Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Epidermal Growth Factor–Like Ligands Are Associated With Elevated Vascular Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Phosphate Oxidase in a Primate Model of Atherosclerosis

Objective—To characterize the relationship between the expression of epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like ligands and vascular nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase expression and activity in a primate model of atherosclerosis. Methods and Results—Adult male Cynomolgus monkeys were fed a normal or atherogenic (AS) diet for 45 months, after which animals from the AS group were placed on a normal diet for 8 months (regression). The expression of membrane-associated EGF-like ligands was increased in arteries from animals on the AS diet and normalized in the regression group. EGF-like ligands were distributed throughout atherosclerotic vessels but predominantly colocalized with macrophages. Consistent with ligand shedding, circulating heparin-bound EGF was elevated in the plasma of AS monkeys but not in those on regression diet. Atherosclerosis was associated with the activation of EGF receptor signaling. Expression of NADPH oxidase subunits Nox1 and Nox2 but not Nox4 or Nox5 was increased in arteries from monkeys on the AS diet and returned to normal with regression. Levels of Nox1 and Nox2 positively correlated with EGF-like ligands. In cultured monkey smooth muscle cells, treatment with EGF-like ligands increased Nox1 expression and activity. Conclusion—These data identify EGF-like ligands as potential modulators of atherogenesis, resulting in part from increased vascular NADPH oxidase activity.
Automatic Phonemic Labeling and Segmentation of Spoken Dutch

The CGN corpus (Corpus Gesproken Nederlands/Corpus Spoken Dutch) is a large speech corpus of contemporary Dutch as spoken in Belgium (3.3 million words) and in the Netherlands (5.6 million words). Due to its size, manual phonemic annotation was limited to 10% of the data and automatic systems were used to complement this data. This paper describes the automatic generation of the phonemic annotations and the corresponding segmentations. First, we detail the processes used to generate possible pronunciations for each sentence and to select to most likely one. Next, we identify the remaining difficulties when handling the CGN data and explain how we solved them. We conclude with an evaluation of the quality of the resulting transcriptions and segmentations.
Semaphorin 3F Is a Bifunctional Guidance Cue for Dopaminergic Axons and Controls Their Fasciculation, Channeling, Rostral Growth, and Intracortical Targeting

Dopaminergic neurons in the mesodiencephalon (mdDA neurons) make precise synaptic connections with targets in the forebrain via the mesostriatal, mesolimbic, and mesoprefrontal pathways. Because of the functional importance of these remarkably complex ascending axon pathways and their implication in human disease, the mechanisms underlying the development of these connections are of considerable interest. Despite extensive in vitro studies, the molecular determinants that ensure the perfect formation of these pathways in vivo remain mostly unknown. Here, we determine the embryonic origin and ontogeny of the mouse mesoprefrontal pathway and use these data to reveal an unexpected requirement for semaphorin 3F (Sema3F) and its receptor neuropilin-2 (Npn-2) during mdDA pathway development using tissue culture approaches and analysis of sema3F−/−, npn-2−/−, and npn-2−/−;TH-Cre mice. We show that Sema3F is a bifunctional guidance cue for mdDA axons, some of which have the remarkable ability to regulate their responsiveness to Sema3F as they develop. During early developmental stages, Sema3F chemorepulsion controls previously uncharacterized aspects of mdDA pathway development through both Npn-2-dependent (axon fasciculation and channeling) and Npn-2-independent (rostral growth) mechanisms. Later on, chemoattraction mediated by Sema3F and Npn-2 is required to orient mdDA axon projections in the cortical plate of the medial prefrontal cortex. This latter finding demonstrates that regulation of axon orientation in the target field occurs by chemoattractive mechanisms, and this is likely to also apply to other neural systems. In all, this study provides a framework for additional dissection of the molecular basis of mdDA pathway development and disease.
Clink - A Novel Record Linkage Methodology based on Graph Interactions

: With the advent of the big-data era and the rapid growth of the amount of data, companies are faced with more opportunities and challenges to outperform their peers, innovate, compete, and capture value from big-data platforms such as social networks. Utilizing the full beneﬁt of social media requires companies to identify their own customers against customers as a whole by linking their local data against data from social media applying record-linkage techniques that differ from simple to complex. For large sources that have huge data and fewer constraints over data, the linking process produces low quality results and requires a lot of pairwise comparisons. We propose a study on how to calculate similarity score not only based on string similarity techniques or topological graph similarity, but also using graph interactions between nodes to effectively achieve better linkage results.
Individual and family environment correlates differ for consumption of core and non-core foods in children

