Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Silencing Expression of the Clusterin/Apolipoprotein J Gene in Human Cancer Cells Using Small Interfering RNA Induces Spontaneous Apoptosis, Reduced Growth Ability, and Cell Sensitization to Genotoxic and Oxidative Stress

Clusterin/Apolipoprotein J (CLU) is a heterodimeric ubiquitously expressed secreted glycoprotein that is implicated in several physiological processes and is differentially expressed in many severe physiological disturbances, including tumor formation and in vivo cancer progression. Despite extensive efforts, clarification of CLU’s biological role has been exceptionally difficult and its precise function remains elusive. Short RNA duplexes, referred to as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), provide a new approach for the elucidation of gene function in human cells. Here, we describe siRNA-mediated CLU gene silencing in osteosarcoma and prostate human cancer cells and illustrate that CLU mRNA is amenable to siRNA-mediated degradation. Our data demonstrate that CLU knockdown in human cancer cells induces significant reduction of cellular growth and higher rates of spontaneous endogenous apoptosis. Moreover, CLU knockdown cancer cells were significantly sensitized to both genotoxic and oxidative stress induced by chemotherapeutic drugs and H2O2, respectively. These effects were more pronounced in cell lines that express high endogenous steady-state levels of the CLU protein and occur through hyperactivation of the cellular apoptotic machinery. Overall, our results reveal that, in the distinct cellular contexts of the osteosarcoma and prostate cancer cells assayed, CLU is a central molecule in cell homeostasis that exerts a cytoprotective function. The described CLU-specific siRNA oligonucleotides that can potently silence CLU gene expression may thus prove valuable agents during antitumor therapy or at other pathological conditions where CLU has been implicated.
Reversible functional connectivity disturbances during transient global amnesia

Transient global amnesia (TGA), an abrupt occurrence of severe anterograde episodic amnesia accompanied by repetitive questioning, has been known for more than 50 years. Despite extensive research, there is no clear evidence for the underlying pathophysiological basis of TGA. Moreover, there is no neuroimaging method to evaluate TGA in real time.
The Place of Purpose in Life in Women’s Positive Aging

Purpose in life is an orientation associated with energy, effectiveness, and optimism. A general trend is for purpose to decline in the later years, with unclear implications for positive aging. This article, however, takes a new approach to exploring the role of purpose. Using data from the Mills Study, a 55-year study of women’s adult development, we examine four sharp patterns of change in purpose on Ryff’s scale (1995) between ages 61 and 70: high at both times, low at both times, and changes from high to low or low to high. Guiding ideas are advanced about each kind of change and findings examined for each group. Looking at individual women's lives since childhood provides illustrative examples of each pattern. These lives show the impact of depression, inner resources, personality traits (especially Conscientiousness), attachment (secure and avoidant/dismissive styles), life situations (e.g., retirement), and events (e.g., early parental loss or widowhood), and of a motivation in one's 60s to grow or to transform regrets. Women differed in how traditional their lives were and in how much they associated purposiveness and goal attainment with life satisfaction. Implications for therapists include both helping women find the energy and commitment associated with purpose in life, and helping them value more process-oriented experiences such as appreciation, wonder, connection, and relationship. Emphasis on appreciation may become more common as women age. Positive aging is manifested in these ways, but also in acceptance and the courageous and steadfast coping with painful situations.
Link adaptation with distributed Jacobi eigenbeamforming for MIMO systems

This work presents a transmission strategy for closed-loop MIMO systems, where compact feedback messages meant for transmit weight adaptation are also used to convey basic link adaptation requests that can improve the link reliability or the data throughput without additional feedback overhead. The proposed link adaptation varies the number of orthogonal transmit beams and the symbol modulation employed on each beam. The simulation study focuses in a system with four transmit and two receive antennas, with constant data rate and two different underlying beamforming schemes: a recently proposed Jacobi beamformer, and a Grassmanian codebook approach. It is shown that both schemes can obtain an improvement of around 1 dB in bit error probability (BEP) performance, in slowly fading and spatially uncorrelated channels, compared to the case where both beams are used all the time. The application of the proposed technique to other precoding algorithms is briefly discussed.
Shifting Ground*

