Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cordycepin stimulates autophagy in macrophages and prevents atherosclerotic plaque formation in ApoE-/- mice

Autophagy in macrophages plays a key role in the pathogenesis and progression of atherosclerosis and has become a potential therapeutic target. Here we show that cordycepin (Cpn), a natural derivative of adenosine, markedly reduced atherosclerotic plaque and ameliorated associated symptoms such as dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia and inflammation in ApoE-/- mice. Supplementation of Cpn dose-dependently inhibited oxLDL-elicited foam cell formation and modulated intracellular cholesterol homeostasis by inhibiting cholesterol uptake and promoting cholesterol efflux in RAW264.7 macrophages. Notably, Cpn exhibited significant stimulating effect on macrophage autophagy, as estimated by western blotting, immunofluorescent staining and autophagic vacuoles observation by transmission electron microscopy. The inhibitive effects of Cpn on foam cell formation were dramatically deteriorated in the presence of various autophagy inhibitors, suggesting that autophagy participate, at least in part, in the atheroprotective role of Cpn. Further investigations using different autophagy inhibitors and specific siRNAs for AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) gamma1 subunit indicated that Cpn may stimulate macrophage autophagy through AMPK-mTOR pathway. Together, our results demonstrated Cpn as a potential therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis, and the autophagic activity presents a novel mechanism for Cpn-mediated atheroprotection.
Inclusive Finance in the Asia‐Pacific Region: Trends and Approaches

In order to achieve inclusive green growth and sustainable development, the paper critically examines the inclusive finance approaches and their enabling environment. The analysis shows that microfinance, MSME finance, green finance approach and ICT based solution approach in financing delivery model would be an effective key enabler of inclusive growth and sustainable development in post-2015 SDG in the Asia Pacific region. Domestic stakeholders with collaboration with development partner should work together to adopt a broad based enabling environment for inclusive finance framework in the Asia pacific region.
DNS graph mining for malicious domain detection

As a vital component of variety cyber attacks, malicious domain detection becomes a hot topic for cyber security. Several recent techniques are proposed to identify malicious domains through analysis of DNS data because much of global information in DNS data which cannot be affected by the attackers. The attackers always recycle resources, so they frequently change the domain — IP resolutions and create new domains to avoid detection. Therefore, multiple malicious domains are hosted by the same IPs and multiple IPs also host same malicious domains in simultaneously, which create intrinsic association among them. Hence, using the labeled domains which can be traced back from queries history of all domains to verify and figure out the association of them all. Graphs seem the best candidate to represent for this relationship and there are many algorithms developed on graph with high performance. A graph-based interface can be developed and transformed to the graph mining task of inferring graph node's reputation scores using improvements of the belief propagation algorithm. Then higher reputation scores the nodes reveal, the more malicious probabilities they infer. For demonstration, this paper proposes a malicious domain detection technique and evaluates on a real-world dataset. The dataset is collected from DNS data servers which will be used for building a DNS graph. The proposed technique achieves high performance in accuracy rates over 98.3%, precision and recall rates as: 99.1%, 98.6%. Especially, with a small set of labeled domains (legitimate and malicious domains), the technique can discover a large set of potential malicious domains. The results indicate that the method is strongly effective in detecting malicious domains.
Breast Tissue Expanders with Magnetic Ports: Clinical Experience at 1.5 T

