetin-rich onion peel extract (OPE) and to compare it with commercially available quercetin using 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. RESULTS Without affecting cell viability, both OPE and quercetin averted adipogenesis, as characterized by dose-dependent decreases in intracellular triglyceride content and glycerol 3-phosphate dehydrogenase activity, but the effect was more pronounced with OPE than with quercetin. The mRNA expression levels of key adipogenic genes such as PPARγ, C/EBPα, FABP4, aP2 and LPL were decreased in a dose-dependent manner by both OPE and quercetin. CONCLUSION The results indicate that OPE treatment significantly prevents intracellular lipid accumulation via hyperactivation of genes regulating lipolysis as compared with quercetin alone.
Estimation of position and orientation of mobile systems in a wireless LAN

In this paper, a method to estimate position and orientation of a mobile system in an indoor scenario is described. The proposed method for localizing the mobile system is based on the use of signal strength values of WLAN access points in range. A radio map based method and Euclidean distance in combination with Delaunay triangulation and interpolation is proposed. The radio map method is divided in two phases. In the initial calibration phase, the radio map is built by moving around and storing signal strength values of an omnidirectional antenna and a beam antenna at various predefined points of the indoor environment. In the localization phase the mobile system moves in the same environment and the localization engine estimates position and orientation of the system. The main disadvantage of radio map based methods is the high manual effort to build the map in the calibration phase. The use of Delaunay triangulation and interpolation allows a radio map with a low density of calibration points and reduces the time for manual generation of the map. The paper presents the experimental results of measurements in an office building.
Measuring Competition in the U.S. Airline Industry Using the Rosse-Panzar Test and Cross-Sectional Regression Analyses

We employ the Rosse-Panzar test to assess market performance in selected airport-pairs originating from Atlanta. The Rosse-Panzar test stands in the tradition of the New Empirical Industrial Organization. It is based on the comparative statics of a reduced form revenue equation. Therefore, it is less powerful than structural models, but it offers the advantage of less stringent data requirements and reduces the risk of model misspecifications. The test statistic allows us in most airport-pairs to reject both conducts consistent with the Bertrand outcome, which is equivalent to perfect competition, and the collusive outcome, which is equivalent to joint profit-maximization. Rather, the test statistic suggests that behavior is consistent with a range of intermediate outcomes between the two extremes, including, but not limited to the Cournot oligopoly. In the second part of the paper, a cross-section pricing regression complements the Rosse-Panzar test. It shows that the presence of low-cost competition in an airport-pair reduces the average fare significantly.
Absolute and empirical determination of the enzymatic activity and kinetic investigation of the action of hyaluronidase on hyaluronan using viscosimetry.

We describe an investigation of the action of hyaluronidase on hyaluronan using viscosimetry. A new viscosimetric approach was developed for determining the activity of the enzyme in katal units. This approach requires knowledge of several parameters (e.g. Mark-Houwink constants) which were determined by combining viscosimetric measurement and gel-permeation chromatography analysis. Using all the necessary parameters we determined the kinetic parameters of the enzyme and found that 250 i.u. correspond to 1 nkat. An empirical viscometric was used to estimate the activity of the enzyme, and the Km was determined using the kinetic dilution method. The estimates produced by the absolute and empirical approaches were in good agreement. We demonstrate that the empirical estimation of the reaction rate is related to the rate of reaction expressed in absolute units and thus provides a good estimate of enzyme activity. Furthermore, we have found an empirical relationship which enables investigation of the kinetics of the enzyme in a simple and sensitive way by viscosimetry.
Associations between lower limb strength and gait velocity following stroke: A systematic review

Abstract Objective: The aim of this systematic review was to identify literature examining associations between isometric strength and gait velocity following stroke. Methods: An electronic search was performed using six online databases. Targeted searching of reference lists of included articles and three relevant journals was also performed. Two independent reviewers identified relevant articles, extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of included articles. Inclusion criteria involved studies that assessed univariate correlations between gait velocity and isometric strength of individual lower limb muscle groups in a stroke population. Results: Twenty-one studies were included for review. The majority of included studies had a relatively small sample size. After accounting for sample size and methodological quality, the knee extensors showed poor-to-moderate correlations with gait velocity while the ankle dorsiflexors showed the strongest association with gait velocity. Conclusions: Current evidence suggests that the strength of the ankle dorsiflexors has a stronger correlation to gait velocity compared with other lower limb muscle groups. Consequently, a focus on increasing ankle dorsiflexor strength to improve gait velocity following stroke may be beneficial. However, due to limitations of the research identified, further research is needed to determine the associations between lower limb strength and gait velocity following stroke.
Current Study of the Mechanism of Action of the Potential Anti-Epileptic Agent Q808

