Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gene dosage and gene expression in the HLA region: evidence from deletion variants.

Among variants selected in a human cell line for nonexpression of a single gene product in the HLA complex, most are single-gene variants, but several have been isolated that are cis-acting and abolish expression of a series of closely linked genes. The two most plausible mechanisms by which such variants could arise are mitotic crossing-over and chromosome deletion. In two HLA variants the presence of a visible chromosome deletion, a 50% reduction in activity of glyoxalase I (a closely linked marker), or both provided evidence for deletional origins. In a third variant these changes were not demonstrable. All three variants showed reductions in amount of cell surface HLA antigens: 40% for the Ia antigens (HLA-DR) and 20-25% for HLA-ABC antigens. The reductions in cell surface antigen in deletion variants have an important implication: in the case of the HLA-A, -B, and -C heterodimer, which consists of a subunit coded for within the major histocompatibility complex and another subunit (beta(2)-microglobulin) coded for on a different chromosome, it is the gene of the major histocompatibility complex that is limiting. The nonmutant haplotype includes A2; binding of an A2 monoclonal antibody in two of the mutants was found to be approximately equal to that in the wild-type cells. Thus, loss of one copy of HLA-ABC genes does not lead to gene dosage compensation-i.e., increased activity by the remaining ABC alleles. The results with the two types of antibodies support a deletional mechanism and are inconsistent with mitotic crossing-over. Of interest with respect to the potential use of deletion variants for purposes of mapping is the fact that each of these variants has distinctive breakpoints. The absence of mitotic crossing-over in 1.2 x 10(7) cells selected suggests that the event is rare in this autosomal region, if it occurs at all.
Strain accommodation in Ga-assisted GaAs nanowires grown on silicon (111)

We study the mechanism of lattice parameter accommodation and the structure of GaAs nanowires (NWs) grown on Si(111) substrates using the Ga-assisted growth mode in molecular beam epitaxy. These nanowires grow preferentially in the zincblende structure, but contain inclusions of wurtzite at the base. By means of grazing incidence x-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy of the NW–substrate interface, we show that the lattice mismatch between the NW and the substrate is released immediately after the beginning of NW growth through the inclusion of misfit dislocations, and no pseudomorphic growth is obtained for NW diameters down to 10 nm. NWs with a diameter above 100 nm exhibit a rough interface towards the substrate, preventing complete plastic relaxation. Consequently, these NWs exhibit a residual compressive strain at their bottom. In contrast, NWs with a diameter of 50 nm and below are completely relaxed because the interface is smooth.
Control and synchronization of nonlinear fractional-order systems by comparison principle

To overcome the difficulties in the stability analysis and stabilization for nonlinear fractional systems, the comparison principle for fractional-order systems with Caputo fractional derivatives is constructed, which can simplify the processes of stability analysis and stabilization controller design in a great degree. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method, the problem of stabilizing the fractional-order Chen hyperchaotic system is studied. The effective linear controller is designed, and computer simulation verifies the theory result.
Robust feature encoding for age-invariant face recognition

Large age range is a serious obstacle for automatic face recognition. Although many promising results have been reported, it still remains a challenging problem due to significant intra-class variations caused by the aging process. In this paper, we mainly focus on finding an expressive age-invariant feature such that it is robust to intra-personal variance and discriminative to different subjects. To achieve this goal, we map the original feature to a new space in which the feature is robust to noise and large intra-personal variations caused by aging face images. Then we further encode the mapped feature into an age-invariant representation. After mapping and encoding, we get the robust and discriminative feature for the specific purpose of age-invariant face recognition. To show the effectiveness and generalizability of our method, we conduct experiments on two well-known public domain databases for age-invariant face recognition: Cross-Age Celebrity Dataset (CACD, the largest publicly available cross-age face dataset) and MORPH dataset. Experiments show that our method achieves state-of-the-art results on these two challenging datasets.
Inhibiting Dickkopf‐1 (Dkk1) Removes Suppression of Bone Formation and Prevents the Development of Osteolytic Bone Disease in Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) is associated with the development of osteolytic bone disease, mediated by increased osteoclastic bone resorption and impaired osteoblastic bone formation. Dickkopf‐1 (Dkk1), a soluble inhibitor of wingless/int (Wnt) signaling and osteoblastogenesis, is elevated in patients with MM and correlates with osteolytic bone disease. In this study, we investigated the effect of inhibiting Dkk1 on the development of osteolytic lesions in the 5T2MM murine model of myeloma. We showed that Dkk1 is expressed by murine 5T2MM myeloma cells. Injection of 5T2MM cells into C57BL/KaLwRij mice resulted in the development of osteolytic bone lesions (p < 0.05), mediated by increased osteoclast numbers (p < 0.001) and a decrease in osteoblast numbers (p < 0.001) and mineralizing surface (p < 0.05). Mice bearing 5T2MM cells were treated with an anti‐Dkk1 antibody (BHQ880, 10 mg/kg, IV, twice weekly for 4 wk) from time of paraprotein detection. Anti‐Dkk1 treatment prevented 5T2MM‐induced suppression of osteoblast numbers (p < 0.001) and surface (p < 0.001). Treatment increased mineralizing surface by 28% and bone formation rate by 25%; however, there was no change in mineral apposition rate. Inhibiting Dkk1 had no effect on osteoclast numbers. μCT analysis showed that anti‐Dkk1 treatment significantly protected against 5T2MM‐induced trabecular bone loss (p < 0.05) and reduced the development of osteolytic bone lesions (p < 0.05). Treatment had no significant effect on tumor burden. These data suggest that inhibiting Dkk1 prevents the suppression of bone formation and in doing so is effective in preventing the development of osteolytic bone disease in myeloma, offering an effective therapeutic approach to treating this clinically important aspect of myeloma.
Time Course of Degradation and Deadenylation of Maternal c-mos and Cyclin A2 mRNA during Early Development of One-Cell Embryo in Mouse