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate breast tissue expanders with magnetic ports for safety in patients undergoing abdominal/pelvic magnetic resonance angiography before autologous breast reconstruction. Methods: Magnetic resonance angiography of the abdomen and pelvis at 1.5 T was performed in 71 patients in prone position with tissue expanders with magnetic ports labeled “MR Unsafe” from July of 2012 to May of 2014. Patients were monitored during magnetic resonance angiography for tissue expander–related symptoms, and the chest wall tissue adjacent to the tissue expander was examined for injury at the time of tissue expander removal for breast reconstruction. Retrospective review of these patients’ clinical records was performed. T2-weighted fast spin echo, steady-state free precession and gadolinium-enhanced spoiled gradient echo sequences were assessed for image artifacts. Results: No patient had tissue expander or magnetic port migration during the magnetic resonance examination and none reported pain during scanning. On tissue expander removal (71 patients, 112 implants), the surgeons reported no evidence of tissue damage, and there were no operative complications at those sites of breast reconstruction. Conclusion: Magnetic resonance angiography of the abdomen and pelvis in patients with certain breast tissue expanders containing magnetic ports can be performed safely at 1.5 T for pre–autologous flap breast reconstruction perforator vessel mapping. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, IV.
Development and characterization of microsatellite loci in Excentrodendron hsienmu ( Chun & How )

Microsatellite markers were isolated using dualsuppression-PCR for the endangered species Excentrodendron hsienmu (Tiliaceae) to evaluate the genetic diversity and population structure of this species. A total of 11 polymorphic microsatellite loci were characterized in E. hsienmu. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 9, with an average of 5.27. The expected heterozygosity value ranged from 0.053 to 0.780, with an average of 0.568 and the observed heterozygosity value ranged from 0 to 0.595, with an average of 0.268. The polymorphic information content value ranged from 0.051 to 0.740, with an average of 0.521. These newly
Diagnostic telepathology through the Internet

Sir : In the review on diagnostic telepathology by P A Dervan and R Wootton the authors indicated the promising usefulness of this novel technique, and the different modalities in which it can be carried out. With reference to the Internet electronic mail as possible tool for communication in telepathology, we would like to underline that our group was the first to perform a number of validation studies. Briefly, we experimented with the feasibility of diagnostic telepathology through e-mail in gastrointestinal pathology, melanocytic lesions of the skin, breast cytology, and frozen sections in a total of about 300 cases; this let us study the problems of static telepathology and of the Internet with results similar to those described by the authors of the review. For a more complete description of our experience, a review about telepathology through electronic mail is available.
Delivery of small-interfering RNA (siRNA) to the brain

Background: Two fundamental difficulties in the delivery of drugs to treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases are the systemic delivery of therapeutics across the bloodbrain-barrier (BBB), and the targeting of drugs to specific tissues or cells within the brain. With the advent and promise of RNA-based therapeutics that utilize RNA interference (RNAi) to trigger specific silencing of genes within diseased tissues, the necessity to surmount such obstacles has become even more urgent. Objective: Most pre-clinical and clinical studies on delivery of RNAi to the CNS have utilized invasive, intra-cerebral delivery of RNA to the targeted tissue. Thus, methods need to be developed to facilitate delivery of therapeutically significant quantities of RNA to the CNS via the systemic route, and to elicit clinically significant RNAi effects within the CNS tissues. Methods: Cell-penetrating-peptides (CPPs) are ‘molecular delivery vehicles’ that can traverse cell membranes and co-transport peptides or polynucleotides. The present invention examines 1) the utility of CPP-RNA duplexes for delivery of RNA to CNS tissues and, 2) cell-mediated release of the RNA payload once the CPP-RNA duplex is internalized by the CNS cells. Conclusions: The invention and embodiments listed therein outline molecular tools that can be adapted for non-invasive, systemic delivery of therapeutic RNA to the CNS in a future clinical setting.
Optimization of Specific on-Resistance of Semisuperjunction Trench MOSFETs with Charge Balance

Analytical models of the 2-D electric field distributions of the interdigitated balanced symmetric semisuperjunction (SemiSJ) structure, based on the charge superposition method, are derived. An accurate approximation of the exact analytical solution of the vertical electric field is also proposed and demonstrated by device simulation. The optimization method and its numerical calculation results of the specific on-resistance of the SemiSJ trench MOSFETs with constant aspect ratio (AR) are presented and verified by simulations. The calculation results show that the optimized specific on-resistance of SemiSJ trench MOSFETs can be reduced by more than 12% with AR equaling three, as compared with that of superjunction trench MOSFETs. The effect of charge imbalance on the breakdown voltage (BV) is also investigated. It is found that the maximum BV is achieved at high-Qp condition rather than at charge-balance condition.
The Implementation Of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) With Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to Improve Customers’ Loyalty

