Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overview of available p53 function tests in relation to TP53 and ATM gene alterations and chemoresistance in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Abstract The ATM–p53 DNA damage response pathway plays a crucial role in chemoresistance in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, as indicated by the adverse prognostic impact of deletions of 17p (locus of TP53) and 11q (locus of ATM) detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis. In addition to deletions, mutations in these respective genes are also associated with chemoresistance, and add to the prognostic information provided by FISH. In order to explore the possibility that dysfunction of the ATM–p53 pathway might also result from mechanisms other than ATM/TP53 deletion/mutation, assays have been developed that probe the functional integrity of the ATM–p53 pathway. Currently, four different p53 function assays have been developed that are based on the measurement of p53 and p53-dependent genes at the RNA (real-time polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]p21; RT-PCRmiR34a; reverse transcription-multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification assay [RT-MLPA]p21, bax, puma and CD95) or protein (fluorescence activated cell sorting [FACS]p53-p21) level in untreated cells or following irradiation or drug treatment. Here we provide an overview of these assays based on the available literature.
Cell Fate Determination and the Switch from Diffuse Growth to Planar Polarity in Arabidopsis Root Epidermal Cells

Plant roots fulfill important functions as they serve in water and nutrient uptake, provide anchorage of the plant body in the soil and in some species form the site of symbiotic interactions with soil-living biota. Root hairs, tubular-shaped outgrowths of specific epidermal cells, significantly increase the root’s surface area and aid in these processes. In this review we focus on the molecular mechanisms that determine the hair and non-hair cell fate of epidermal cells and that define the site on the epidermal cell where the root hair will be initiated (=planar polarity determination). In the model plant Arabidopsis, trichoblast and atrichoblast cell fate results from intra- and intercellular position-dependent signaling and from complex feedback loops that ultimately regulate GL2 expressing and non-expressing cells. When epidermal cells reach the end of the root expansion zone, root hair promoting transcription factors dictate the establishment of polarity within epidermal cells followed by the selection of the root hair initiation site at the more basal part of the trichoblast. Molecular players in the abovementioned processes as well as the role of phytohormones are discussed, and open areas for future experiments are identified.
Is a Condition-Specific Instrument for Patients with Low Back Pain/Leg Symptoms Really Necessary?: The Responsiveness of the Oswestry Disability Index, MODEMS, and the SF-36

Study Design. Analysis of longitudinal data collected prospectively from patients seen in 27 National Spine Network member centers across the United States. Objective. To evaluate the responsiveness of the Oswestry Disability Index, MODEMS scales, and all scales and summary scales of the MOS Short-Form 36 (SF-36) for patients with low back pain/leg symptoms. Summary of Background Data. The responsiveness of general and condition-specific health status instruments is a key concept for clinicians and scientists. Various authors have explored responsiveness in common surveys used to assess spine patients. Although it is generally believed that condition-specific measures are more responsive to change in the condition under study, in the case of low back pain, most authors agree that further exploration is necessary. Methods. Patients with diagnoses of herniated disc, spinal stenosis, and spondylosis from the National Spine Network database who completed baseline and 3-month follow-up surveys were analyzed. Patient-provider consensus regarding improvement, worsening, or no change in the condition was selected as the external criterion. Responsiveness was evaluated using ROC curve analysis and effect size calculations. Results. Nine hundred and seventy patients had complete data at baseline and 3 months. At follow-up, 68% of the patients had consensus improvement. Based on ROC analysis, scales assessing pain were significantly more responsive than scales assessing function. There were no significant differences between the condition-specific scales and their equivalent general-health counterpart. The scales with the highest probabilities of correctly identifying patient’s improvement were: the condition-specific pain scale from MODEMS (PAIN, ROC = 0.758); the combined pain and function scale from MODEMS (MPDL, ROC = 0.755); the general pain scale from the SF-36 (BP, ROC = 0.753); the combined pain and function scale from the SF-36 (PCS, ROC = 0.745); the condition-specific function measure from the Oswestry (ODI, ROC = 0.723); and the physical function measure from the SF-36 (PF, ROC = 0.721). A similar rank order was typically maintained with effect size calculations. Results were nearly identical in patients with multiple non-spine-related comorbidities and in patients with high degrees of perceived disability. The BP scale was most responsive to worsening of symptoms. Conclusion. For studies of patients with low back problems, the general SF-36 may be a sufficient measure of health status and patient function, without the need for additional condition-specific instruments. Pain scales appear to be the most responsive measures in patients with low back pain.
Ontology Evolution in the Corporate Semantic Web