Abstract This paper is a wide-ranging exploration of the divorce experience, a topic that is notably lacking in the psychoanalytic and family therapy literature. Focus has been on the impact of divorce on children; very little attention has been given to the divorcing person's internal journey and the immense psychological challenges she or he faces. The author explores these, with reference to her own and others' autobiographical writings. A second section of the paper focuses specifically on the therapist's divorce, with discussion of the unique stresses and opportunities this crisis in the therapist's life affords the work for both patients and therapists.
Applicability of Universal Relation to Data Integration ∗ Wisconsin Data Integration Kit

Data integration is the problem of combining data residing at different sources, and providing the user with a unified view of these data. Data Integration Systems studied in literature are characterized by an architecture based on the mediated schema and a set of base schemas. The relation between the mediated schema and base schemas is specified as a set of mappings. Designing such systems involves a schema generation phase, a query translation phase and a result integration phase. In schema generation phase, a mediated schema is defined as a set of relations possibly with integrity constraints, and each relation in the mediated schema is mapped to one or more relations in source schemas. Heterogeneity in nature and autonomy in design of real world systems hinder the creation of mediated schema and mappings. Further the updating of schemas and mappings becomes difficult in an environment that involves dynamic addition and deletion of sources. In the query translation phase, the queries that are posed on the mediated schema are translated on to sources based on the mappings. Queries posed are based on the integrity constraints that appear between the relations in the mediated schema. One of the main problems with such an approach is the distribution of attributes among the relations in the sources is not the same as in the mediated schema. In such a scenario the query writer can’t correctly decide the joins between the relations. We propose a model where the user is presented with a universal relation as the mediated schema. The join decisions are no longer made by the query writer, but by the Query Translator. Attributes are added dynamically based on the sources. We design and build a system, Windik, based on our model. In literature, datalog, a subset of first order calculus is studied as the language for data integration systems. Integration involves transformation of values found in different databases. These transformations can be represented by function symbols in first order calculus. Windik ∗Subject to change on finding an apt title is designed to support first order calculus as the translation language.
Myogenic properties of cerebral blood vessels from normotensive and hypertensive rats.

Myogenic properties of posterior cerebral arteries from normotensive and hypertensive rats were analyzed in vitro and quantified in terms of both pressure range limits and degree of myogenic activity. Spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) vessels were significantly narrower in a fully relaxed state, and both wall thickness and wall-to-radius ratios were increased. After equilibration in 1.6 mM calcium physiological saline solution a substantial tone developed which resulted in average diameter decreases of 34 and 37% in Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and SHR, respectively; average lumen diameters were approximately 125 micron. Rapid changes in transmural pressure (delta P 10-25 mmHg/s) were applied and diameter responses measured continuously. Myogenic responses began 1-3 s after a change in transmural pressure, and arteries regained their initial diameters after a pressure step in about 2 min; a final, steady-state diameter was achieved in 4-5 min. Myogenic pressure ranges were 49-145 mmHg in WKY and 64-181 in SHR; when responses were segregated according to positive and negative pressure steps, more myogenic responses were observed at lower pressures for pressure step decreases when compared with pressure step increases. Thus myogenic ranges for increasing pressure steps were 71-151 (WKY) and 72-188 mmHg (SHR) and for decreasing steps 45-117 (WKY) and 57-148 mmHg (SHR). Myogenic responses in SHR were weaker than in WKY rats: the former maintained essentially a constant diameter over a wide range of pressures, whereas arteries from the latter decreased diameter with increasing pressures. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Muscle strength and exercise intensity adaptation to resistance training in older women with knee osteoarthritis and total knee arthroplasty