Children's diets contain too few fruits and vegetables and too many foods high in saturated fat. Food intake is affected by multiple individual and family factors, which may differ for core foods (that are important to a healthy diet) and non-core foods (that are eaten more for pleasure than health). Data came from a sample of twins aged 11 years (n 342) and their parents from the Twins Early Development Study. Foods were categorised into two types: core (e.g. cereals, vegetables and dairy) and non-core (e.g. fats, crisps and biscuits). Parents' and children's intake was assessed by an FFQ. Mothers' and children's preference ratings and home availability were assessed for each food type. Parental feeding practices were assessed with the child feeding questionnaire and child television (TV) watching was maternally reported. Physical activity was measured using accelerometers. Correlates of the child's consumption of each food type were examined using a complex samples general linear model adjusted for potential confounders. Children's non-core food intake was associated with more TV watching, higher availability and greater maternal intake of non-core foods. Children's core food intake was associated with higher preferences for core foods and greater maternal intake of core foods. These results suggest that maternal intake influences both food types, while preferences affect intake of core foods but not of non-core foods, and availability and TV exposure were only important for non-core food intake. Cross-sectional studies cannot determine causality, but the present results suggest that different approaches may be needed to change the balance of core and non-core foods in children's diets.
What to Do When Lexicalization Fails: Parsing German with Suffix Analysis and Smoothing

In this paper, we present an unlexicalized parser for German which employs smoothing and suffix analysis to achieve a labelled bracket F-score of 76.2, higher than previously reported results on the NEGRA corpus. In addition to the high accuracy of the model, the use of smoothing in an unlexicalized parser allows us to better examine the interplay between smoothing and parsing results.
Gene dosage-dependent secretion of yeast vacuolar carboxypeptidase Y

The structural gene for yeast vacuolar carboxypeptidase Y (PRC1) has been cloned by complementation of the prc1-1 mutation. As much as an eightfold elevation in the level of carboxypeptidase Y (CPY) results when a multiple-copy plasmid containing the PRC1 gene is introduced into yeast. Unlike the situation with a single copy of PRC1 in which newly synthesized CPY is efficiently localized to the vacuole, plasmid- directed overproduction results in secretion of greater than 50% of the protein as the precursor form. Secretion is blocked in a mutant that is defective at a late stage in the transport of periplasmic proteins. Unlike normal cell surface glycoproteins, secreted CPY precursor acquires no additional oligosaccharide modifications beyond those that accompany normal transport to the vacuole. In the periplasm, the CPY precursor is proteolytically activated to an enzymatically active form by an enzyme that is unrelated to the vacuolar processing enzyme. These findings suggest that proper sorting and transport of CPY is saturable. This may reflect limiting amounts of a CPY-sorting receptor, or of CPY- modifying machinery that is essential for recognition by such a receptor.
Managing Multilingualism in India: Political and Linguistic Manifestations

PART ONE: FUNCTIONING MULTILINGUALISM Introduction The Multilingual Scene Trilingualism through Schooling Tribal Bilingualism Role of the State, the Community and the Individual in Language Maintenance Challenges and Responses to Language Survival The Colonial Language in Multilingualism and the Process of Modernization PART TWO: PLANNING MULTILINGUALISM Multilingualism and the Constitution Multilingual Development Planned Language Development Emergence of Dominant Languages PART THREE: USING CODES IN MULTILINGUALISM The Nature and Function of Bilingual Mixing Lexical Insertion in a Mixed Language Factors in Code Mixing Linguistic Determinants of Convergence Direction of Convergence Distinguishing Features of Convergence
Maximum likelihood supertrees.

We analyze a maximum likelihood approach for combining phylogenetic trees into a larger "supertree. " This is based on a simple exponential model of phylogenetic error, which ensures that ML supertrees have a simple combinatorial description (as a median tree, minimizing a weighted sum of distances to the input trees). We show that this approach to ML supertree reconstruction is statistically consistent (it converges on the true species supertree as more input trees are combined), in contrast to the widely used MRP method, which we show can be statistically inconsistent under the exponential error model. We also show that this statistical consistency extends to an ML approach for constructing species supertrees from gene trees. In this setting, incomplete lineage sorting (due to coalescence rates of homologous genes being lower than speciation rates) has been shown to lead to gene trees that are frequently different from species trees, and this can confound efforts to reconstruct the species phylogeny correctly.
In situ measurement of the electrical potential across the phagosomal membrane using FRET and its contribution to the proton-motive force

