Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
L-Methionine inhibits growth of human pancreatic cancer cells

We have previously shown that L-methionine inhibits proliferation of breast, prostate, and colon cancer cells. This study extends these findings to BXPC-3 (mutated p53) and HPAC (wild-type p53) pancreatic cancer cells and explores the reversibility of these effects. Cells were exposed to L-methionine (5 mg/ml) for 7 days or for 3 days, followed by 4 days of culture without L-methionine (recovery). Cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle effects were assessed by flow cytometry after staining for Ki-67 or annexin V/propidium iodide. Cell proliferation was reduced by 31–35% after 7 days of methionine exposure; the effect persisted in BXPC-3 and HPAC cells after 4 days of recovery. Methionine increased apoptosis by 40–75% in HPAC cells, but not in BXPC-3 cells. Continuous exposure to methionine caused accumulation of BXPC-3 cells in the S phase and HPAC cells in both the G0/G1 and S phases; however, after 4 days of recovery, these effects disappeared. In conclusion, L-methionine inhibits proliferation and interferes with the cell cycle of BXPC-3 and HPAC pancreatic cancer cells; the effects on apoptosis remarkably persisted after methionine withdrawal. Apoptosis was induced only in BXPC-3 cells. Some of the differences in the effects of methionine between cell lines may be related to disparate p53 status. These findings warrant further studies on the potential therapeutic benefit of L-methionine against pancreatic cancer.
Processes of Cross-Sector Collaboration: A Case Study of the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program

Organizations representing the nonprofit, public, and private sectors often collaborate to enhance capacities while addressing complex, interconnected problems. Using the framework of Bryson, Crosby, and Stone, processes used to support successful collaboration are explored empirically through a multiple sector arrangement involving 15 nonprofit, public, and private organizations. Findings are offered to augment the framework to incorporate organizational interests and leveraging resources. Implications for the study and practice of public management are discussed.
Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 is protective in atherosclerosis and its metabolites provide new opportunities for drug development

Significance Inflammation is an important component of the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease, the world’s biggest killer. No antiinflammatory treatments have yet been developed to treat cardiovascular disease. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is a critical enzyme in the metabolism of tryptophan that has been shown to be immune-regulatory in many diseases. ApoE−/− mice deficient in IDO (ApoE−/−Indo−/−) developed larger atherosclerotic lesions and an unfavorable lesion phenotype that may predispose to cardiovascular complications. Furthermore, administration of an orally active synthetic tryptophan metabolite (3,4-DAA) reduced disease development in mice and cytokine production in human atheroma. Our data demonstrate that endogenous production of tryptophan metabolites via IDO is an essential feedback loop that controls atherogenesis and athero-inflammation, defining a path toward the development of new therapeutics. Atherosclerosis is the major cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death worldwide. Despite much focus on lipid abnormalities in atherosclerosis, it is clear that the immune system also has important pro- and antiatherogenic functions. The enzyme indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) catalyses degradation of the essential amino acid tryptophan into immunomodulatory metabolites. How IDO deficiency affects immune responses during atherogenesis is unknown and we explored potential mechanisms in models of murine and human atherosclerosis. IDO deficiency in hypercholesterolemic ApoE−/− mice caused a significant increase in lesion size and surrogate markers of plaque vulnerability. No significant changes in cholesterol levels were observed but decreases in IL-10 production were found in the peripheral blood, spleen and lymph node B cells of IDO-deficient compared with IDO-competent ApoE−/− mice. 3,4,-Dimethoxycinnamoyl anthranilic acid (3,4-DAA), an orally active synthetic derivative of the tryptophan metabolite anthranilic acid, but not l-kynurenine, enhanced production of IL-10 in cultured splenic B cells. Finally, 3,4-DAA treatment reduced lesion formation and inflammation after collar-induced arterial injury in ApoE−/− mice, and reduced cytokine and chemokine production in ex vivo human atheroma cell cultures. Our data demonstrate that endogenous production of tryptophan metabolites via IDO is an essential feedback loop that controls atherogenesis and athero-inflammation. We show that the IDO pathway induces production of IL-10 in B cells in vivo and in vitro, suggesting that IDO may induce immunoregulatory functions of B cells in atherosclerosis. The favorable effects of anthranilic acid derivatives in atherosclerosis indicate a novel approach toward therapy of CVD.
Counterparty Risk in Exchange-TradedNotes (ETNs)