OBJECTIVES: To analyze muscle strength and exercise intensity adaptation to resistance training in older women with knee osteoarthritis and total knee arthroplasty. METHODS: Twenty-three community-dwelling women were divided into the following groups: older, with knee osteoarthritis and total knee arthroplasty in the contralateral limb (OKG; N = 7); older, without symptomatic osteoarthritis (OG; N = 8); and young and healthy (YG; N = 8). Muscle strength (1-repetition maximum strength test) and exercise intensity progression (workload increases of 5%–10% were made whenever adaptation occurred) were compared before and after 13 weeks of a twice-weekly progressive resistance-training program. RESULTS: At baseline, OKG subjects displayed lower muscle strength than those in both the OG and YG. Among OKG subjects, baseline muscle strength was lower in the osteoarthritic leg than in the total arthroplasty leg. Muscle strength improved significantly during follow-up in all groups; however, greater increases were observed in the osteoarthritic leg than in the total knee arthroplasty leg in OKG subjects. Greater increases were also seen in the osteoarthritic leg of OKG than in OG and YG. The greater muscle strength increase in the osteoarthritic leg reduced the interleg difference in muscle strength in OKG subjects, and resulted in similar posttraining muscle strength between OKG and OG in two of the three exercises analyzed. Greater exercise intensity progression was also observed in OKG subjects than in both OG and YG subjects. CONCLUSIONS: OKG subjects displayed greater relative muscle strength increases (osteoarthritic leg) than subjects in the YG, and greater relative exercise intensity progression than subjects in both OG and YG. These results suggest that resistance training is an effective method to counteract the lower-extremity strength deficits reported in older women with knee osteoarthritis and total knee arthroplasty.
Further Characterization of the Natriuretic Factor Derived from Kidney Tissue of Volume‐Expanded Rats: Effects on Short‐Circuit Current and Sodium‐Potassium‐Adenosine Triphosphatase Activity

Boiled homogenates of kidneys from volume-expanded and hydropenic rats were subjected Co column chroniatogra-phy. The fraction eluting within the range of partition coefficients (Kav) 0.76-0.89 (fraction III) was lyophilized and the effects of this semipurified preparation were assessed on short-circuit current (SCC) across isolated frog skin, on rat kidney cortex Na-K-ATPase activity, and on sodium excretion by the rat in vivo. At a dose of 500 ftg/ml, fraction III from expanded rat kidney inhibited SCC by 21 ± 5% (P < 0.01), whereas the same fraction from hydropenic rat kidney produced an insignificant change in SCC of 2 ± 8%. In a dose-response study, 50, 150, 500, and 1,500 pg/ml of fraction III from expanded rat kidney inhibited SCC by 4, 8, 19, and 28%, respectively; 500, 1,000, and 1,500 μg/ml inhibited Na-K-ATPase activity by 11, 22, arid 49%, respectively. An identical study with fraction III from hydropenic animals showed no significant effect in either assay. Also, fractions from expanded and hydropenic rats, eluted after fraction III (fractions IV and V), had no effect on SCC or Na-K-ATPase activity. Fraction HI also produced significant natriuresis in vivo at a dose of 500 μg/ml, confirming our observations that a natriuretic principle may be recovered from the kidneys of volume-expanded rats. We suggest that this natriuretic principle may act by reducing active sodium transport via inhibition of Na-K-ATPase.
An Improved Recombination-Based In Vivo Expression Technology-Like Reporter System Reveals Differential cyaA Gene Activation in Bordetella Species

ABSTRACT Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella bronchiseptica rely on the global two-component regulatory system BvgAS to control expression of distinct phenotypic phases. In the Bvg− phase, expression of vrg genes, including those required for motility in B. bronchiseptica, is activated and genes encoding virulence factors are not expressed. Conversely, in the Bvg+ phase, genes encoding virulence factors are highly expressed while genes necessary for motility are repressed. Although several genetic analyses have demonstrated the importance of the Bvg+ phase during respiratory infection, Bvg-regulated gene activation in B. bronchiseptica has not been investigated in vivo. To address this, we developed a plasmid, pGFLIP, that encodes a sensitive Flp recombinase-based fluorescent reporter system able to document gene activation both in vitro and in vivo. Using pGFLIP, we demonstrated that cyaA, considered to be a “late” Bvg+ phase gene, is activated substantially earlier in B. bronchiseptica than B. pertussis following a switch from Bvg− to Bvg+ phase conditions. We show that the altered activation of cyaA is not due to differences in the cyaA promoter or in the bvgAS alleles of B. bronchiseptica compared to B. pertussis, but appears to be species specific. Finally, we used pGFLIP to show that flaA remains repressed during infection, confirming that B. bronchiseptica does not modulate to the Bvg− phase in vivo.
MACHINE VS MACHINE: MINIMAX-OPTIMAL DEFENSE AGAINST ADVERSARIAL EXAMPLES