Phagosomes employ lytic enzymes, cationic peptides, and reactive oxygen intermediates to eliminate invading microorganisms. The effectiveness of these microbicidal mechanisms is potentiated by the acidic pH created by H+-pumping vacuolar-type ATPases (V-ATPases) on the phagosomal membrane. The degree of phagosomal acidification varies greatly among neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells and can be affected by diseases like cystic fibrosis. The determinants of phagosomal pH are not completely understood, but the permeability to ions that neutralize the electrogenic effect of the V-ATPase has been proposed to play a central role. When counterion conductance is limiting, generation of a large membrane potential will dominate the proton-motive force (pmf), with a proportionally diminished pH gradient. Validation of this notion requires direct measurement of the electrical potential that develops across the phagosomal membrane (ΨΦ). We describe a noninvasive procedure to estimate ΨΦ in intact cells, based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer. This approach, in combination with measurements of phagosomal pH, enabled us to calculate the pmf across phagosomes of murine macrophages and to analyze the factors that limit acidification. At steady state, ΨΦ averaged 27 mV (lumen positive) and was only partially dissipated by inhibition of the V-ATPase with concanamycin A. The comparatively small contribution of the potential to the pmf suggests that proton pumping is not limited by the counterion permeability, a notion that was validated independently by using ionophores. Instead, phagosomal pH stabilizes when the rate of proton pumping, which decreases gradually as the lumen acidifies, is matched by the passive leak of proton equivalents.
LINGSTAT: An Interactive, Machine-Aided Translation System

In this paper we present the first implementation of LINGSTAT, an interactive machine translation system designed to increase the productivity of a user, with little knowledge of the source language, in translating or extracting information from foreign language documents. In its final form, LINGSTAT will make use of statistical information gathered from parallel and single-language corpora, and linguistic information at all levels (lexical, syntactic, and semantic).
Asthma-Predictive Genetic Markers in Gene Expression Profiling of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells

Purpose We sought to identify asthma-related genes and to examine the potential of these genes to predict asthma, based on expression levels. Methods The subjects were 42 asthmatics and 10 normal healthy controls. PBMC RNA was subjected to microarray analysis using a 35K array; t-tests were used to identify genes that were expressed differentially between the two groups. A multiple logistic regression analysis was applied to the differentially expressed genes, and area under the curve (AUC) values from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained. Results In total, 170 genes were selected using the following criteria: P≤0.001 and ≥2-fold change. Among these genes, 57 were up-regulated and 113 were down-regulated in asthmatics versus normal controls. A multiple logistic regression analysis was done using more stringent criteria (P≤0.001 and ≥5-fold change), and eight genes were selected as candidate asthma biomarkers. Using these genes, 255 models (28-1) were generated. Among them, only 85 showed P≤0.05 by multiple logistic regression analysis. Based on the AUCs from ROC curves for the 85 models, we found that the best model consisted of the genes MEPE, MLSTD1, and TRIM37. The model showed 0.9928 of the AUC with 98% sensitivity and 80% specificity. Conclusions MEPE, MLSTD1, and TRIM37 may be useful biomarkers for asthma.
Bacteriophage: Time to Re-Evaluate the Potential of Phage Therapy as a Promising Agent to Control Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria

Nowadays the most difficult problem in treatment of bacterial infections is the appearance of resistant bacteria to the antimicrobial agents so that the attention is being drawn to other potential targets. In view of the positive findings of phage therapy, many advantages have been mentioned which utilizes phage therapy over chemotherapy and it seems to be a promising agent to replace the antibiotics. This review focuses on an understanding of phages for the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases as a new alternative treatment of infections caused by multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria. Therefore, utilizing bacteriophage may be accounted as an alternative therapy. It is appropriate time to re-evaluate the potential of phage therapy as an effective bactericidal and a promising agent to control multidrug-resistant bacteria.
Bandwidth allocation for guaranteed versus best effort service categories

Modern communication networks evolve towards integration of guaranteed-performance and best-effort service types. The coexistence of these two service types offers substantial benefits, such as resource sharing between service classes, and the ability of the user to select an appropriate service class according to its individual requirements and preferences. Notwithstanding, such interaction gives rise to more complicated system behavior and related performance issues, which need to be explored and understood in order to allow efficient network operation. In this paper we examine potential congestion phenomena, which arise due to the combined effect of bandwidth sharing and user migration between service classes. We propose a simplified fluid model for session flow, consisting of two coupled queues with state-dependent flows, which captures the essential ingredients of service-class interaction. Our analysis shows that the system might exhibit bistable behavior, in the sense that transient congestion may stir the system from a stable and efficient operating point to an inefficient and congested one. We identify conditions which give rise to bistability, and propose a call admission control scheme which prevents the system from getting trapped in a congested-type equilibrium, while not interfering with normal system operation.
Wideband harmonically-tuned GaN Doherty power amplifier

