Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of the latent TGF-beta binding protein in the activation of latent TGF-beta by co-cultures of endothelial and smooth muscle cells

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) is released from cells in a latent form consisting of the mature growth factor associated with an aminoterminal propeptide and latent TGF-beta binding protein (LTBP). The endogenous activation of latent TGF-beta has been described in co- cultures of endothelial and smooth muscle cells. However, the mechanism of this activation remains unknown. Antibodies to native platelet LTBP and to a peptide fragment of LTBP inhibit in a dose-dependent manner the activation of latent TGF-beta normally observed when endothelial cells are cocultured with smooth muscle cells. Inhibition of latent TGF- beta activation was also observed when cells were co-cultured in the presence of an excess of free LTBP. These data represent the first demonstration of a function for the LTBP in the extracellular regulation of TGF-beta activity and indicate that LTBP participates in the activation of latent TGF-beta, perhaps by concentrating the latent growth factor on the cell surface where activation occurs.
Computing Posterior Probabilities of Structural Features in Bayesian Networks

We study the problem of learning Bayesian network structures from data. Koivisto and Sood (2004) and Koivisto (2006) presented algorithms that can compute the exact marginal posterior probability of a subnetwork, e.g., a single edge, in O(n2n) time and the posterior probabilities for all n(n-1) potential edges in O(n2n) total time, assuming that the number of parents per node or the indegree is bounded by a constant. One main drawback of their algorithms is the requirement of a special structure prior that is non uniform and does not respect Markov equivalence. In this paper, we develop an algorithm that can compute the exact posterior probability of a subnetwork in O(3n) time and the posterior probabilities for all n(n - 1) potential edges in O(n3n) total time. Our algorithm also assumes a bounded indegree but allows general structure priors. We demonstrate the applicability of the algorithm on several data sets with up to 20 variables.
Review Article Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors Associated with Neurofibromatosis 1: a Single Centre Experience and Systematic Review of the Literature including 252 Cases

Aims. The objectives of this study were (a) to report our experience regarding the association between neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs); (b) to provide a systematic review of the literature in this field; and (c) to compare the features of NF1-associated GISTs with those reported in sporadic GISTs. Methods. We reported two cases of NF1-associated GISTs. Moreover we reviewed 23 case reports/series including 252 GISTs detected in 126 NF1 patients; the data obtained from different studies were analyzed and compared to those of the sporadic GISTs undergone surgical treatment at our centre. Results. NF1 patients presenting with GISTs had a homogeneous M/F ratio with a mean age of 52.8 years. NF1-associated GISTs were often reported as multiple tumors, mainly incidental, localized at the jejunum, with a mean diameter of 3.8 cm, a mean mitotic count of 3.0/50 HPF, and KIT/PDGFRí µí»¼ wild type. We reported a statistical difference comparing the age and the symptoms at presentation, the tumors' diameters and localizations, and the risk criteria of the NF1-associated GISTs comparing to those documented in sporadic GISTs. Conclusions. NF1-associated GISTs seem to have a distinct phenotype, specifically younger age, distal localization, small diameter, and absence of KIT/PDGRFí µí»¼ mutations.
Hypoxic Repression of Endothelial Nitric-oxide Synthase Transcription Is Coupled with Eviction of Promoter Histones*♦