PT. Astra International Tbk - Honda (Astra Motor Indralaya) is a company which is engaged in the sale of products and services. Astra Motor often has problems such as product information distribution using brochure causing the effort not to be maximum. It also causes information delivery to customers to be inaccurate. There is also another problem which is the booking time that takes too long either for a motorcycle or spare parts. Therefore, the researchers are attempting to make a software using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) by leveraging web services technology. SOA is a form of technology architecture that follows the principles of service orientation (service-oriented).
Intensités vibratoire et acoustique dans les tuyaux

Dans cette these est etudie le probleme de la propagation des energies vibratoire et acoustique dans les tuyaux. L'etude commence par la presentation de theories des coques generales en notation tensorielle. Les theories des coques cylindriques de Flugge et de Flugge-Timoshenko sont utilisees pour decrire le comportement vibratoire de la paroi du tuyau. La theorie de Flugge-Timoshenko inclut les effets de cisaillement et d'inertie de rotation. Le fluide a l'interieur du tuyau est suppose acoustique et son comportement est modelise par l'equation d'ondes dans le repere cylindrique. Le couplage entre la paroi et le fluide interne est pris en compte. Les ondes elastiques qui se propagent dans la paroi du tuyau et celles acoustiques dans le fluide interne parcourent le tuyau dans le sens axial sous forme d'ondes libres, evanescentes et attenuees. L'energie nette totale transferee dans le tuyau est constitue de la contribution vibratoire et acoustique. Chaque contribution est due a l'interaction des ondes libres d'une part et a l'interaction des ondes evanescentes d'autre part. L'effet de l'interaction des ondes attenuees n'est pas un transfert d'energie nette mais une formation d'ondes evanescentes stationnaires. En raison du couplage entre la paroi le fluide interne, le flux total d'energie nette peut etre exprime en termes de deplacements de la paroi. Ceci permet le developpement des techniques experimentales pour determiner le flux total par la mesure des grandeurs vibratoires sur la paroi. Les resultats des essais realises en laboratoire et sur la tuyauterie d'un compresseur frigorifique sont presentes
A Virtual Service Provider for SOHO Networks

The ability of SOHO networks to connect to the Internet through several Internet service providers, gives high potential to enable rich cloud-based network services for enterprises. Nevertheless, it remains a huge challenge for SOHOs to leverage such multi-homing and cloud networking capabilities. For such a reason, we introduce the vSP concept (virtual Service Provider). The idea of vSP is to hide the technical complexity inherent to multi-homing and allow SOHOs to seamlessly use their cloud resources. The role of the vSP is to orchestrate traffic between the different Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in order to maximize the cloud service performance without requiring any intervention of the SOHO network administrator.
Employment Seeking Behaviours Among Newly Certified Ontario Teachers

In Ontario, Canada, the legislation commonly known as Regulation 274, outlines how newly certified teachers in the province are offered employment in the province’s schools, and limits their options for immediate full-time employment in teaching. The new 2-year certification teacher preparation program in Ontario, which started in the fall of 2015, produced its first cohort of teachers in spring 2017. The cohort is arguably the best prepared group of teachers ever produced in the province, since they have twice the professional training (both course hours and practicum time) of any previous cohort of teachers in the jurisdiction. However, Regulation 274 continues to limit their access to immediate full-time employment in the profession. The researchers sought to identify the job-seeking behaviours and plans of this new group of teachers and to examine correlations between the group’s job seeking behaviours and plans, in the current employment climate of the province, and their level of student debt as they exit the two-year preparation program, as well as other factors that may affect their employment in the profession. Debt and other social factors were found to influence employment decisions of these new teachers.
Is uncertainty over Brexit damaging the UK and European equities