This article addresses the issue of counterparty credit risk in exchange-traded notes (ETNs). An ETN is a tracking product that is designed as an unsecured debt security and is therefore subject to the issuer’s default risk. The authors use a standard reduced-form pricing framework to gauge the theoretical effect credit risk should have on ETNs. They then derive firm-specific credit risk measures by using real market data to construct model-implied risk-adjusted ETN prices. Their results indicate that a substantial credit risk discount should be priced into ETNs. In sharp contrast, however, based on real market ETN quotes, they found very little evidence for credit risk pricing by market players.
Sensing Matrix Design via Mutual Coherence Minimization for Electromagnetic Compressive Imaging Applications

Compressive sensing (CS) theory states that sparse signals can be recovered from a small number of linear measurements <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$y=Ax$</tex-math></inline-formula> using <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _1\text{-}$</tex-math></inline-formula> norm minimization techniques, provided that the sensing matrix satisfies a restricted isometry property (RIP). Unfortunately, the RIP is difficult to verify in electromagnetic imaging applications, where the sensing matrix is computed deterministically. Although it provides weaker reconstruction guarantees than the RIP, the mutual coherence is a more practical metric for assessing the CS recovery properties of deterministic matrices. In this paper, we describe a method for minimizing the mutual coherence of sensing matrices in electromagnetic imaging applications. Numerical results for the design method are presented for a simple multiple monostatic imaging application, in which the sensor positions for each measurement serve as the design variables. These results demonstrate the algorithm's ability to both decrease the coherence and to generate sensing matrices with improved CS recovery capabilities.
Influence of Insulin Resistance and Body Mass Index at Age 13 on Systolic Blood Pressure, Triglycerides, and High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol at Age 19

The association of insulin resistance and body mass index (BMI) at age 13 years and change in insulin resistance and BMI from ages 13 to 19 years with systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol at age 19 years was studied in black and non-Hispanic white children. Insulin clamps were conducted at mean ages 13 (N=357), 15 (N=309), and 19 (N=224) years with insulin resistance adjusted for lean body mass. A repeated-measures multiple regression model was used to predict the 3 risk factors and the clustering of the factors with fasting insulin (the insulin resistance [metabolic] syndrome score) at age 19 years from levels of insulin resistance and BMI at age 13 and their changes from ages 13 to 19 years. The tracking correlation between ages 13 and 19 was 0.85 for BMI and 0.42 for insulin resistance. It was 0.18 for fasting insulin (P=0.01) and P=0.11 after adjustment for BMI. In a multiple regression analysis, BMI at 13 years did not predict any of the risk factors at age 19; change in BMI predicted all 3 of the factors and score; insulin resistance at 13 years predicted systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and score; change in insulin resistance predicted triglycerides and score. These results show an effect for insulin resistance that is independent of BMI, consistent with the hypothesis that reducing insulin resistance, in addition to weight, may be needed to reduce the prevalence of cardiovascular risk.
The role of pollinator diversity in the evolution of corolla-shape integration in a pollination-generalist plant clade

Flowers of animal-pollinated plants are integrated structures shaped by the action of pollinator-mediated selection. It is widely assumed that pollination specialization increases the magnitude of floral integration. However, empirical evidence is still inconclusive. In this study, we explored the role of pollinator diversity in shaping the evolution of corolla-shape integration in Erysimum, a plant genus with generalized pollination systems. We quantified floral integration in Erysimum using geometric morphometrics and explored its evolution using phylogenetic comparative methods. Corolla-shape integration was low but significantly different from zero in all study species. Spatial autocorrelation and phylogenetic signal in corolla-shape integration were not detected. In addition, integration in Erysimum seems to have evolved in a way that is consistent with Brownian motion, but with frequent convergent evolution. Corolla-shape integration was negatively associated with the number of pollinators visiting the flowers of each Erysimum species. That is, it was lower in those species having a more generalized pollination system. This negative association may occur because the co-occurrence of many pollinators imposes conflicting selection and cancels out any consistent selection on specific floral traits, preventing the evolution of highly integrated flowers.
The Perceived Severity of Tinnitus: Some Observations Concerning a Large Population of Tinnitus Clinic Patients

Detailed information about tinnitus was obtained from over 1800 patients attending a tinnitus clinic. Patients rated their tinnitus severity on a scale from 1 to 10 and also provided information concerning the quality, duration, localization, and other attributes of their tinnitus. In addition to standard audiometric tests, patients received tests for tinnitus pitch, loudness, maskability, and residual inhibition, and provided a brief medical history. The severity ratings of over 90% were at or above the scale value of 5. There was no correlation between rated severity and the loudness of tinnitus (obtained by a loudness balance procedure using external sounds matching the tinnitus pitch), thus confirming earlier observations. The severity also was not related to the type, quality, or pitch of tinnitus sound heard. However, severity ratings were highly correlated with incidence of sleep disturbance. Additional observations concerning relationships between perceived severity and other patient characteristics are discussed.
Comparison of survival and quality of life in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with two dose levels of paclitaxel combined with cisplatin versus etoposide with cisplatin: results of an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group trial.