Hypoxia elicits endothelial dysfunction, in part, through reduced expression of endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS). Here we present evidence that hypoxia causes a rapid decrease in the transcription of the eNOS/NOS3 gene, accompanied by decreased acetylation and lysine 4 (histone H3) methylation of eNOS proximal promoter histones. Surprisingly, we demonstrate that histones are rapidly evicted from the eNOS proximal promoter during hypoxia. We also demonstrate endothelium-specific H2A.Z incorporation at the eNOS promoter and find that H2A.Z is also evicted by hypoxic stimulation. After longer durations of hypoxia, histones are reincorporated at the eNOS promoter, but these histones lack substantial histone acetylation. Additionally, we identify a key role for the chromatin remodeler, BRG1, in re-establishing eNOS expression following reoxygenation of hypoxic cells. We posit that post-translational histone modifications are required to maintain constitutive eNOS transcriptional activity and that histone eviction rapidly resets histone marks and is a proximal event in the hypoxic repression of eNOS. Although nucleosome eviction has been reported in models of transcriptional activation, the observation that eviction can also accompany transcriptional repression in hypoxic mammalian cells argues that eviction may be broadly relevant to both positive and negative changes in transcription.
Functional Genomic Analysis of Aspergillus flavus Interacting with Resistant and Susceptible Peanut

In the Aspergillus flavus (A. flavus)–peanut pathosystem, development and metabolism of the fungus directly influence aflatoxin contamination. To comprehensively understand the molecular mechanism of A. flavus interaction with peanut, RNA-seq was used for global transcriptome profiling of A. flavus during interaction with resistant and susceptible peanut genotypes. In total, 67.46 Gb of high-quality bases were generated for A. flavus-resistant (af_R) and -susceptible peanut (af_S) at one (T1), three (T2) and seven (T3) days post-inoculation. The uniquely mapped reads to A. flavus reference genome in the libraries of af_R and af_S at T2 and T3 were subjected to further analysis, with more than 72% of all obtained genes expressed in the eight libraries. Comparison of expression levels both af_R vs. af_S and T2 vs. T3 uncovered 1926 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). DEGs associated with mycelial growth, conidial development and aflatoxin biosynthesis were up-regulated in af_S compared with af_R, implying that A. flavus mycelia more easily penetrate and produce much more aflatoxin in susceptible than in resistant peanut. Our results serve as a foundation for understanding the molecular mechanisms of aflatoxin production differences between A. flavus-R and -S peanut, and offer new clues to manage aflatoxin contamination in crops.
Applying a Model-based Approach for Embedded System Development

Model-based and component-oriented software development approaches are slowly superseding traditional ways of developing embedded systems. For investigating to which extent model-based development is feasible for embedded system development, we conducted a case study in which a small embedded system is developed using the MARMOT approach. In order to evaluate the degree of reuse that might be achieved, the components of the case study are used in the context of different small projects. Several aspects of reuse, application size, ease of adaptation, and development effort are quantified. This analysis reveals that model-based and component-oriented development performs well for small embedded systems, and it leads to the conclusion that model-driven/component-based development of embedded systems enables adaptable applications with higher- than-normal reuse rate.
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Kidney Cancer Risk: A Retrospective Cohort Analysis of the National Health Insurance

Purpose To evaluate the association between incidence of any kidney cancer and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods A random sample of 1,000,000 subjects covered by the National Health Insurance was recruited. A total of 998728 people (115655 diabetes and 883073 non-diabetes) without kidney cancer at recruitment were followed from 2003 to 2005. The cumulative incidence of kidney cancer from 2003 to 2005 in diabetic patients and non-diabetic people in all ages and in age <40, 40–64, 65–74 and ≥75 years were calculated in the diabetic patients and the non-diabetic people, respectively. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios comparing diabetic patients to non-diabetic people in the respective age groups. Multivariable-adjusted odds ratios for kidney cancer with regards to diabetes status and diabetes duration (as a continuous variable or categorized into subgroups of non-diabetes, diabetes duration <1 year, 1–2.9 years, 3–4.9 years and ≥5 years) were estimated after multivariable adjustment. The multivariable-adjusted odds ratios for all baseline variables were also estimated for diabetic patients and non-diabetic people, respectively. Results The 3-year cumulative incidence of kidney cancer in the diabetic patients and the non-diabetic people was 166.9 and 33.1 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. The incidence increased with regards to increasing age in both the diabetic patients and the non-diabetic people, but a higher risk of kidney cancer for the diabetic patients compared to the non-diabetic people was consistently observed in different age groups. After multivariable adjustment, the odds ratio for diabetic patients versus non-diabetic people was 1.7 (95% confidence interval: 1.3–2.1, P<0.01). While compared to the non-diabetic people, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for diabetes duration <1, 1–2.9 years, 3–4.9 years and ≥5 years was 1.5 (0.8–2.7), 1.6 (1.0–2.4), 1.6 (1.1–2.4) and 1.7 (1.3–2.3), respectively (P-trend <0.01). Analyses conducted in the diabetic patients and the non-diabetic people, respectively, consistently showed age, nephropathy and end-stage renal disease as significant risk factors of kidney cancer. Additionally, living in metropolitan Taipei region might also be associated with a higher risk of kidney cancer in the non-diabetic people, indicating a potential link between kidney cancer and some factors related to urbanization. Conclusions Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have a significantly higher risk of kidney cancer.
EEG-Based User Reaction Time Estimation Using Riemannian Geometry Features