The possibility the UK might leave the European Union –also known as Brexit– is a major source of concern. This article seeks to assess the costs of uncertainty over Brexit by delving into the impacts of the attention given to this event (via Google Trends and Twitter) on UK, German and French equities, while controlling for the effects of global financial and economic factors. We use different econometric tools enable to measure the strength of Brexit’ effect as alternative to tail distributions (quantile regression approach) and spectral components (frequency domain causality test). Despite a heaviest awareness that it is difficult to properly quantify the costs of uncertainty over Brexit, this study provides evidence that the severity of Brexit’ impact was not uniform across the investigated equities. Germany suffered most if the British exit from Europe happens, followed by France and UK. These results are fairly robust among the different methods and the internet proxies used.
Colocalization of WT1 and cell proliferation reveals conserved mechanisms in temperature‐dependent sex determination

Summary: During vertebrate development the gonad has two possible fates, the testis or the ovary. The choice between these fates is made by a variety of sex‐determining mechanisms, from the sex‐determining gene on the Y chromosome (Sry) in mammals, to nongenetic temperature‐dependent systems in many reptiles. Despite the differences in the mechanisms at the top of the sex‐determining cascade, the resulting morphology and many genes involved in early testis and ovarian development are common to most vertebrates, leading to the hypothesis that the underlying processes of sex determination are conserved. In this study, we examined the early steps of gonad development in the red‐eared slider turtle (Trachemys scripta), a species that uses the temperature of egg incubation to determine sex. A dramatic increase in cell proliferation was observed in the male gonad during the earliest stages of sex determination. Using the localization of Wilms' Tumor suppressor 1 (WT1), we determined that this proliferation increase occurred in a population that contained pre‐Sertoli cells. The proliferation of pre‐Sertoli cells has been documented during sex determination in both mice and alligators, suggesting that proliferation of this cell type has an important role in vertebrate testis organogenesis and the determination of male fate. genesis 35:193–201, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
GDP-D-mannose pyrophosphorylase from Pogonatherum paniceum enhances salinity and drought tolerance of transgenic tobacco

Abstract Pogonatherum paniceum is a highly drought- and salt-tolerant plant species that is typically used for ecological restoration and the conservation of soil and water in many countries. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant abiotic stress responses, especially to salinity and drought stresses, in species such as P. paniceum could be important to broader crop improvement efforts. GDP-D-mannose pyrophosphorylase (GMPase) is the limiting enzyme in the synthesis of L-ascorbic acid (AsA), which plays a crucial role in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We have cloned and characterized the cDNA of the PpGMP gene of P. paniceum encoding a GMPase. The full-length cDNA sequence contains 1411 nucleotides encoding a putative protein with 361 amino acid residues and an approximate molecular mass of 39.68 kDa. The GMPase transcript was up-regulated in P. paniceum plants subjected to salinity and drought stress, respectively. Transgenic tobacco expressing PpGMPase exhibited enhanced salinity and drought resistance, a higher seed germination rate, better growth performance, a higher AsA content, a more stable redox state, higher superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and lower levels of malonaldehyde (MDA) and H2O2 under drought and salinity stress. Taken together, expression of PpGMPase in tobacco conferred salinity and drought stress tolerance by increasing the content of AsA, thereby enhancing ROS-detoxifying functions. Thus, PpGMP is a potential candidate gene for crop improvement.
A micro-immune adherence test for the detction of HL-A antigens.

A micro-method utilizing immune adherence has been developed for the detection of HL-A antigens and the corresponding antibodies. The micro-immune adherence reaction is particularly clear and sensitive when cultured lymphocytoid cells of established human hematopoietic cell lines are used as target cells. The method is simple and rapid to perform. HL-A antigens in particulate and solubilized states can be titrated readily by inhibition of the immune adherence reaction; peripheral lymphocytes can also be typed in a similar manner.
Randomized Trial of Rapid Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction-Based Blood Culture Identification and Susceptibility Testing.