Our previous study showed that the anticonvulsant Q808 might be effective against seizures induced by maximal electroshock, pentylenetetrazole (PTZ), isoniazid (ISO), thiosemicarbazide (THIO), and 3-mercaptopropionic acid (3-MP). In the present study, we explored the possible mechanism of action of Q808. Results obtained with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) suggest that Q808 may affect neurotransmitter content in the brain, by specifically increasing GABA content in the rat hippocampus at doses of 40 mg/kg and 80 mg/kg, and by reducing the content of glutamate and glutamine in the rat thalamus at a dose of 80 mg/kg. Intriguingly, there were no changes in the neurotransmitter content in the cortex in response to Q808. In vitro brain slice electrophysiological studies showed that 10−5 M Q808 enhanced the frequency of spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs) in corn cells of the CA1 area of the hippocampus, and had no effect on the amplitude of sIPSCs, the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents (sEPSCs), or γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor-mediated currents in primary cultured hippocampal neurons. These findings suggest that the antiepileptic activity of Q808 may be due to its ability to increase the amount of GABA between synapses, without affecting the function of GABA receptors.
L-SHADE with competing strategies applied to constrained optimization

An enhanced version of L-SHADE algorithm has been proposed recently. The LSHADE44 algorithm uses three different additional strategies for computing a trial point and employed strategies compete in the algorithm. The algorithm was originally developed for bound-constrained optimization. In this paper, the LSHADE44 algorithm was slightly simplified and modified to be able to solve constrained problems. The benchmark set arranged for CEC2017 competition on constrained real-parameter optimization is employed.
Experiments with Corpus-based LFG Specialization

Sophisticated grammar formalisms, such as LFG, allow concisely capturing complex linguistic phenomena. The powerful operators provided by such formalisms can however introduce spurious ambiguity, making parsing inefficient. A simple form of corpus-based grammar pruning is evaluated experimentally on two wide-coverage grammars, one English and one French. Speedups of up to a factor 6 were obtained, at a cost in grammatical coverage of about 13%. A two-stage architecture allows achieving significant speedups without introducing additional parse failures.
CodeMatch: obfuscation won't conceal your repackaged app

An established way to steal the income of app developers, or to trick users into installing malware, is the creation of repackaged apps. These are clones of - typically - successful apps. To conceal their nature, they are often obfuscated by their creators. But, given that it is a common best practice to obfuscate apps, a trivial identification of repackaged apps is not possible. The problem is further intensified by the prevalent usage of libraries. In many apps, the size of the overall code base is basically determined by the used libraries. Therefore, two apps, where the obfuscated code bases are very similar, do not have to be repackages of each other. To reliably detect repackaged apps, we propose a two step approach which first focuses on the identification and removal of the library code in obfuscated apps. This approach - LibDetect - relies on code representations which abstract over several parts of the underlying bytecode to be resilient against certain obfuscation techniques. Using this approach, we are able to identify on average 70% more used libraries per app than previous approaches. After the removal of an app's library code, we then fuzzy hash the most abstract representation of the remaining app code to ensure that we can identify repackaged apps even if very advanced obfuscation techniques are used. This makes it possible to identify repackaged apps. Using our approach, we found that ≈ 15% of all apps in Android app stores are repackages
Terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques for documenting fossil‐bearing palaeokarst with an example from the Drimolen Palaeocave System, South Africa

This paper presents the results of a recent three‐dimensional (3D) survey at the Drimolen Makondo palaeontological deposits in the Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage site. The Drimolen Makondo is a palaeokarstic feature that consists of a heavily eroded 2.6‐2.0 Ma fossil‐bearing palaeocave remnant. With photogrammetry and a laser scan survey, two 3D site models were created, georectified, and imported into geographical information system software. This paper outlines both of these survey techniques and provides an assessment of the relevant merits of each method and their applicability for detailed recording and archival documentation of palaeokarstic palaeontological and archaeological sites. Given the complex depositional context of many of the fossil‐bearing South African cave systems and their importance for understanding our evolutionary history, new methods are critical to visualising and analysing 3D spatial data. The utility of 3D models lies in their ability to integrate with total station survey techniques to accurately record and control excavations and provide a means of visualising stratigraphic, sedimentary, and spatial contexts in various geographical information system platforms. The use of low‐cost and time‐efficient digital photographic surveys to create accurate 3D models, if completed accurately, can provide researchers with a means of contextualising excavation data without the need for expensive and highly specialised equipment. The development of this method combined with differential global positioning systems provides a solution in more remote locations to recording highly accurate fossil and 3D site contexts with increasing ease. It also allows the sites to be recorded as part of an evolving landscape rather than as single isolated localities. This technique should be a standard technique implemented when working on irreplaceable UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the hominin‐bearing caves of South Africa.
Connectedness and Isomorphism Properties of the Zig‐Zag Product of Graphs