PURPOSE Treatment with cisplatin-based chemotherapy provides a modest survival advantage over supportive care alone in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). To determine whether a new agent, paclitaxel, would further improve survival in NSCLC, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group conducted a randomized trial comparing paclitaxel plus cisplatin to a standard chemotherapy regimen consisting of cisplatin and etoposide. PATIENTS AND METHODS The study was carried out by a multi-institutional cooperative group in chemotherapy-naive stage IIIB to IV NSCLC patients randomized to receive paclitaxel plus cisplatin or etoposide plus cisplatin. Paclitaxel was administered at two different dose levels (135 mg/m(2) and 250 mg/m(2)), and etoposide was given at a dose of 100 mg/m(2) daily on days 1 to 3. Each regimen was repeated every 21 days and each included cisplatin (75 mg/m(2)). RESULTS The characteristics of the 599 patients were well-balanced across the three treatment groups. Superior survival was observed with the combined paclitaxel regimens (median survival time, 9.9 months; 1-year survival rate, 38.9%) compared with etoposide plus cisplatin (median survival time, 7.6 months; 1-year survival rate, 31.8%; P =. 048). Comparing survival for the two dose levels of paclitaxel revealed no significant difference. The median survival duration for the stage IIIB subgroup was 7.9 months for etoposide plus cisplatin patients versus 13.1 months for all paclitaxel patients (P =.152). For the stage IV subgroup, the median survival time for etoposide plus cisplatin was 7.6 months compared with 8.9 months for paclitaxel (P =.246). With the exceptions of increased granulocytopenia on the low-dose paclitaxel regimen and increased myalgias, neurotoxicity, and, possibly, increased treatment-related cardiac events with high-dose paclitaxel, toxicity was similar across all three arms. Quality of life (QOL) declined significantly over the 6 months. However, QOL scores were not significantly different among the regimens. CONCLUSION As a result of these observations, paclitaxel (135 mg/m(2)) combined with cisplatin has replaced etoposide plus cisplatin as the reference regimen in our recently completed phase III trial.
Naturally occurring circulating immune complexes: normal human serum contains idiotype-anti-idiotype complexes dissociable by certain IgG antiglobulins.

Sera from 19 of 23 healthy subjects contained a 24 to 26S complex (NTC). When passed over heat-aggregated IgG (HAGG) Sepharose, the NTC complex dissociated into a 7S IgG that was cytotoxic for malignant melanoma cells, and into an IgG antiglobulin (NTC antiglobulin) that only reacted with autologous cytotoxin. Prior incubation with soluble extracts of melanoma cells, but not with extracts of colon cancer or sarcoma, blocked recombination of isolated cytotoxin with NTC antiglobulin. Thus, NTC antiglobulin had attributes of an anti-idiotype. Cohn Fr II contained NTC complexes from many donors. A second IgG antiglobulin (ACF) was found in sera from patients with advanced cancer or rheumatoid arthritis. When added to normal donor sera, ACF caused NTC antiglobulin and 7S cytotoxin to dissociate. ACF combined with Fab′ of the allogeneic NTC cytotoxin to create a new complex that facilitated complement-dependent cytolysis of malignant melanoma cells. Sera with ACF activity also contained NTC. However, the cytotoxin in these sera was not detectable until the endogenous ACF and NTC antiglobulin had been removed by adsorption to HAGG Sepharose. In ACF-containing sera, ACF fixed to NTC antiglobulin but would not react with the cytotoxin. In contrast, ACF reacted with the cytotoxin but not NTC antiglobulin in allogeneic sera. Thus, some natural antibodies circulate with their antigen-combining sites blocked by endogenous antiglobulins. Other antiglobulins, such as ACF, can facilitate detection of these blocked antibodies if they react with the components of the complex in a way that facilitates their dissociation.
Deep Learning Framework for Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis via 3D-CNN and FSBi-LSTM

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the prodromal state of AD, which is further classified into a progressive state (i.e., pMCI) and a stable state (i.e., sMCI). With the development of deep learning, the convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have made great progress in image recognition using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) for AD diagnosis. However, due to the limited availability of these imaging data, it is still challenging to effectively use CNNs for AD diagnosis. Toward this end, we design a novel deep learning framework. Specifically, the virtues of 3D-CNN and fully stacked bidirectional long short-term memory (FSBi-LSTM) are exploited in our framework. First, we design a 3D-CNN architecture to derive deep feature representation from both MRI and PET. Then, we apply FSBi-LSTM on the hidden spatial information from deep feature maps to further improve its performance. Finally, we validate our method on the AD neuroimaging initiative (ADNI) dataset. Our method achieves average accuracies of 94.82%, 86.36%, and 65.35% for differentiating AD from normal control (NC), pMCI from NC, and sMCI from NC, respectively, and outperforms the related algorithms in the literature.
Economic Interpretation of Human Behaviour in Terms of Health Promotion