Riemannian geometry has been successfully used in many brain–computer interface (BCI) classification problems and demonstrated superior performance. In this paper, for the first time, it is applied to BCI regression problems, an important category of BCI applications. More specifically, we propose a new feature extraction approach for electroencephalogram (EEG)-based BCI regression problems: a spatial filter is first used to increase the signal quality of the EEG trials and also to reduce the dimensionality of the covariance matrices, and then Riemannian tangent space features are extracted. We validate the performance of the proposed approach in reaction time estimation from EEG signals measured in a large-scale sustained-attention psychomotor vigilance task, and show that compared with the traditional powerband features, the tangent space features can reduce the root mean square estimation error by 4.30%–8.30%, and increase the estimation correlation coefficient by 6.59%–11.13%.
Tearing properties of upholstery flocked fabrics

We have studied the tearing strength of substrate woven fabric, substrate with adhesive, flocked fabric and washed flocked fabric on dry and wet conditions. The tensile strength of the rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabrics in dry and wet conditions were also researched, and a statistical model was developed for the analysis of the tearing behavior of these fabric forms. Warp and weft tearing strengths of rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric in wet conditions were slightly higher than those in dry conditions. The reason was partly the high wet strength characteristic of cotton fiber and partly the lubrication effect of acrylic adhesive under wet conditions. Although the weft density of the substrate fabric was around half of its warp density, there was a small difference between warp and weft tearing strengths of dry and wet states of rubbed flocked fabric. This was attributed to the dense structure having less free space and less ultimate deformation potential and ultimately reducing the tearing strength. When the stroke number increased, the warp and weft tearing strengths of dry and wet states of rubbed flocked fabric generally decreased. It was also found that the stroke number of wet rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric was low in comparison with stroke number of dry rubbed flocked fabric and rubbed washed flocked fabric. The reason was that the wet acrylic adhesive had poor properties. The results from the regression model were compared with the measured values mainly by the mean absolute percent error parameter which enables us to conclude that the developed regression equations explain the tearing strength of flocked fabrics.
A Modeling of Singing Voice Robust to Accompaniment Sounds and Its Application to Singer Identification and Vocal-Timbre-Similarity-Based Music Information Retrieval

This paper describes a method of modeling the characteristics of a singing voice from polyphonic musical audio signals including sounds of various musical instruments. Because singing voices play an important role in musical pieces with vocals, such representation is useful for music information retrieval systems. The main problem in modeling the characteristics of a singing voice is the negative influences caused by accompaniment sounds. To solve this problem, we developed two methods, accompaniment sound reduction and reliable frame selection . The former makes it possible to calculate feature vectors that represent a spectral envelope of a singing voice after reducing accompaniment sounds. It first extracts the harmonic components of the predominant melody from sound mixtures and then resynthesizes the melody by using a sinusoidal model driven by these components. The latter method then estimates the reliability of frame of the obtained melody (i.e., the influence of accompaniment sound) by using two Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) for vocal and nonvocal frames to select the reliable vocal portions of musical pieces. Finally, each song is represented by its GMM consisting of the reliable frames. This new representation of the singing voice is demonstrated to improve the performance of an automatic singer identification system and to achieve an MIR system based on vocal timbre similarity.
Role of cognitive reserve in progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia

