Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Prion protein-EGFR multimolecular complex during neuronal differentiation of human dental pulp-derived stem cells

ABSTRACT Cellular prion protein (PrPC) is expressed in a wide variety of stem cells in which regulates their self-renewal as well as differentiation potential. In this study we investigated the presence of PrPC in human dental pulp-derived stem cells (hDPSCs) and its role in neuronal differentiation process. We show that hDPSCs expresses early PrPC at low concentration and its expression increases after two weeks of treatment with EGF/bFGF. Then, we analyzed the association of PrPC with gangliosides and EGF receptor (EGF-R) during neuronal differentiation process. PrPC associates constitutively with GM2 in control hDPSCs and with GD3 only after neuronal differentiation. Otherwise, EGF-R associates weakly in control hDPSCs and more markedly after neuronal differentiation. To analyze the functional role of PrPC in the signal pathway mediated by EGF/EGF-R, a siRNA PrP was applied to ablate PrPC and its function. The treatment with siRNA PrP significantly prevented Akt and ERK1/2 phosphorylation induced by EGF. Moreover, siRNA PrP treatment significantly prevented neuronal-specific antigens expression induced by EGF/bFGF, indicating that cellular prion protein is essential for EGF/bFGF-induced hDPSCs differentiation. These results suggest that PrPC interact with EGF-R within lipid rafts, playing a role in the multimolecular signaling complexes involved in hDPSCs neuronal differentiation.
TelAP1 links telomere complexes with developmental expression site silencing in African trypanosomes

Abstract During its life cycle, Trypanosoma brucei shuttles between a mammalian host and the tsetse fly vector. In the mammalian host, immune evasion of T. brucei bloodstream form (BSF) cells relies on antigenic variation, which includes monoallelic expression and periodic switching of variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) genes. The active VSG is transcribed from only 1 of the 15 subtelomeric expression sites (ESs). During differentiation from BSF to the insect-resident procyclic form (PCF), the active ES is transcriptionally silenced. We used mass spectrometry-based interactomics to determine the composition of telomere protein complexes in T. brucei BSF and PCF stages to learn more about the structure and functions of telomeres in trypanosomes. Our data suggest a different telomere complex composition in the two forms of the parasite. One of the novel telomere-associated proteins, TelAP1, forms a complex with telomeric proteins TbTRF, TbRAP1 and TbTIF2 and influences ES silencing kinetics during developmental differentiation.
Effect of UV rays on degradation and stability of high performance polymer membranes

Acid doped polybenzimidazole membranes have emerged as an efficient electrolyte for high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (HTPEMFCs). The long term stability of polybenzimidazole membranes has been recognized as an important issue for commercial applications. Here, we report the oxidative degradation of polybenzimidazole membranes. The photoirradiation of poly(2,2'-ethylene-5,5'-bibenzimidazole) (PBIE) under accelerated photodegradation conditions was carried out by ultraviolet (UV) rays (λ > 300 nm) and characterized by Fourier transform infra red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and contact angle measurements (CAM). The thermal properties of PBIE membranes were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) which revealed a lowering in thermal stability after photodegradation. FT-IR spectra revealed high absorbance in the carbonyl region in photoirradiated membranes whereas SEM showed nano structures / defects on the polymer film surface. CAM results showed enhancement in hydrophilic behavior and WAXD revealed increase in amorphous nature upon irradiation. Copyright © 2014 VBRI press.
Effects of inspiratory muscle training in elderly women on respiratory muscle strength, diaphragm thickness and mobility.