BACKGROUND The value of rapid, panel-based molecular diagnostics for positive blood culture bottles (BCBs) has not been rigorously assessed. We performed a prospective randomized controlled trial evaluating outcomes associated with rapid multiplex PCR (rmPCR) detection of bacteria, fungi, and resistance genes directly from positive BCBs. METHODS A total of 617 patients with positive BCBs underwent stratified randomization into 3 arms: standard BCB processing (control, n = 207), rmPCR reported with templated comments (rmPCR, n = 198), or rmPCR reported with templated comments and real-time audit and feedback of antimicrobial orders by an antimicrobial stewardship team (rmPCR/AS, n = 212). The primary outcome was antimicrobial therapy duration. Secondary outcomes were time to antimicrobial de-escalation or escalation, length of stay (LOS), mortality, and cost. RESULTS Time from BCB Gram stain to microorganism identification was shorter in the intervention group (1.3 hours) vs control (22.3 hours) (P < .001). Compared to the control group, both intervention groups had decreased broad-spectrum piperacillin-tazobactam (control 56 hours, rmPCR 44 hours, rmPCR/AS 45 hours; P = .01) and increased narrow-spectrum β-lactam (control 42 hours, rmPCR 71 hours, rmPCR/AS 85 hours; P = .04) use, and less treatment of contaminants (control 25%, rmPCR 11%, rmPCR/AS 8%; P = .015). Time from Gram stain to appropriate antimicrobial de-escalation or escalation was shortest in the rmPCR/AS group (de-escalation: rmPCR/AS 21 hours, control 34 hours, rmPCR 38 hours, P < .001; escalation: rmPCR/AS 5 hours, control 24 hours, rmPCR 6 hours, P = .04). Groups did not differ in mortality, LOS, or cost. CONCLUSIONS rmPCR reported with templated comments reduced treatment of contaminants and use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials. Addition of antimicrobial stewardship enhanced antimicrobial de-escalation. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION NCT01898208.
The association of H. pylori and colorectal adenoma: does it exist in the US Hispanic population?

BACKGROUND Although data on the association between colorectal adenomas and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) exists in White and Black patients, there is no data on this association in a US Hispanic population. Our aim was to study the association of adenoma detection and biopsy proven H. pylori infection in a cohort of US Hispanics. METHODS Data were collected from Nassau University Medical Center, a 530-bed tertiary care teaching hospital in East Meadow, New York. Patients who underwent both an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and colonoscopy from July 2009 to March 2011 were pulled from an electronic database. A total of 1,737 patients completed colonoscopies during this time with 95 excluded: 17 inflammatory bowel disease, 12 malignancy, 22 prior history of colorectal adenoma, and 44 incomplete. Among the colonoscopies, 799 patients had EGD's performed prior to colonoscopies that were eligible for our study. RESULTS H. pylori prevalence was highest in Hispanics 40.9%, followed by Blacks 29.1% (OR 0.59, 95% CI: 0.42-0.84), then Whites 7.9% (OR 0.12, 95% CI: 0.06-0.24). The adenoma detection rate was significantly higher in Whites 23.2% and Blacks 21.8% compared to Hispanics 14.5%, P=0.0002 respectively. Smoking and alcohol were lower in the H. pylori group, 18.6% (n=44) vs. 26.1% (n=147) for smoking (P=0.02) and 14.4% (n=34) vs. 19% (n=107) for alcohol (P=0.12), respectively. There was no evidence in the Hispanics for an association between adenoma detection and H. pylori infection. Furthermore size, location, and multiple polyps did not differ between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS While data has shown an association between H. pylori and colorectal adenomas, we did not find this in our Hispanic population. With the growing population of Hispanics in the U.S, large scale studies are needed to conclusively characterize the role of H. pylori infection in colorectal adenoma and adenocarcinoma in this group of patients.