Cognitive reserve is the ability to optimize performance through differential recruitment of brain networks, which may reflect the use of alternative cognitive strategies. Objectives To identify factors related to cognitive reserve associated with progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to degenerative dementia. Methods A cohort of 239 subjects with MCI (age: 72.2±8.1 years, 58% women, education: 12 years) was assessed and followed for five years (2001 to 2006). Results In the first year, 13.7% of MCI converted to dementia and 34.7% converted within three years (78.3% converted to Alzheimer’s dementia). Risk factors for those who converted were education less than 12 years, MMSE score less than 27, Boston naming test score less than 51, IQ (Intelligence Quotient) less than 111, age over 75 years, lack of occupation at retirement, and presence of intrusions in memory recall (all account for 56% of the variability of conversion). Conclusions MCI patients are a population at high risk for dementia. The study of risk factors (e.g. IQ, education and occupation), particularly those related to cognitive reserve, can contribute important evidence to guide the decision-making process in routine clinical activity and public health policy.
Ag–Au bimetallic nanostructures: co-reduction synthesis and their component-dependent performance for enzyme-free H2O2 sensing

In this work, Ag–Au bimetallic nanostructures with various component ratios were successfully synthesized through a simple kinetic controlled co-reduction route at room temperature. The structure and composition of the as-obtained products has been adjusted and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDX) elemental mapping, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and UV-visible spectra. Meanwhile, Ag67.3Au32. 7 bimetallic nanostructures were identified to show the best sensing performance in the enzyme-free detection of H2O2 with a short response time (<5 s) at an applied potential of −0.5 V, a linear range from 0.01 to 68 mM (R2 = 0.998) with a lower detection limit of 0.2 μM and higher sensitivity of 600 μA mM−1 cm−2. More importantly, the component-dependent electrochemical sensor data of different component nanostructures has been studied, and the synergistic effect between Ag and Au can lead to the best performance of H2O2 sensing. The interaction of diffusion and adsorption we raised reasonably has been used to explain the component-depended performance. Significantly, this work supplies an understanding of the bimetallic component effect for H2O2 sensing by the control of the components of the Ag–Au bimetal, and find out the Ag67.3Au32. 7 bimetallic nanostructures are the most excellent candidate for enzyme-free H2O2 sensing.
Optical and field emission properties in different nanostructures of ZnO

ZnO nanostructures with different morphologies e.g. nanotetrapods, nanorods, nanocombs and nanoaeroplanes has been fabricated by evaporation of pure zinc powder without catalysts in the temperature range of 400~900 °C. The structures and properties of obtained products were examined using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction, room temperature photoluminescence and field emission. Photoluminescence spectra showed an ultravoilet-green emission and strong orange-red emission peaks at room temperature. The field emission studies of the as grown nanocombs revealed that threshold field, required to draw a current density of ~1.0 μA/cm2 is ~ 1.4 V/μm. An emission current density of ~9.05 μA/cm2 has been drawn from nanocombs at an applied electric field of ~ 1.92 V/μm. The field enhancement factor found to be ~8050, indicating that the electron emission from nanometric dimension of the emitter. Such, ZnO nanostructures are likely to be candidates as building blocks for constructing photonic and flat panel display.
Distributed route planning for multiple mobile robots using an augmented Lagrangian decomposition and coordination technique

