Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Downregulation of miR-1 in colorectal cancer promotes radioresistance and aggressive phenotypes

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains to be one of the most common malignancies worldwide. Various studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRs) play a critical role in regulating cancer progression and sensitivity to chemoradiotherapy. miR-1 was found to be aberrantly expressed in CRC. However, it has not been fully elucidated whether miR-1 regulated CRC cell radioresistance. Methods: The expression of miR-1 was detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in CRC tissues and cell lines. Colony survival and proliferation were determined using colony formation assay and MTT assay, respectively. Apoptosis and levels of related proteins, Bax and Bcl-2, were detected using flow cytometer assay and western blotting analysis. Migration and invasion were measured using wound healing assay and transwell invasion assay. The levels of invasion-associated proteins, E-cadherin, MMP2 and MMP9, were detected using western blotting analysis. Results: miR-1 was found to be downregulated in CRC tissues and cell lines compared with adjacent normal tissues. In vitro, miR-1 overexpression significantly suppressed colony survival and proliferation, and induced cell apoptosis under irradiation, but no apoptosis was detected without irradiation. Furthermore, miR-1 mimics promoted the expression of Bax and E-cadherin and decreased the expression of Bcl-2, MMP2 and MMP9, and apparently impaired the invasion and migration of CRC cells in synergy with radiotherapy. Conclusion: miR-1 enhanced the radiosensitivity of CRC cells by inducing cell apoptosis and the synergic inhibition of aggressive phenotypes, which may serve as a promising therapeutic target for CRC patients.
The production of low fat Cheddar‐type cheese

A technique has been developed for the production of Cheddar-type cheese of intermediate (25%) and low (16%) fat content. The development of flavour and texture in these cheeses was monitored over a six-month maturation period. At the lower level of fat, the cheese did not develop adequate Cheddar flavour, and the cheese was over-firm. At the intermediate level of fat, a mild Cheddar flavour was produced, and the texture improved.
Rainfall Irregularities, Trends and Variations Intropical Semi-Arid River Catchment

Irregularities in rainfall behaviour has been characteristically visible in semi-arid climate particularly in the tropics. Trends and variations have been used as proxies in detecting the presence of irregularities in climatic variables such as rainfall. Thirty six years (1980-2015) of data obtained from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) were used for the present study. Multivariate statistics such as ANOVA and Cluster Analysis were used for assessing variations between and within the data mean. However, Mann-Kendall trend test was applied for trend detection. The ANOVA results showed significant variation in rainfall [F (3, 140) = 67.012, P < . 05], between the stations. The cluster analysis produces two classes for rainfall indicating that rainfall is less variable spatially. Mann-Kendall trend test result shows an insignificant annual increasing trend in rainfall. However, the monthly series showed varied trend results consisting of significantand insignificant increasing and decreasing trends.
Iterative Coordination and Innovation

Abstract. Agile management practices from the software industry continue to transform the way organizations innovate across industries, yet they remain understudied in the organizations literature. We investigate the widespread Agile practice of iterative coordination: frequent meetings to coordinate individuals on innovation-oriented organizational goals. While the assumed purpose of iterative coordination is to generate innovation, there is limited empirical evidence as to whether this practice actually makes organizations more innovative. With the leading technology firm Google, we embed a field experiment within a hackathon software development competition to identify the effect of iterative coordination on innovation. We find that iterative coordination’s influence on innovation is mixed: while iteratively coordinating firms develop more valuable products, these products are simultaneously less novel. This counterintuitive result highlights a paradox at the heart of iterative coordination—whereas it intends to promote innovation, applying it yields less novelty, a necessary component of innovation. Furthermore, by tracking software code, we find that iteratively coordinating firms favor integration at the cost of specialization to create new knowledge. A follow-on laboratory study documents that increasing the frequency and goal orientation of iterative coordination meetings reinforces value and integration, while reducing novelty and specialization. This article makes three key contributions: refining theoretical understanding of the relationship between goal coordination and innovation; introducing empirical methodology for generating data with hackathons and software code version-tracking; and responding to calls from the literature to study new methods of organizing and whether they offer new insights on organizational innovation.
Redescription of Tethya norvegica Bowerbank (Porifera, Demospongiae), with remarks on the genus Tethya in the North East Atlantic