BACKGROUND Aging results in a decline in the function of the respiratory muscles. Inspiratory muscle training is emerging as a possible intervention to attenuate the decline of respiratory muscles in the elderly. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of inspiratory muscle training on respiratory strength, diaphragm thickness, and diaphragmatic mobility in elderly women. METHODS This was a controlled, randomized, and double-blind clinical trial, performed on 22 elderly women distributed in two groups, training (TG) and control (CG). Over an 8-week period a moderate intensity inspiratory muscle training protocol was followed in the TG, while CG followed a sham protocol. In addition maximum expiratory and inspiratory pressure, mobility of the diaphragm and diaphragmatic thickness were evaluated by ultrasound. RESULTS After training, in TG maximal inspiratory pressure, maximal expiratory pressure, diaphragm thickness, and mobility increased by 37%, 13%, 11%, and 9% respectively, and their values were significantly higher than CG (p < .005, p = .013, p = .001, and p = .001). CONCLUSION Inspiratory muscle training of moderate intensity improves respiratory muscle strength, diaphragm thickness, and diaphragm mobility in elderly women and it should be considered to minimize changes associated with senescence.
L1 retrotransposition is a common feature of mammalian hepatocarcinogenesis

The retrotransposon Long Interspersed Element 1 (LINE-1 or L1) is a continuing source of germline and somatic mutagenesis in mammals. Deregulated L1 activity is a hallmark of cancer, and L1 mutagenesis has been described in numerous human malignancies. We previously employed retrotransposon capture sequencing (RC-seq) to analyze hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples from patients infected with hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus and identified L1 variants responsible for activating oncogenic pathways. Here, we have applied RC-seq and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to an Abcb4 (Mdr2)−/− mouse model of hepatic carcinogenesis and demonstrated for the first time that L1 mobilization occurs in murine tumors. In 12 HCC nodules obtained from 10 animals, we validated four somatic L1 insertions by PCR and capillary sequencing, including TF subfamily elements, and one GF subfamily example. One of the TF insertions carried a 3′ transduction, allowing us to identify its donor L1 and to demonstrate that this full-length TF element retained retrotransposition capacity in cultured cancer cells. Using RC-seq, we also identified eight tumor-specific L1 insertions from 25 HCC patients with a history of alcohol abuse. Finally, we used RC-seq and WGS to identify three tumor-specific L1 insertions among 10 intra-hepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) patients, including one insertion traced to a donor L1 on Chromosome 22 known to be highly active in other cancers. This study reveals L1 mobilization as a common feature of hepatocarcinogenesis in mammals, demonstrating that the phenomenon is not restricted to human viral HCC etiologies and is encountered in murine liver tumors.
The global establishment of a highly-fluoroquinolone resistant Salmonella enterica serotype Kentucky ST198 strain

While the spread of Salmonella enterica serotype Kentucky resistant to ciprofloxacin across Africa and the Middle-East has been described recently, the presence of this strain in humans, food, various animal species (livestock, pets, and wildlife) and in environment is suspected in other countries of different continents. Here, we report results of an in-depth molecular epidemiological study on a global human and non-human collection of S. Kentucky (n = 70). We performed XbaI-pulsed field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing, assessed mutations in the quinolone resistance-determining regions, detected β-lactam resistance mechanisms, and screened the presence of the Salmonella genomic island 1 (SGI1). In this study, we highlight the rapid and extensive worldwide dissemination of the ciprofloxacin-resistant S. Kentucky ST198-X1-SGI1 strain since the mid-2000s in an increasingly large number of contaminated sources, including the environment. This strain has accumulated an increasing number of chromosomal and plasmid resistance determinants and has been identified in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Europe since 2010. The second substitution at position 87 in GyrA (replacing the amino acid Asp) appeared helpful for epidemiological studies to track the origin of contamination. This global study provides evidence leading to the conclusion that high-level resistance to ciprofloxacin in S. Kentucky is a simple microbiological trait that facilitates the identification of the epidemic clone of interest, ST198-X1-SGI1. Taking this into account is essential in order to detect and monitor it easily and to take rapid measures in livestock to ensure control of this infection.
Generation of multidrug resistant human tissues by overexpression of the ABCG2 multidrug transporter in embryonic stem cells