We present in this paper an approach for ontology evolution in the corporate semantic web. We particularly focus on the ontology and resources evolution which are two important components of the corporate semantic web. Ontology evolves with added and updated resources. The concerned ontological entities by the resource modifications are linked to the documents. To manage dynamically changes we use the MAS paradigm. The evolution process is distributed in the different agents of the system. Each of them has a particular role.
Perceived Neighborhood Risk as a Predictor of Drug Use Among Urban Ethnic Minority Adolescents: Moderating Influences of Psychosocial Functioning

ABSTRACT This study examined the moderating influences of psychosocial functioning on the relation between perceived neighborhood risk and alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use in a sample of inner-city, ethnic minority youths. Perceived neighborhood risk assessed gang activity, fighting, and neighborhood toughness. Measures of psychosocial functioning assessed intrapersonal and interpersonal skills implicated as correlates and predictors of early-stage drug use. Neighborhood risk uniquely predicted alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use; however, some relations were qualified by level of psychosocial functioning. Negative affect, peer relations, and social concern moderated the effects of neighborhood risk on alcohol use. Negative affect moderated the relations between neighborhood risk and cigarette use. Risk-taking and family relations moderated the relations between neighborhood risk and marijuana use. Overall, the size of these effects was small and underscores the need to include a wider range of conceptually relevant measures. Longitudinally, neighborhood risk was uniquely associated with less protection and greater polydrug use, controlling for early levels of psychosocial risk and protection. Net of prediction, both risk and protection were associated equivalently with neighborhood risk. Findings indicate a need to develop a more complete understanding of the precise manner in which environmental risk increases susceptibility to early-stage drug use.
Intracellular Information Processing through Encoding and Decoding of Dynamic Signaling Features

Cell signaling dynamics and transcriptional regulatory activities are variable within specific cell types responding to an identical stimulus. In addition to studying the network interactions, there is much interest in utilizing single cell scale data to elucidate the non-random aspects of the variability involved in cellular decision making. Previous studies have considered the information transfer between the signaling and transcriptional domains based on an instantaneous relationship between the molecular activities. These studies predict a limited binary on/off encoding mechanism which underestimates the complexity of biological information processing, and hence the utility of single cell resolution data. Here we pursue a novel strategy that reformulates the information transfer problem as involving dynamic features of signaling rather than molecular abundances. We pursue a computational approach to test if and how the transcriptional regulatory activity patterns can be informative of the temporal history of signaling. Our analysis reveals (1) the dynamic features of signaling that significantly alter transcriptional regulatory patterns (encoding), and (2) the temporal history of signaling that can be inferred from single cell scale snapshots of transcriptional activity (decoding). Immediate early gene expression patterns were informative of signaling peak retention kinetics, whereas transcription factor activity patterns were informative of activation and deactivation kinetics of signaling. Moreover, the information processing aspects varied across the network, with each component encoding a selective subset of the dynamic signaling features. We developed novel sensitivity and information transfer maps to unravel the dynamic multiplexing of signaling features at each of these network components. Unsupervised clustering of the maps revealed two groups that aligned with network motifs distinguished by transcriptional feedforward vs feedback interactions. Our new computational methodology impacts the single cell scale experiments by identifying downstream snapshot measures required for inferring specific dynamical features of upstream signals involved in the regulation of cellular responses.
Optimal power allocation schemes for amplify-and-forward relay networks with different levels of channel knowledge

This paper proposes two optimal power allocation (OPA) schemes for two-hop wireless relay networks operating in amplify-and-forward (AAF) manner. All the relay nodes in the network participate in relaying information from the source to the destination. We explore the OPA schemes among the cooperative relays to maximize the received SNR at the destination. When the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) is readily available, a closed-form solution of the OPA is derived, whereas when only the channel statistics (CS) are a priori known, the OPA scheme is developed on the basis of the statistical properties of the relaying channels. Analysis and simulations verify that the proposed schemes significantly outperform the equal power allocation (EPA) scheme.
Video-arcade game, computer game and Internet activities of Australian students: Participation habits and prevalence of addiction

The aim of the present study was to investigate participation habits and prevalence of addiction among Australian university and school students to video-arcade games, computer games, and the Internet. A sample of 1,326 (657 female) students from rural and urban Tasmanian schools (Grades 7–12) and 705 (509 female) university students took part in the study. Lifetime participation and the frequency and duration of time that students spent online were higher than that reported in previous research on youth. A lower percentage of students met the modified criteria for addiction to video-arcade games (4.2%), computer games (5%) and the Internet (4.6%) compared to previous studies, but the prevalence of social computer game users (55.2%) and Internet addiction (58.9%) was higher than that reported by past researchers.
Financial crisis and the dynamics of corporate governance : Evidence from Taiwan ' s listed fi rms