Recently, researchers have discovered that the state-of-the-art object classifiers can be fooled easily by small perturbations in the input unnoticeable to human eyes. It is also known that an attacker can generate strong adversarial examples if she knows the classifier parameters. Conversely, a defender can robustify the classifier by retraining if she has access to the adversarial examples. We explain and formulate this adversarial example problem as a two-player continuous zero-sum game, and demonstrate the fallacy of evaluating a defense or an attack as a static problem. To find the best worst-case defense against whitebox attacks, we propose a continuous minimax optimization algorithm. We demonstrate the minimax defense with two types of attack classes -- gradient-based and neural network-based attacks. Experiments with the MNIST and the CIFAR-10 datasets demonstrate that the defense found by numerical minimax optimization is indeed more robust than non-minimax defenses. We discuss directions for improving the result toward achieving robustness against multiple types of attack classes.
Gammatone wavelet Cepstral Coefficients for robust speech recognition

We develop noise robust features using Gammatone wavelets derived from the popular Gammatone functions. These wavelets incorporate the characteristics of human peripheral auditory systems, in particular the spatially-varying frequency response of the basilar membrane. We refer to the new features as Gammatone Wavelet Cepstral Coefficients (GWCC). The procedure involved in extracting GWCC from a speech signal is similar to that of the conventional Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) technique, with the difference being in the type of filterbank used. We replace the conventional mel filterbank in MFCC with a Gammatone wavelet filterbank, which we construct using Gammatone wavelets. We also explore the effect of Gammatone filterbank based features (Gammatone Cepstral Coefficients (GCC)) for robust speech recognition. On AURORA 2 database, a comparison of GWCCs and GCCs with MFCCs shows that Gammatone based features yield a better recognition performance at low SNRs.
EFFECTIVE DISPERSION IN SEAWATER INTRUSION THROUGH HETEROGENEOUS AQUIFERS

Dispersivity is the most significant and difficult parameter to assess in seawater intrusion models. It is well established that dispersion is enhanced by spatial heterogeneity. While real aquifers in general are heterogeneous, most models describing saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers do not take into account spatial heterogeneity. One of the main objectives of this study is to assess the effect of spatial variability of hydraulic conductivity on effective dispersion in seawater intrusion problems. For this purpose we select Henry’s problem (1964), both in its diffusive and dispersive forms. An anisotropic Henry Problem is defined and the effect of the anisotropy in this type problem is investigated. Spatial heterogeneity is analysed within a geostatistical framework using a methodology based on Monte Carlo analysis. The basic steps are: first, a geostatistical model is selected and a number of heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity fields are generated for each model. Second, Henry’s problem is solved for all heterogeneous fields. Specifically, we aim at finding appropriate effective values for dispersivity as a function of heterogeneity. We find that, for dispersive problems, both toe position (i.e., seawater wedge penetration) and width of the mixing zone can be fairly well reproduced by a homogeneous medium with the same effective hydraulic conductivity and the (constant) dispersion coefficient which is assumed valid at the local scale (local dispersivity coefficient). Results can be improved by slightly increasing the dispersion values, specifically the geometric mean of the longitudinal and transversal dispersivity. Furthermore, effective diffusion is virtually equal to the local diffusion in diffusion dominated problems.
Tetra-μ2-acetato-diaquabis(μ2-2-{[1,3-dihydroxy-2-(oxidomethyl)propan-2-yl]iminomethyl}phenolato)trimanganese(II,III) acetonitrile disolvate dihydrate