In this article, we investigate the connectedness and the isomorphism problems for zig‐zag products of two graphs. A sufficient condition for the zig‐zag product of two graphs to be connected is provided, reducing to the study of the connectedness property of a new graph which depends only on the second factor of the graph product. We show that, when the second factor is a cycle graph, the study of the isomorphism problem for the zig‐zag product is equivalent to the study of the same problem for the associated pseudo‐replacement graph. The latter is defined in a natural way, by a construction generalizing the classical replacement product, and its degree is smaller than the degree of the zig‐zag product graph. Two particular classes of products are studied in detail: the zig‐zag product of a complete graph with a cycle graph, and the zig‐zag product of a 4‐regular graph with the cycle graph of length 4. Furthermore, an example coming from the theory of Schreier graphs associated with the action of self‐similar groups is also considered: the graph products are completely determined and their spectral analysis is developed.
A Distributed Framework for Coordinated Heavy-Duty Vehicle Platooning

Heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) traveling in single file with small intervehicle distances experience reduced aerodynamic drag and, therefore, have improved fuel economy. In this paper, we attempt to maximize the amount of fuel saved by coordinating platoon formation using a distributed network of controllers. These virtual controllers, placed at major intersections in a road network, help coordinate the velocity of approaching vehicles so they arrive at the junction simultaneously and can therefore platoon. This control is initiated only if the cost of forming the platoon is smaller than the savings incurred from platooning. In a large-scale simulation of the German Autobahn network, we observe that savings surpassing 5% when only a few thousand vehicles participate in the system. These results are corroborated by an analysis of real-world HDV data that show significant platooning opportunities currently exist, suggesting that a slightly invasive network of distributed controllers, such as the one proposed in this paper, can yield considerable savings.
Acute hemodynamic interaction of aspirin and ticlopidine with enalapril: results of a double-blind, randomized comparative trial.

BACKGROUND Coprescription of aspirin and ACE inhibitors is frequent in heart failure caused by coronary artery disease. Negative interaction between aspirin and enalapril has been reported, presumably through inhibition by aspirin of ACE inhibitor-induced prostaglandin synthesis. Ticlopidine is a potent antiplatelet agent without interaction with prostaglandin synthesis. METHODS AND RESULTS The objective of this study was to compare the influence of a coadministration of ticlopidine or aspirin on the hemodynamic effects of an ACE inhibitor (enalapril) in patients with chronic heart failure. Twenty patients with severe heart failure were enrolled in a double-blind comparative trial and allocated to ticlopidine (500 mg daily, 12 patients) or aspirin (325 mg daily, 8 patients). Hemodynamic evaluation was performed after 7 days of treatment, every hour for 4 hours after an oral administration of 10 mg of enalapril. Significant reductions in systemic vascular resistance were observed in the ticlopidine group, in contrast to no significant decrease in the aspirin group. A significant (P=0.03) time-by-treatment interaction indicated significant aspirin-enalapril drug interaction. Total pulmonary resistance decreased significantly in both groups, with no difference between patients assigned to aspirin or ticlopidine. CONCLUSIONS Enalapril reduced systemic vascular resistance more effectively when given in combination with ticlopidine than with aspirin. In contrast, the reduction in total pulmonary resistance is similar when enalapril is administered in combination with aspirin or ticlopidine. Negative aspirin-enalapril interaction on prostaglandin synthesis presumably alters vasodilatation in systemic vessels, whereas prostaglandin-independent actions of ACE inhibition such as pulmonary arterial vasodilatation are maintained.
A Distributed Directory System