Tethya norvegica Bowerbank, 1872, a northern species generally synonymized with T. aurantium. has been studied from Scotland, The Faroes, Norway, Iceland, Spitzbergen and Bear Island. The species is redescribed and its North East Atlantic distribution delimited Tethya norvegica is compared, on the basis of morphometric and electrophoretic features, with T. aurantium and F.citrina. Morphological, morphometric and electrophoretic data suggest that I norvegica is a distinct biological species.
Origin and rearing season of honeybee queens affect some of their physiological and reproductive characteristics

Queen honeybees of Apis mellifera ligustica and Apis mellifera syriaca were raised to investigate physiological and reproductive characteristics and to determine the most suitable time for queen rearing under semi‐arid conditions in Jordan. The queen rearing season as well as the origin of the queens affected the queens’ weight, acceptance, preoviposition period, volume of the spermatheca, and quantity and quality of sperm in the spermatheca. Italian bees were heavier than Syrian bees at emergence. The introduced queen acceptance rate appeared to be a genetic influence of the queen: A. m. ligustica virgin queens were accepted at a higher rate than were A. m. syriaca queens. There were large seasonal variations in the acceptance rate. Experimental bee colonies accepted their virgin queens during spring with good honey flows at a higher rate compared to the other rearing periods. The greatest mating success was achieved in May and the smallest was during July and August. The preoviposition period was shorter in the Syrian than in the Italian queens, and was longer during summer for both honeybee subspecies. The volume of the spermatheca was smaller in Syrian bees and the spermatheca had lower numbers of spermatozoa compared with Italian bees. Thus, under semi‐arid Mediterranean region conditions, it is highly recommended to raise virgin queens in the spring months only to obtain their highest quality.
Award Number: W81XWH-12-1-0346 TITLE: Targeting PRMT5 as a Novel Radiosensitization Approach for Primary and Recurrent Prostate Cancer Treatment

Neuroendocrine differentiation (NED) is a process by which prostate cancer cells transdifferentiate into neuroendocrine-like (NE-like) cancer cells. Accumulated evidence suggests that NED is associated with disease progression and therapy resistance in prostate cancer patients. We previously reported that by mimicking a clinical radiotherapy protocol, fractionated ionizing radiation (FIR) induces NED in prostate cancer cells. Interestingly, FIRinduced NED constitutes two distinct phases: a radioresistance phase in which a fraction of cells selectively survive during the first two week irradiation, and a neuroendocrine differentiation phase in which surviving cells differentiate into NE-like cancer cells during the second two week irradiation. We have also observed increased activation of the transcription factor cAMP response element binding (CREB) protein during the course of FIR-induced NED. To determine whether targeting NED can be explored as a radiosensitization approach, we employed two CREB targeting strategies, CREB knockdown and overexpression of ACREB, a dominant-negative mutant of CREB, to target both phases. Our results showed that ACREB expression increased FIR-induced cell death and sensitized prostate cancer cells to radiation. Consistent with this, knockdown of CREB also inhibited FIR-induced NED and sensitized prostate cancer cells to radiation. Molecular analysis suggests that CREB targeting primarily increases radiation-induced premitotic apoptosis. Taken together, our results suggest that targeting NED could be developed as a radiosensitization approach for prostate cancer radiotherapy.
Estimation of Leaf Emergence Rates of Bananas