Available online 24 January 2014 This study complements the governance literature by investigating how Taiwan listed firms adjusted their governance structure to cope with the 2008 financial crisis. The results from the principal component analysis (PCA) suggest that there are significant differences in the factor scores, such as Board Power (of the Largest Shareholders), Information Transparency and Related Party Transactions; the changes in a firm's operating performance are associated with the changes in the scores of the governance factors during the financial crisis. The empirical evidence shows that Taiwan's listed firms adopted new governance structures to better cope with the challenges associated with the financial crisis in 2008. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification:
Full-Duplex Mobile Device - Pushing The Limits

In this article, we address the challenges of transmitter-receiver isolation in \emph{mobile full-duplex devices}, building on shared-antenna based transceiver architecture. Firstly, self-adaptive analog RF cancellation circuitry is required, since the capability to track time-varying self-interference coupling characteristics is of utmost importance in mobile devices. In addition, novel adaptive nonlinear DSP methods are also required for final self-interference suppression at digital baseband, since mobile-scale devices typically operate under highly nonlinear low-cost RF components. In addition to describing above kind of advanced circuit and signal processing solutions, comprehensive RF measurement results from a complete demonstrator implementation are also provided, evidencing beyond 40~dB of active RF cancellation over an 80 MHz waveform bandwidth with a highly nonlinear transmitter power amplifier. Measured examples also demonstrate the good self-healing characteristics of the developed control loop against fast changes in the coupling channel. Furthermore, when complemented with nonlinear digital cancellation processing, the residual self-interference level is pushed down to the noise floor of the demonstration system, despite the harsh nonlinear nature of the self-interference. These findings indicate that deploying the full-duplex principle can indeed be feasible also in mobile devices, and thus be one potential technology in, e.g., 5G and beyond radio systems.
Chapter 3 Knowledge Discovery for Semantic Web

Knowledge Discovery is traditionally used for analysis of large amounts of data and enables addressing a number of tasks that arise in Semantic Web and require scalable solutions. Additionally, Knowledge Discovery techniques have been successfully applied not only to structured data i.e. databases but also to semi-structured and unstructured data including text, graphs, images and video. Semantic Web technologies often call for dealing with text and sometimes also graphs or social networks. This chapter describes research approaches that are adopting knowledge discovery techniques to address semantic Web and presents several publicly available tools that are implementing some of the described approaches.
Antibodies reacting with human T‐lymphotropic retrovirus (HTLV‐1) or related antigens in lymphomatous and healthy hamadryas baboons

The sera of lymphomatous and healthy hamadryas baboons of the main, lymphoma‐prone Sukhumi stock were tested for antibodies reacting with HTLV‐1 antigens in the indirect immunofluorescence test. Antibodies of this specificity were found in all but one of 58 lymphomatous baboons and in 45% of 177 healthy ones. The prevalence of HTLV‐1 reactive antibodies in lymphoma‐free baboon populations (including 118 Sukhumi „forest”︁ stock animals and 195 baboons imported in 3 groups from Ethiopia) was consistently lower (5–8%). The specificity of baboon antibodies reacting with HTLV‐1 or a related agent is supported by the following evidence: (1) Concordant reactivity pattern of baboon sera with several HTLV‐1‐positive and ‐negative human cell lines; (2) elimination of baboon sera anti‐HTLV reactivity by absorption with purified HTLV‐1, but not by other retroviruses; (3) significant correlation between immunofluorescence titers of baboon sera and their reactivity in enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay with purified HTLV‐1; (4) competition of baboon anti‐HTLV with monoclonal antibodies GIN‐14 for binding of the epitope on p19HTLV‐1. The prevalence of anti‐HTLV positives in the main Sukhumi stock increased by age, reaching its maximum (approx. 80%) at 5–15 years, and showed no significant sex‐related variation. The level of anti‐HTLV antibodies in lymphomatous baboons and in age‐, sex‐ and population‐matched healthy ones did not differ. However, in pre‐lymphoma sera these antibodies reached significantly higher levels than in sera of lymphomatous baboons (obtained in the terminal stage) or of matched, healthy controls.
Molecular and microscopic identification of sulfate-reducing bacteria in multispecies biofilms

The population architecture of sulfidogenic biofilms established in anaerobic fixed-bed bioreactors was characterized by selective polymerase chain reaction amplification and fluorescence microscopy. A region of the 16S rRNA common to resident sulfate-reducing bacteria was selectively amplified by the polymerase chain reaction. Sequences of amplification products, with reference to a collection of 16S rRNA sequences representing most characterized sulfate-reducing bacteria, were used to design both general and specific hybridization probes. Fluorescent versions of these probes were used in combination with fluorescence microscopy to visualize specific sulfate-reducing bacterial populations within developing and established biofilms.
From Animal Behavior to Human Health An Animal-Assisted Mindfulness Intervention for Recurrent Depression