We see the local content from peers organized in directories (i.e., on local ordered lists) of local representations of entities from the real world (e.g., persons, locations, events). different local representations can give different "versions" of the same real world entity and use different names to refer to it (e.g., George Lombardi, Lombardi G., Prof. Lombardi, Dad). Although the data from these directories are related and could complement each other, there are no links that allow peers to share and search across them. We propose a Distributed Directory System that constructs these connecting links and allows peers to: (i) maintain their data locally and (ii) find the different versions of a real world entity based on any name used in the network. We evaluate the approach in networks of different sizes using PlanetLab and we show that the results are promising in terms of the scalability.
The regulated expression of B lineage associated genes during B cell differentiation in bone marrow and fetal liver

The expression of B lineage associated genes during early B cell differentiation stages is not firmly established. Using cell surface markers and multiparameter flow cytometry, bone marrow (BM) cells can be resolved into six fractions, representing sequential stages of development; i.e., pre-Pro-B, early Pro-B, late Pro-B/large Pre-B, small Pre-B, immature B, and mature B cells. Here we quantitate the levels of several B lineage associated genes in each of these fractions by RT-PCR, demonstrating different patterns of expression. We find that expression of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT), lambda 5, and VpreB is predominantly restricted to the Pro-B stages. Rag-1 and Rag-2 expression is also tightly regulated, and is found largely in the Pro-B through small Pre-B stages. Mb-1 is present from Pro-B throughout the pathway at high levels. Finally, Bcl-2 is expressed at high levels only at the pre-Pro-B and mature B stages, whereas it is low during all the intermediate stages. We also correlate this expression data with an analysis of the onset of Ig gene rearrangement as assessed by amplifying D-JH, VH-DJH, and VK-JK. Finally, we report differences in gene expression during B lymphopoiesis at two distinct ontogenic timings, in fetal liver and adult BM: both TdT and the precursor lymphocyte regulated myosin-like light chain are expressed at high levels in the Pro-B cell stage in bone marrow, but are absent from the corresponding fraction in fetal liver. In contrast, lambda 5, VpreB, Rag-1, and Rag-2 are expressed at comparable levels.
Population Genomic Inferences from Sparse High-Throughput Sequencing of Two Populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Short-read sequencing techniques provide the opportunity to capture genome-wide sequence data in a single experiment. A current challenge is to identify questions that shallow-depth genomic data can address successfully and to develop corresponding analytical methods that are statistically sound. Here, we apply the Roche/454 platform to survey natural variation in strains of Drosophila melanogaster from an African (n = 3) and a North American (n = 6) population. Reads were aligned to the reference D. melanogaster genomic assembly, single nucleotide polymorphisms were identified, and nucleotide variation was quantified genome wide. Simulations and empirical results suggest that nucleotide diversity can be accurately estimated from sparse data with as little as 0.2× coverage per line. The unbiased genomic sampling provided by random short-read sequencing also allows insight into distributions of transposable elements and copy number polymorphisms found within populations and demonstrates that short-read sequencing methods provide an efficient means to quantify variation in genome organization and content. Continued development of methods for statistical inference of shallow-depth genome-wide sequencing data will allow such sparse, partial data sets to become the norm in the emerging field of population genomics.
Long-term treatment with proton pump inhibitor is associated with undesired weight gain.

AIM To examine the effects of long-term proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy on body weight (BW) and body mass index (BMI) in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). METHODS The subjects were 52 patients with GERD and 58 sex- and age-matched healthy controls. GERD patients were treated with PPI for a mean of 2.2 years (range, 0.8-5.7 years), and also advised on lifestyle modifications (e.g. selective diet, weight management). BW, BMI and other parameters were measured at baseline and end of study. RESULTS Twenty-four GERD patients were treated daily with 10 mg omeprazole, 12 with 20 mg omeprazole, 8 with 10 mg rabeprazole, 5 with 15 mg lansoprazole, and 3 patients with 30 mg lansoprazole. At baseline, there were no differences in BW and BMI between reflux patients and controls. Patients with GERD showed increases in BW (baseline: 56.4 +/- 10.4 kg, end: 58.6 +/- 10.8 kg, mean +/- SD, P < 0.0001) and BMI (baseline: 23.1 +/- 3.1 kg/m(2), end: 24.0 +/- 3.1 kg/m(2), P < 0.001), but no such changes were noted in the control group. Mean BW increased by 3.5 kg (6.2% of baseline) in 37 (71%) reflux patients but decreased in only 6 (12%) patients during treatment. CONCLUSION Long-term PPI treatment was associated with BW gain in patients with GERD. Reflux patients receiving PPI should be encouraged to manage BW through lifestyle modifications.