Leaf emergence rates (LER, leavedday) of 17 AAA genome banana cultivars (Musa sp., subgroups Gros Michel, Cavendish, Red/Green-red) were estimated using a model based on mean monthly air temperature (13.3-27.9"C), daylength (10.2-13.8 h day), age of planting (48-1361 days), plant density (1 11 1-2222 mats/ha) and cultivar stature (0.88-4.15 m). The LER model involved the five factors in a multiplicative form and was developed initially for one set of 612 observations on all 17 cultivars at Alstonville, N.S. W. but at one density only. The model indicated that LER increased with increasing temperature up to an optimum of c. 28.5"C. LER increased during plant establishment to a maximum at 64 days, then decreased to a stable value with increasing age. LER increased with increasing daylength, but decreased with increasing stature. The model predicted LER without bias for 16 of the cultivars, but slightly over-predicted LER in winter for the only representative of the Gros Michel subgroup (Highgate). Examination of independent data from South Africa revealed that LER decreased with increasing plant density. After the LER model had been adjusted for this effect, it gave an excellent prediction of LER for 229 observations in 20 additional data subsets from Alstonville, Innisfail (Queensland), Burgershall (South Africa) and Azaguie (Ivory Coast), with LER,,,,. = (1.03 i: 0.04) LERpred. - (0.005 + 0.004) and coefficient of determination of 0.71. After pooling all 841 observations into one data set, the coefficients of all five factors of the LER model were re-estimated. There were only minor revisions to the coefficients previously obtained, but LER was predicted with slightly greater precision than in the validation test above.
Development and validation of gene delivery methods for Crassostrea virginica

The Eastern oyster ( ​Crassostrea virginica ​) is an important part of the East Coastal USA economy because aquaculture creates jobs. Sadly, the oysters are under constant threat due to increasing pollution, red tides, and diseases. Bivalves, and oysters in particular, are also becoming potential model organisms in medical research. With the sequencing of the oyster genome, scientists are focusing on deciphering the function of the predicted genes. However, the limited number of molecular and cellular tools available makes functional annotation of the genome challenging. A consistent, replicable gene delivery system needs to be developed to assess gene function and understand the oyster phenome. In this study, we adapted and furthered early methodologies for delivering DNA into oysters. We tested both chemical (dendrimers) and physical (electroporation) gene delivery into oyster hemocytes, ​in vivo ​ and ​in vitro, ​ using plasmids under CMV ( ​p​max-GFP, ​p​CgVEGF-HA-GFP) and SV40 (​p​MLS-SV40-GFP) promoter control with green fluorescent protein (GFP) tagged genes. We observed GFP expression as early as 24 hours post transfection, in both ​in vivo ​ and ​in vitro ​ studies, using confocal microscopy. Indirect immunofluorescence analysis co-localized GFP with the anti-hemagglutinin antibodies in ​C. virginica ​ hemocytes, expressing ​C. gigas ​ vascular endothelial growth factor fused with hemagglutinin and GFP ( ​p​CgVEGF-HA-GFP). Transfection efficiency, using flow cytometry analysis, for ​in vitro ​ and ​in vivo ​ was 0.042% and 0.008% for ​p​max-GFP, 0.061% and 0.01% for ​p​MLS-GFP, and 0.071% and 0.009% for p​CgVEGF-HA-IRES-GFP respectively. Here, we provide the basic methodology to understand the gene functions, and mechanisms that underlie oyster physiology and ecology, in order to annotate the oyster genome.
Does Counselor 171sponse to OccupatiDnal Choice

ABSTRACT This research was designed to assess female and male counselor sex-role stereotyping in their perceptions of the appropriateness of female and male students' occupational choices. The following variables were controlled in a six-may analysis of variance: sex of counselor, sex of student, occupational status, occupational stereotype, ability of student, and interest of student. No overt sex stereotyping was found. There were significant differences between the female and male counselors, female and male occupational stereotypes, high and low status occupations, high and low interests. Fifteen of the 57 interactions were significant. Scheffe post hoc comparisons were computed, and it was determined that counselors viewed the interest level of the student as the most important variable in rating the appropriateness of the occupational choice. (Author)
Optimal linearization of vector fields on the torus in non-analytic Gevrey classes

We study linear and non-linear small divisors problems in analytic and non-analytic regularity. We observe that the Bruno arithmetic condition, which is usually attached to non-linear analytic problems, can also be characterized as the optimal condition to solve the linear problem in some fixed non quasi-analytic class. Based on this observation, it is natural to conjecture that the optimal arithmetic condition for the linear problem is also optimal for non-linear small divisors problems in any reasonable non quasi-analytic classes. Our main result proves this conjecture in a representative non-linear problem, which is the linearization of vector fields on the torus, in the most representative non quasi-analytic class, which is the Gevrey class. The proof follows Moser's argument of approximation by analytic functions, and uses in an essential way works of Popov, R\"{u}ssmann and P\"{o}schel.
Morphological differentiation of Calypogeia muelleriana (Jungermanniales, Hepaticae) in Poland