The ABCG2 multidrug transporter provides resistance against various endo- and xenobiotics, and protects the stem cells against toxins and stress conditions. We have shown earlier that a GFP-tagged version of ABCG2 is fully functional and may be used to follow the expression, localization and function of this transporter in living cells. In the present work we have overexpressed GFP-ABCG2, driven by a constitutive (CAG) promoter, in HUES9 human embryonic stem cells. Stem cell clones were generated to express the wild-type and a substrate-mutant (R482G) GFP-ABCG2 variant, by using the Sleeping Beauty transposon system. We found that the stable overexpression of these transgenes did not change the pluripotency and growth properties of the stem cells, nor their differentiation capacity to hepatocytes or cardiomyocytes. ABCG2 overexpression provided increased toxin resistance in the stem cells, and protected the derived cardiomyocytes against doxorubicin toxicity. These studies document the potential of a stable ABCG2 expression for engineering toxin-resistant human pluripotent stem cells and selected stem cell derived tissues.
A Graphene-Based Flexible Pressure Sensor with Applications to Plantar Pressure Measurement and Gait Analysis

In the present study, we propose and develop a flexible pressure sensor based on the piezoresistive effect of multilayer graphene films on polyester textile. The pressure response results from the deformation of graphene conductive network structure and the changes in resistance. Here, we show that the graphene pressure sensor can achieve a sensitivity value of 0.012 kPa−1, the measurement range can be as high as 800 kPa, and the response time can reach to 50 ms. Subsequently, a stable in-shoe wireless plantar pressure measurement system is developed and dynamic pressure distribution is acquired in real-time. Overall, the graphene textile pressure sensor has the advantage of wide dynamic range, flexibility and comfort, which provides the high possibility for footwear evaluation, clinical gait analysis and pathological foot diagnosis.
Several inhibitors of the Plk1 Polo-Box Domain turn out to be non-specific protein alkylators

ABSTRACT For almost a decade, there has been much interest in the development of chemical inhibitors of Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) protein interactions. Plk1 is a master regulator of the cell division cycle that controls numerous substrates. It is a promising target for cancer drug development. Inhibitors of the kinase domain of Plk1 had some success in clinical trials. However, they are not perfectly selective. In principle, Plk1 can also be inhibited by interfering with its protein interaction domain, the Polo-Box Domain (PBD). Selective chemical inhibitors of the PBD would constitute tools to probe for PBD-dependent functions of Plk1 and could be advantageous in cancer therapy. The discovery of Poloxin and thymoquinone as PBD inhibitors indicated that small, cell-permeable chemical inhibitors could be identified. Other efforts followed, including ours, reporting additional molecules capable of blocking the PBD. It is now clear that, unfortunately, most of these compounds are non-specific protein alkylators (defined here as groups covalently added via a carbon) that have little or no potential for the development of real Plk1 PBD-specific drugs. This situation should be minded by biologists potentially interested in using these compounds to study Plk1. Further efforts are needed to develop selective, cell-permeable PBD inhibitors.
Two-Layered Falsification of Hybrid Systems Guided by Monte Carlo Tree Search

Few real-world hybrid systems are amenable to formal verification, due to their complexity and black box components. Optimization-based falsification—a methodology of search-based testing that employs stochastic optimization—is thus attracting attention as an alternative quality assurance method. Inspired by the recent work that advocates coverage and exploration in falsification, we introduce a two-layered optimization framework that uses Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS), a popular machine learning technique with solid mathematical and empirical foundations (e.g., in computer Go). MCTS is used in the upper layer of our framework; it guides the lower layer of local hill-climbing optimization, thus balancing exploration and exploitation in a disciplined manner. We demonstrate the proposed framework through experiments with benchmarks from the automotive domain.
Global health resource utilization associated with pacemaker complications