This paper presents the design of a wideband harmonically-tuned Doherty amplifier. The frequency-dependent back-off efficiency degradation was minimized by compensating the effect of the frequency-sensitive impedance inverters over the design band. Suitable choice of device size ratio as well as harmonic load tuning at back-off and maximum power operations were also considered, resulting in superior performance over the targeted design band. The maximum output power ranged from 48.2 dBm to 49.6 dBm. 6 dB back-off efficiencies of η6dB≥53 % (power-added efficiency PAE≥50 %) were measured over 1.7–2.25 GHz (28 % bandwidth). When linearized using digital pre-distortion (DPD), the Doherty amplifier had adjacent-channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of −43 dBc for a long-term evolution (LTE) signal at 1.85 GHz (η=50 %) and −44 dBc for a wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) signal at 2.11 GHz (η=41 %), at average output power of 41.0 dBm and 40.5 dBm, respectively.
Seeking a Balanced Discipline: Writing Teacher Education in First-Year Composition and English Education.

nearly twenty years I have been teaching courses aimed at preparing secondary English education students to teach writing in the schools. Before that I worked as a TA in first-year composition and as a TA "leader" in a professional development program for beginning TAs. When I add all those years up it seems like a long time to me. However, it has been only a short time since I have begun thinking about this practice of teaching "writing methods" as an emerging discipline in its own right, with a long history extending across the boundaries of both English education and first-year composition and linking both together in numerous, sometimes surprising, sometimes uncomfortable ways. In this essay I will examine both the early and recent periods of that history as it has been written for both English education and first-year composition. Those accounts, I will argue, show consistently converging trajectories of disciplinary practice in both areas. On that basis, then, I will conclude by proposing that all of us, as writing teacher educators, should actively consider reconfiguring our shared discipline and more actively joining together to occupy the common ground to which we are heir.
Gaussian MRF rotation-invariant features for image classification

Features based on Markov random field (MRF) models are sensitive to texture rotation. This paper develops an anisotropic circular Gaussian MRF (ACGMRF) model for retrieving rotation-invariant texture features. To overcome the singularity problem of the least squares estimate method, an approximate least squares estimate method is designed and implemented. Rotation-invariant features are obtained from the ACGMRF model parameters using the discrete Fourier transform. The ACGMRF model is demonstrated to be a statistical improvement over three published methods. The three methods include a Laplacian pyramid, an isotropic circular GMRF (ICGMRF), and gray level cooccurrence probability features.
Social Adjustment at a Decentralized EU Institution

This study investigates which out of seven predetermined factors influence the social adjustment of expatriates at a decentralized EU institution. Much of the existing literature that deals with expatriate adjustment departs from the assumption that the expatriates are entering an organization which is greatly influenced by the culture and customs of the country in which it is located, and that the expatriate is in minority in terms of nationality. In the decentralized EU institutions on the other hand (1) the culture of the organization and host country are markedly different from each other, and (2) the organization consists of mostly expatriates rather than host country nationals. Three sources of data are used; secondary sources, questionnaires and interviews. The results show that all seven factors which were investigated to some extent influenced social adjustment. The unique nature of the decentralized EU institutions could be the reason to why organizational cultural novelty was perceived as more important for interaction adjustment and general cultural novelty more important for general adjustment. The unique nature also could also be the reason to the negative relationship between spouse adjustment and general adjustment, possibly because the expatriate families are more inclined to live in an international "bubble" when both work and social connections are multicultural.
Whole‐blood transcriptional profiling of interferon‐inducible genes identifies highly upregulated IFI27 in primary myelofibrosis

Gene expression profiling studies have unraveled deregulation of several genes that might be of pathogenetic importance for the development and phenotype of the Philadelphia‐negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms. In the context of interferon‐alpha2 as a promising therapeutic agent, we focused upon the transcriptional profiling of interferon‐associated genes in patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) (n = 19), polycythemia vera (PV) (n = 41), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) (n = 9). Using whole‐blood transcriptional profiling and accordingly obtaining an integrated signature of genes expressed in several immune cells (granulocytes, monocytes, B cells, T cells, platelets), we have identified a number of interferon‐associated genes to be significantly deregulated but with a highly significant deregulation of interferon‐inducible gene 27 (IFI27) (ET, PV, and PMF, fold change 8, 16, and 30, respectively). The striking deregulation of IFI genes may reflect a hyperstimulated but insufficient immune system being most enhanced in patients with advanced myelofibrosis, in whom the IFI27 gene displayed an exceedingly high expression. The interferon signature may reflect primary myelofibrosis as the burn‐out phase of chronic inflammation which ultimately elicits clonal evolution and expansion owing to an exaggerated but incompetent antitumor immune response. Finally, IFI27 may be a novel biomarker of disease activity and tumor burden in patients with CMPNs.