Morphological differentiation of Calypogeia muelleriana (Jungermanniales, Hepaticae) in Poland Morphological and anatomical characters and oil bodies were studied in 52 samples from Poland: 31 samples of typical Calypogeia muelleriana and 21 of a newly detected taxon with the use of isozyme markers. Plants of the new taxon morphologically resemble C. muelleriana, but differ from it significantly in 16 morphological traits as well as oil body characters. The greatest morphometric differences were found in the features connected with underleaves. The Mahalanobis distance based on the 47 quantitative traits, between the newly detected taxon and C. muelleriana was larger than that between C. muelleriana and C. azurea - a generally accepted species. The forward stepwise method of discriminant analysis showed that the set of diagnostic characters could be limited to five. A dendrogram constructed on the basis of the Euclidean distance, using the set of diagnostic characters, divided the examined samples into two groups that correlated with groups detected by genetic markers. Results of a multivariate analysis showed that five morphological traits are sufficient for a proper classification of plants to these two taxa.
Nutritional and Life-History Determinants of Resource Allocation in Holometabolous Insects

In organisms with complex life cycles, potential reproductive effort at adult emergence may be defined as the sum of the proportion of the body nutrient content devoted to reserves earmarked for reproduction and the proportion of expected adult nutrient intake to be devoted to reproduction, and is proportional to expenditure in reproduction. For organisms with similar larval nutrition and survivorship, the ratio of reproductive reserves to soma at adult eclosion is predicted to vary inversely with expected adult nutrient intake and directly with expected reproductive output of nutrients. These predictions are supported by data from heliconiine butterflies. That is, variation in the ratio of reproductive reserves to soma at adult eclosion among heliconiine species and sexes having relatively equivalent larval survivorship and availability of nutrients correlates with patterns of expected intake of nutrients and output of nutrients in the act of reproduction. In general, changes in the ratio over adult life are then determined by actual nutrient intakes and reproductive outputs.
Measurement of the proton-air cross section with Telescope Array’s Black Rock Mesa and Long Ridge fluorescence detectors, and surface array in hybrid mode

Ultra high energy cosmic rays provide the highest known energy source in the universe to measure proton cross sections. Though conditions for collecting such data are less controlled than an accelerator environment, current generation cosmic ray observatories have large enough exposures to collect significant statistics for a reliable measurement for energies above what can be attained in the lab. Cosmic ray measurements of cross section use atmospheric calorimetry to measure depth of air shower maximum ($X_{\mathrm{max}}$), which is related to the primary particle's energy and mass. The tail of the $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ distribution is assumed to be dominated by showers generated by protons, allowing measurement of the inelastic proton-air cross section. In this work the proton-air inelastic cross section measurement, $\sigma^{\mathrm{inel}}_{\mathrm{p-air}}$, using data observed by Telescope Array's Black Rock Mesa and Long Ridge fluorescence detectors and surface detector array in hybrid mode is presented. $\sigma^{\mathrm{inel}}_{\mathrm{p-air}}$ is observed to be $520.1 \pm 35.8$[Stat.] $^{+25.0}_{-40}$[Sys. ]~mb at $\sqrt{s} = 73$ TeV. The total proton-proton cross section is subsequently inferred from Glauber formalism and is found to be $\sigma^{\mathrm{tot}}_{\mathrm{pp}} = 139.4 ^{+23.4}_{-21.3}$ [Stat.]$ ^{+15.0}_{-24.0}$[Sys. ]~mb.
Blue straggler populations of seven open clusters with Gaia DR2