In the title complex, [MnIIMnIII 2(C11H13NO4)2(CH3CO2)4(H2O)2]·2CH3CN·2H2O, there are two MnIII and one MnII atoms. The MnII atom lies on an inversion center and the MnIII—MnII—MnIII angle is therefore 180°, as required by crystallographic symmetry. The MnIII and MnII atoms are six-coordinated in a distorted octahedral geometry. In the crystal, complex molecules and solvent molecules are linked into a three-dimensional network by O—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen-bonding interactions.
Adjuvant cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone chemotherapy after radiation therapy in stage I low‐grade and intermediate‐grade non‐Hodgkin lymphoma. Results of a prospective randomized study

Background. In a prospective randomized manner, this study evaluated the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone; CHOP) in patients with Stage I non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) who have achieved a complete response (CR) after radiation therapy (RT).
Interactions of lipopolysaccharide with neutrophils in blood via CD14

The functional characteristics of neutrophils are exceedingly sensitive to physiological conditions as well as the details of isolation. Exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or even contamination of the isolating media with traces of LPS is known to play an important role in regulating cell function and expression of receptors. Because of the suspected role of GD14 as a receptor for LPS, we used anti‐CD14 monoclonal antibodies both to identify CD14 in the cell surface of polymorphonuclear leukocytes and to inhibit functional changes elicited by LPS. Cytometric techniques were used to investigate the regulation of CD14 and CR3 on the neutrophil cell surface in whole blood to minimize any effects of isolation. In whole blood neutrophils express low levels of formyl peptide receptor, CD14, and CR3, which increase substantially in response to formyl peptide and LPS. The increases in CR3 and CD14 occurred in parallel and were independent of protein synthesis and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production. The increase in CR3 was inhibited by antibodies MY4, 3C10, and 28C5 against CD14. These findings are consistent with the notion that in blood the observed receptor up‐regulation is in direct response to the action of LPS on neutrophils through CD14 and does not require products from macrophages such as TNF or the production of C5a from the plasma.
Registration of 3-D partial surface models using luminance and depth information

Textured surface models of three-dimensional objects are gaining importance in computer graphics applications. These models often have to be merged from several overlapping partial models which have to be registered (i.e. the relative transformation between the partial models has to be determined) prior to the merging process. In this paper a method is presented that makes use of both camera-based depth information (e.g. from stereo) and the luminance image. The luminance information is exploited to determine corresponding point sets on the partial surfaces using an optical flow approach. Quaternions are then employed to determine the transformation between the partial models which minimizes the sum of the 3-D Euclidian distances between the corresponding point sets. In order to find corresponding points on the partial surfaces luminance information is linearized. The procedure is iterated until convergence is reached. In contrast to only using depth information, employing luminance speeds up convergence and reduces remaining degrees of freedom (e.g. when registering sphere-like shapes).
Automatic Program Synthesis in Second-Order Logic

A resolution-based theorem prover, incorporating a restricted higher-order unification algorithm, has been applied to the automatic synthesis of SNOBOL-4 programs. The set of premisses includes second-order assignment and iteration axioms derived from those of Hoare. Two examples are given of the synthesis of programs that compute elementary functions.
AN OVERLAPPING DOMAIN DECOMPOSITION METHOD FOR THE REISSNER-MINDLIN PLATE WITH THE FALK-TU ELEMENTS

Abstract. The Reissner-Mindlin plate theory models a thin plate with thickness t. The condition numbers of finite element approximations of this model deteriorate badly as the thickness t of the plate converges to 0. In this paper, we develop an overlapping domain decomposition method for the Reissner-Mindlin plate model discretized by the Falk-Tu elements with the convergence rate which does not deteriorate when t converges to 0. It is shown that the condition number of this overlapping method is bounded by C(1 + H δ )(1 + log H h ). Here H is the maximum diameter of the subdomains, δ the size of overlap between subdomains, and h the element size. Numerical examples are provided to confirm the theory.