Abstract Aim: To estimate health resource utilization (HRU) associated with the management of pacemaker complications in various healthcare systems. Methods: Electrophysiologists (EPs) from four geographical regions (Western Europe, Australia, Japan, and North America) were invited to participate. Survey questions focused on HRU in the management of three chronic pacemaker complications (i.e. pacemaker infections requiring extraction, lead fractures/insulation breaches requiring replacement, and upper extremity deep venous thrombosis [DVT]). Panelists completed a maximum of two web-based surveys (iterative rounds). Mean, median values, and interquartile ranges were calculated and used to establish consensus. Results: Overall, 32 and 29 panelists participated in the first and second rounds of the Delphi panel, respectively. Consensus was reached on treatment and HRU associated with a typical pacemaker implantation and complications. HRU was similar across regions, except for Japan, where panelists reported the longest duration of hospital stay in all scenarios. Infections were the most resource-intensive complications and were characterized by intravenous antibiotics days of 9.6? 13.5 days and 21.3? 29.2 days for pocket and lead infections respectively; laboratory and diagnostic tests, and system extraction and replacement procedures. DVT, on the other hand, was the least resource intensive complication. Limitations: The results of the panel represent the views of the respondents who participated and may not be generalizable outside of this panel. The surveys were limited in scope and, therefore, did not include questions on management of acute complications (e.g. hematoma, pneumothorax). Conclusions: The Delphi technique provided a reliable and efficient approach to estimating resource utilization associated with chronic pacemaker complications. Estimates from the Delphi panel can be used to generate costs of pacemaker complications in various regions.
Deep Temperature Measurements in Oncothermia Processes

Temperature in depth of various model systems was measured, starting with muscle and other phantoms. It was shown that the temperature can be selectively increased in the target. In water-protein phantom, the protein coagulation (>60°C) was observed selectively while the water temperature around it was a little higher than room temperature.
Efficient and Correct Test Scheduling for Ensembles of Network Policies

Testing whether network policies are correctly implemented is critical to ensure a network’s safety, performance and availability. Network operators need to test ensembles of network policies using a combination of native and third-party tools in practice, as indicated by our survey. Unfortunately, existing approaches for running tests for ensembles of network policies on stateful networks face fundamental challenges with respect to correctness and efficiency. Running all tests sequentially is inefficient, while naı̈vely running tests in parallel may lead to incorrect testing results. In this paper, we propose Mikado, a principled scheduling framework for scheduling tests generated by various (blackbox) tools for ensembles of policies. We make two key contributions: (1) we develop a formal correctness criteria for running tests for ensembles of policies; and (2) we design a provably correct and efficient test scheduling algorithm, based on detecting read-write test conflicts. Mikado is open source and can support a range of policies and testing tools. We show that Mikado can generate correct schedules in realworld scenarios, achieve orders of magnitude reduction on the test running time, and schedule tests for thousands of network policies in large networks with 1000+ nodes within minutes.
Protein subnuclear localization based on a new effective representation and intelligent kernel linear discriminant analysis by dichotomous greedy genetic algorithm

A wide variety of methods have been proposed in protein subnuclear localization to improve the prediction accuracy. However, one important trend of these means is to treat fusion representation by fusing multiple feature representations, of which, the fusion process takes a lot of time. In view of this, this paper novelly proposed a method by combining a new single feature representation and a new algorithm to obtain good recognition rate. Specifically, based on the position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM), we proposed a new expression, correlation position-specific scoring matrix (CoPSSM) as the protein feature representation. Based on the classic nonlinear dimension reduction algorithm, kernel linear discriminant analysis (KLDA), we added a new discriminant criterion and proposed a dichotomous greedy genetic algorithm (DGGA) to intelligently select its kernel bandwidth parameter. Two public datasets with Jackknife test and KNN classifier were used for the numerical experiments. The results showed that the overall success rate (OSR) with single representation CoPSSM is larger than that with many relevant representations. The OSR of the proposed method can reach as high as 87.444% and 90.3361% for these two datasets, respectively, outperforming many current methods. To show the generalization of the proposed algorithm, two extra standard datasets of protein subcellular were chosen to conduct the expending experiment, and the prediction accuracy by Jackknife test and Independent test is still considerable.
Modelling of stacked 2D materials and devices