Abstract. Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been shown to be effective in recent meta-analyses with an improvement of mental health, quality of life, and a decrease in the sense of isolation. Reduction of depressive symptoms in human beings is one of the most beneficial outcomes of AAT. For relapse prevention in depression, conventional mindfulness programs such as mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy(MBCT) proved to be useful, but are often difficult to learn and produce high dropout rates in high risk patients. For this patient group, the teaching of mindfulness skills was facilitated by using sheep in an open pilot study. Six partially or unstable remitted patients with early trauma participated in eight group sessions of a nature and animal-assisted mindfulness training. The approach was feasible and highly accepted by participants with no dropouts. The results show a decrease of depressive symptoms and rumination, an improvement of overall mindfulness skills, but not of acceptance skills. Further stud.
A COMPARISON OF SAR FILTERING TECHNIQUES ON AGRICULTURAL AREA IDENTIFICATION Asli Ozdarici, Research Assistant

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of the most frequently used non-adaptive and adaptive Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) filtering techniques called; Mean, Median, Lee, Lee-sigma, Local Region, Frost and GammaMAP. Envisat ASAR Precision Image (PI) mode data acquired on August 2008 is used to examine the filtering techniques. Three test sites (~ 4 km 2 ), located in Karacabey of Bursa in northwest of Turkey are selected. Two of them consist of homogenous agricultural fields and the third one is selected from lake. One of the agricultural test sites has 143 fields where seven different crop types namely; corn, pasture, pepper, sugar beet, tomato, wheat, and watermelon exist. The other agricultural test site contains relatively smaller agricultural fields and it has 386 fields where corn, rice, sugar beet, tomato, wheat, and watermelon are cultivated in it. After correcting the images geometrically, the filtering operations are applied on the amplitude data using 5x5 windows. The filtering performances are evaluated by computing difference of means (MeanDif), difference of standard deviation (StdDif), correlation, and quality factor (Q). If the conditions of these evaluation indicators provide the smallest possible means, standard deviation and the maximum correlation and Q, it can be stated that the filtered image preserves the spectral information of the original image while reducing the speckle effect. Based on this evaluation the most reliable outputs are achieved by applying the Lee filter when compared with the original data. This technique is followed by the results of the Mean, Median, Gamma-MAP and Frost filters.
Spacing Palestine through the home

This paper explores connections that can be made between houses, homes and violence in Palestine, and representational consequences of making such connections. Drawing on ethnographic field research in Birzeit, I put recent work on critical geographies of home into conversation with geographies and geopolitics of Palestine. I criticise the tendency to represent Palestinian geographies almost entirely through the lens of the Israeli Occupation. While such studies have a great deal of value both academically and politically, this paper augments such work by developing a different focus and a different representational approach. I use detailed ethnographic vignettes and interviews to engage with the domestic practices that make particular Birzeiti homes. These intimate domestic encounters underpin my argument that there is a need for more work that apprehends Palestinian geographies as complexities that bear a relation to, but are not fully determined by, the Israeli Occupation.
Nonlinear diffraction tomography-the use of inverse scattering for imaging

The authors' previous inverse scattering work has been to derive inverse scattering theory and algorithms that can be used to process practical experimental data. The theory makes use of computation of the forward scattering solution. Therefore, an efficient forward solver is instrumental to the rapid solution of the inverse scattering problem. The advantage of the more sophisticated theory over a linear theory is that it accounts for multiple scattering effects within the scatterers which often give rise to distortions in an image. A new method to invert strong scatterers, such as metallic scatterers, is presented. <<ETX>>
Socio-emotional Key Competencies: Can they be measured and what do they relate to?

Four socio-emotional New Zealand Curriculum key competencies (Managing Self, Participating and Contributing, Relating to Others and Thinking) were investigated in a two-part study. The first part used a questionnaire to quantitatively model the four key competencies in a sample of 995 secondary students. The second part examined whether the key competency models found in part 1 related to academic efficacy, school connectedness and academic achievement within a subsample of 297 secondary students. The models had acceptable statistical fit and were invariant. All models were related to academic efficacy and school connectedness, but none related directly to achievement. This is the first study to try to quantitatively model the New Zealand key competencies and demonstrate a direct relationship between the socio-emotional key competencies and academic efficacy and school connectedness.
The experience of treatment barriers and their influence on quality of life in American Indian/Alaska Native breast cancer survivors

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) breast cancer survivors experience disparities in breast cancer incidence and age‐adjusted mortality compared with non‐Hispanic white (NHW) breast cancer survivors. In addition, mortality‐to‐incidence rates indicate that AI/ANs continue to have the poorest survival from breast cancer compared with other racial groups. “Native American Cancer Education for Survivors” (NACES) is a cultural education and support intervention for AI/AN patients with cancer that collects data from voluntary participants through the NACES quality‐of‐life (QOL) survey regarding their cancer experience and survivor journey.