Blue straggler stars (BSS) are well studied in globular clusters but their systematic study with secure membership determination is lacking in open clusters. We use Gaia DR2 data to determine accurate stellar membership for four intermediate-age open clusters, namely Melotte 66, NGC 2158, NGC 2506, and NGC 6819, and three old open clusters, namely, Berkeley 39, NGC 188, and NGC 6791, to subsequently study their BSS populations. The BSS radial distributions of five clusters, namely Melotte 66, NGC 188, NGC 2158, NGC 2506, and NGC 6791, show bimodal distributions, placing them with Family II globular clusters that are of intermediate dynamical ages. The location of minima, rmin, in the bimodal BSS radial distributions, varies from 1.5rc to 4.0rc, where rc is the core radius of the clusters. We find a positive correlation between rmin and Nrelax, the ratio of cluster age to the current central relaxation time of the cluster. We further report that this correlation is consistent in its slope, within the errors, with the slope of the globular cluster correlation between the same quantities, but with a slightly higher intercept. This is the first example in open clusters that shows BSS radial distributions as efficient probes of dynamical age. The BSS radial distributions of the remaining two clusters, Berkeley 39 and NGC 6819, are flat. The estimated Nrelax values of these two clusters, however, indicate that they are dynamically evolved. Berkeley 39 especially has its entire BSS population completely segregated to the inner regions of the cluster.
Scalable Differential Privacy with Certified Robustness in Adversarial Learning

In this paper, we aim to develop a scalable algorithm to preserve differential privacy (DP) in adversarial learning for deep neural networks (DNNs), with certified robustness to adversarial examples. By leveraging the sequential composition theory in DP, we randomize both input and latent spaces to strengthen our certified robustness bounds. To address the trade-off among model utility, privacy loss, and robustness, we design an original adversarial objective function, based on the post-processing property in DP, to tighten the sensitivity of our model. A new stochastic batch training is proposed to apply our mechanism on large DNNs and datasets, by bypassing the vanilla iterative batch-by-batch training in DP DNNs. An end-to-end theoretical analysis and evaluations show that our mechanism notably improves the robustness and scalability of DP DNNs.
IRAM 30-m-EMIR redshift search of z = 3–4 lensed dusty starbursts selected from the HerBS sample

Using the Eight MIxer Receiver (EMIR) instrument on the Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) 30-m telescope, we conducted a spectroscopic redshift search of seven zphot ∼ 4 submillimetre bright galaxies selected from the Herschel Bright Sources sample with fluxes at 500 μm greater than 80 mJy. For four sources, we obtained spectroscopic redshifts between 3.4 < z < 4.1 through the detection of multiple CO-spectral lines with J ≥ 3. Later, we detected low-J transitions for two of these sources with the Green Bank Telescope including the CO(1–0) transition. For the remaining three sources, more data are needed to determine the spectroscopic redshift unambiguously. The measured CO luminosities and line widths suggest that all these sources are gravitationally lensed. These observations demonstrate that the 2 mm window is indispensable to confirm robust spectroscopic redshifts for z < 4 sources. Finally, we present an efficient graphical method to correctly identify spectroscopic redshifts.
Delta Descriptors: Change-Based Place Representation for Robust Visual Localization

Visual place recognition is challenging because there are so many factors that can cause the appearance of a place to change, from day-night cycles to seasonal change to atmospheric conditions. In recent years a large range of approaches have been developed to address this challenge including deep-learnt image descriptors, domain translation, and sequential filtering, all with shortcomings including generality and velocity-sensitivity. In this letter we propose a novel descriptor derived from tracking changes in any learned global descriptor over time, dubbed Delta Descriptors. Delta Descriptors mitigate the offsets induced in the original descriptor matching space in an unsupervised manner by considering temporal differences across places observed along a route. Like all other approaches, Delta Descriptors have a shortcoming - volatility on a frame to frame basis - which can be overcome by combining them with sequential filtering methods. Using two benchmark datasets, we first demonstrate the high performance of Delta Descriptors in isolation, before showing new state-of-the-art performance when combined with sequence-based matching. We also present results demonstrating the approach working with four different underlying descriptor types, and two other beneficial properties of Delta Descriptors in comparison to existing techniques: their increased inherent robustness to variations in camera motion and a reduced rate of performance degradation as dimensional reduction is applied. Source code is made available at https://github.com/oravus/DeltaDescriptors.