To enable efficient transportation in semiconductor fabrication bays, it is necessary to generate route planning of multiple automated guided vehicles (AGVs) efficiently to minimize the total transportation time without collision among AGVs. In this paper, we propose a distributed route-planning method for multiple mobile robots using an augmented Lagrangian decomposition and coordination technique. The proposed method features a characteristic that each AGV individually creates a near-optimal routing plan through repetitive data exchange among the AGVs and local optimization for each AGV. Dijkstra's algorithm is used for local optimization. The optimality of the solution generated by the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the solution with an optimal solution derived by solving integer linear programming problems. A near-optimal solution, within 3% of the average gap from the optimal solution for an example transportation system consisting of 143 nodes and 14 AGVs, can be derived in less than 5 s of computation time for 100 types of requests. The proposed method is implemented in an experimental system with three AGVs, and the routing plan is derived in the configuration space, taking the motion of the robot into account. It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed method is effective for various problems, despite the fact that each route for an AGV is created without minimizing the entire objective function.
Cholesterol Depletion Delocalizes Phosphatidylinositol Bisphosphate and Inhibits Hormone-stimulated Phosphatidylinositol Turnover*

Caveolae and detergent-insoluble, glycosphingolipid-enriched domains (DIGs) are cholesterol-enriched membrane domains that have been implicated in signal transduction because a variety of signaling proteins as well as phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate (PtdInsP2) are compartmentalized in these domains. We report here that depletion of cellular cholesterol leads to the inhibition of epidermal growth factor- and bradykinin-stimulated PtdIns turnover in A431 cells. This is associated with the loss of compartmentalization of epidermal growth factor receptors, Gq, and PtdInsP2 in the low density membrane domains. Replacement of cellular cholesterol leads to the reorganization of signaling molecules in the low density domains and the reestablishment of hormone-stimulated PtdIns hydrolysis. Oxysterol derivatives show a variable ability to functionally replace the cholesterol in this system. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that localization of signaling proteins and lipids to cholesterol-enriched domains is required for the proper function of hormone-stimulated PtdIns turnover.
Beyond the sentence given

A central and influential idea among researchers of language is that our language faculty is organized according to Fregean compositionality, which states that the meaning of an utterance is a function of the meaning of its parts and of the syntactic rules by which these parts are combined. Since the domain of syntactic rules is the sentence, the implication of this idea is that language interpretation takes place in a two-step fashion. First, the meaning of a sentence is computed. In a second step, the sentence meaning is integrated with information from prior discourse, world knowledge, information about the speaker and semantic information from extra-linguistic domains such as co-speech gestures or the visual world. Here, we present results from recordings of event-related brain potentials that are inconsistent with this classical two-step model of language interpretation. Our data support a one-step model in which knowledge about the context and the world, concomitant information from other modalities, and the speaker are brought to bear immediately, by the same fast-acting brain system that combines the meanings of individual words into a message-level representation. Underlying the one-step model is the immediacy assumption, according to which all available information will immediately be used to co-determine the interpretation of the speaker's message. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data that we collected indicate that Broca's area plays an important role in semantic unification. Language comprehension involves the rapid incorporation of information in a ‘single unification space’, coming from a broader range of cognitive domains than presupposed in the standard two-step model of interpretation.
Ductile-to-semiductile transition in PP-MWNT nanocomposites

A ductile-to-semiductile transition in the crack resistance behaviour of PP/MWNT composites is discussed, using an essential work of fracture approach based on a post yield fracture mechanics concept and its possible interrelation to the structural attributes studied by TEM, SEM, and WAXD. A maximum in the non-essential work of fracture is observed at 0.5 wt. -% MWNT content, which demonstrates the enhanced resistance to crack propagation compared to pure PP, followed by a sharp decline with the increase in MWNT content to 1.5 wt. -%, which reveals a ductile-to-semiductile transition. Fracture kinetic studies present a qualitative picture of the nature of such a transition in terms of a) switch over from non-steady (in pure PP) to steady-state crack tip opening displacement rate (in nanocomposites), and b) a ductile-to-semiductile transition; largely as a result of delayed- yielding of the nanocomposites.