Tremendous developments in the synthesis and understanding of two-dimensional materials such as graphene, phosphorene, BN and MoS2 have spurred great interest in exploiting their heterostructures in devices. Here, we present a compact review of the modeling and simulation of stacked two-dimensional materials and devices. Particular emphasis is placed on the intriguing phenomena enabled by different stacking geometries and material choices, and the fundamental physical mechanisms behind them, which enable new device concepts and applications to be developed which would have been difficult to achieve with other material platforms.
Comparative genomic analysis of mollicutes with and without a chaperonin system

The GroE chaperonin system, which comprises GroEL and GroES, assists protein folding in vivo and in vitro. It is conserved in all prokaryotes except in most, but not all, members of the class of mollicutes. In Escherichia coli, about 60 proteins were found to be obligatory clients of the GroE system. Here, we describe the properties of the homologs of these GroE clients in mollicutes and the evolution of chaperonins in this class of bacteria. Comparing the properties of these homologs in mollicutes with and without chaperonins enabled us to search for features correlated with the presence of GroE. Interestingly, no sequence-based features of proteins such as average length, amino acid composition and predicted folding/disorder propensity were found to be affected by the absence of GroE. Other properties such as genome size and number of proteins were also found to not differ between mollicute species with and without GroE. Our data suggest that two clades of mollicutes re-acquired the GroE system, thereby supporting the view that gaining the system occurred polyphyletically and not monophyletically, as previously debated. Our data also suggest that there might have been three isolated cases of lateral gene transfer from specific bacterial sources. Taken together, our data indicate that loss of GroE does not involve crossing a high evolutionary barrier and can be compensated for by a small number of changes within the few dozen client proteins.
Flashbulb memories of Paris attacks

Rationale:Flashbulb memories are detailed and vivid memories of attributes of the reception context of surprising and emotionally arousing public events. Patient concerns and diagnosis:This paper offers a fine-grained view of flashbulb memories in a patient with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Interventions:The patient underwent a directed interview about the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris. Outcomes:Unlike her memory about the date and month of the attacks, the patient provided accurate information about the year, time and places they occurred. The patient also provided accurate information about how she first became aware of the attacks, where she was, with whom, what she was doing, and what time it was when she learned about them. As for the affective characteristics of these memories, she tended to have high ratings of vividness and rehearsal. Negative emotional states and great surprise and novelty were also reported. Lessons:By assessing the impact of flashbulb memories in this patient with AD, this paper offers a unique view into how such memories may trigger a considerable recall of context as well much subjective reliving.
Analysis of Concrete Pressure Vessels in the Framework of Continuum Damage Mechanics

In this article, a constitutive model in the framework of continuum damage mechanics is proposed to simulate the elastic behavior of concrete in tension and compression states. We assume two parts for Gibbs potential energy function: elastic and damage parts. In order to obtain the elastic-damage constitutive relation with the internal variables, two damage thermodynamic release rates in tension and compression derived from the elastic part of Gibbs potential energy are introduced. Also, two anisotropic damage tensors (tension and compression) are defined which characterize the tensile and compressive behaviors of concrete. Furthermore, two different linear hardening rules for tension and compression states are adopted for characterizing the damage evolution. The spectral decomposition technique is used to resolve the stress tensor into tensile and compressive components. The accuracy and performance of the proposed model are validated by comparing the predicted results with different experimental data, such as monotonic uniaxial tension and compression tests, and monotonic biaxial compression test. As an application, an analytic closed-form solution for a concrete thick-walled cylinder is obtained. It is shown that two damages: tensile damage D θ + and shear damage D r - propagate in the cylinder. These two damages introduce anisotropy in the elastic behavior of the concrete structure. The influence of these two damages is investigated on the stress field in the cylinder. It is found that effect of shear damage D r - on radial and tangential stresses as well as the effect of tensile damage D θ + on radial stress are negligible, while the effect of tensile damage D θ + on the tangential stress in a concrete thick-walled cylinder is significant.