The economic approach to health promotion describes human behaviour towards preservation of individual health by methods of the economic analysis. We have developed mathematical model based on the Grossman's theory of Demand for Health (1972) showing two basic approaches. The investors prevent diseases by adopting healthy lifestyle and therefore minimize costs of healthcare. The consumers, however, depend on the healthcare system and cause further increase of its expenditures. It is also demonstrated that the latter approach leads to the increase of expenditures on maintaining the level of public health. Also the strong incidence of chronic and almost incurable non-communicable diseases excludes passive consumerism care for their own health from the rational choice. These effects vary in developing and developed countries and further burden healthcare systems for instance in the new EU Member States.
Intergenerational effects of inbreeding in Nicrophorus vespilloides: offspring suffer fitness costs when either they or their parents are inbred

Inbreeding depression is the reduction in fitness caused by mating between related individuals. Inbreeding is expected to cause a reduction in offspring fitness when the offspring themselves are inbred, but outbred individuals may also suffer a reduction in fitness when they depend on care from inbred parents. At present, little is known about the significance of such intergenerational effects of inbreeding. Here, we report two experiments on the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, an insect with elaborate parental care, in which we investigated inbreeding depression in offspring when either the offspring themselves or their parents were inbred. We found substantial inbreeding depression when offspring were inbred, including reductions in hatching success of inbred eggs and survival of inbred offspring. We also found substantial inbreeding depression when parents were inbred, including reductions in hatching success of eggs produced by inbred parents and survival of outbred offspring that received care from inbred parents. Our results suggest that intergenerational effects of inbreeding can have substantial fitness costs to offspring, and that future studies need to incorporate such costs to obtain accurate estimates of inbreeding depression.
Subjective physical and cognitive age among community-dwelling older people aged 75 years and older: differences with chronological age and its associated factors

Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the associations between self-reported subjective physical and cognitive age, and actual physical and cognitive functions among community-dwelling older people aged 75 years and older. Method: The sample comprised 275 older adults aged 75–91 years. Two questions were asked regarding subjective age: ‘How old do you feel physically? ’ and ‘How old do you feel cognitively? ’ To assess physical functions, we measured handgrip strength, knee extension strength, standing balance and walking speed. Tests of attention, executive function, processing speed and memory were performed to assess actual cognitive function. Results: Subjective physical and cognitive age was associated with performance on all of the physical and cognitive tests, respectively (p < 0.01). We also found that older adults who reported themselves as feeling older than their chronological age had a slower walking speed and lower scores for word-list memory recall than those who did not report themselves as feeling older than their actual age. Conclusion: These findings suggest that promoting a fast walking speed and good memory function may help to maintain a younger subjective physical and cognitive age in older adults aged 75 years and older.
An Examination of the Import Price Transmission Mechanism in Trinidad and Tobago

This paper analyses the impact of international price changes of rice, wheat, milk and soya beans on the domestic price of corresponding goods in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper uses monthly data between 2004 and 2010, from the IMF’s International Financial Statistics database for international prices, and the Consumer Affairs Division of the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Legal Affairs for domestic prices. The results of a Vector Autoregression Model (VAR) illustrate that for the four commodities the transmission of a change in the international price of the corresponding item is felt by the second month, and the effects last between five to nine months. The knowledge of the influence of an international price shock on domestic prices can aid the Central Bank both in the development and implementation of appropriate policies/strategies to combat inflation.
Triiodothyronine (T3) and Cardiovascular Therapeutics: A Review

Hypothyroidism is associated with an abnormal hemodynamic state characterized by decreased heart rate, stroke volume, output, and contractility, and increased systemic vascular resistance. Since cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and surgical stress can induce profound decreases in triiodothyronine (T3) levels, the hemodynamic consequences of “stress‐induced” hypothyroidism and T3 repletion are of increasing clinical interest. Available data generally support the likelihood of a beneficial effect associated with T3 replacement in brain‐dead organ donors and in cases of low cardiac output following CPB. Although hypotheses have been advanced to account for these salutary effects, the mechanism by which T3 may augment hemodynamic performance has not been precisely defined, particularly in the acute setting. Although additional research is needed to clarify these and other issues, preliminary findings with T3 replacement indicate that such investigation is warranted.