Early in the development of many animals, before transcription begins, any change in the pattern of protein synthesis is attributed to a change in the translational activity or stability of mRNA in the egg and early embryo. As a result, translational control is critical for a variety of developmental decisions, including oocyte maturation and initiation of preimplantation development. In this study, using realtime RT-PCR method, we defined the time course of degradation and deadenylation of an oocyte specific gene (c-mos) more precisely and a gene that is re-synthesized after ZGA (cyclin A2). Our data indicate that oocyte-specific transcript, c-mos, degrades rapidly while cyclin A2 mRNA does not and the deadenylation of c-mos mRNA precedes the process of degradation. Our findings suggest that time-dependent elimination of different maternal mRNA is a way for regulation of translation in early development of mouse embryos. Iran. Biomed. J. 8 (4): 179-183, 2004
The Golgi-Associated Protein p115 Mediates the Secretion of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor1

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a leaderless protein that is secreted from cells by a specialized, nonclassical export pathway. The release of MIF nevertheless is regulated and its production in response to different inflammatory, mitogenic, and hormonal stimuli plays an important role in diverse physiologic and pathologic processes. We report herein the identification of the Golgi complex-associated protein p115 as an intracellular binding partner for MIF. MIF interacts with p115 in the cytoplasm and the stimulated secretion of MIF results in the accumulation of both proteins in supernatants, which is consistent with MIF release from cells in conjunction with p115. The depletion of p115 from monocytes/macrophages decreases the release of MIF but not other cytokines following inflammatory stimulation or intracellular bacterial infection. Notably, the small molecule MIF inhibitor 4-iodo-6-phenylpyrimidine inhibits MIF secretion by targeting the interaction between MIF and p115. These data reveal p115 to be a critical intermediary component in the regulated secretion of MIF from monocytes/macrophages.
Momentum trading, mean reversal and overreaction in Chinese stock market

The vast majority of the literature reports momentum profitability to be overwhelming in the US market and widespread in other countries. However, this paper finds that the pure momentum strategy in general does not yield excess profitability in the Chinese stock markets. We find instead strong mean reversion with an average half-life slightly shorter than 1 year. A pure contrarian investment strategy produces positive excess returns and in general outperforms the pure momentum strategy. Furthermore, momentum may interact with mean reversion. A strategy based on the rolling-regression parameter estimates of the model combining mean reversion and momentum generates both statistically and economically significant excess returns. The combined strategy outperforms both pure momentum and pure contrarian strategies. We conduct a number of robustness tests and confirm the basic findings. Collectively, our results support the overreaction hypothesis.
Potential communicative acts in children with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract Objective: To describe potential communicative acts in a sample of 17 children with autism spectrum disorders who produced few to no intelligible words (mean age = 32.82 months). Methods: Parents reported on children’s potential communicative acts for 10 different communicative functions. A potential communicative act was defined as any behavior produced by an individual that may be interpreted by others to serve a communicative purpose. Results: Significant associations were found between higher number of gesture types and increased scores on language comprehension, language expression, and non-verbal thinking measures. Relative to other types of potential communicative acts, parents reported that children used higher proportions of body movement. Conclusion: Number of body movement types was not related to child ability, while number of gesture types was related to receptive and expressive language. Findings underscore the link between language and gesture, and offer support for an ecological systems perspective of language learning.
Enabling QoS Multipath Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Most of the proposed routing protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSN) are concentrating on efficiently using extremely constrained resources, especially the energy. However, one important factor of the routing protocols, quality of service (QoS) routing has not been paid enough attention from researchers. Transmission collision occurred at nodes that receive packets from multiple nodes at the same time greatly reduces the network performance. Therefore, the services provided by the sensor network are also greatly impacted. In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism to find multiple-paths between one sink and multiple-sources with the consideration of reducing collision occurred at nodes that are receiving and forwarding packets on behalf of the source nodes. Simulation results are provided to show the potential and effectiveness of our solution.
Sociologie du genre

Sociologie du genre, une sociologie que l’on pourrait decliner au pluriel tant les approches sont diverses. Si certains sociologies voient dans le genre la "part sociale" du sexe, d’autres sont plus radicaux et pensent d’emblee le genre comme un systeme fonctionnant sur l’idee de binarite et de domination masculine. Cet ouvrage commence donc par presenter de facon didactique l’eventail de ces theories. Il developpe ensuite des analyses empiriques dans des domaines aussi varies que les spheres domestique et professionnelle, l’ecole, la politique ou le sport. Partout, un meme constat s’impose : les identites genrees, incontournables, qui ont accompagne le developpement des theories du genre. Ces evolutions sont-elles radicales et remettent-elles en cause le cœur de la masculinite et de la feminite ? Cet ouvrage montre la fecondite du concept de genre dans l’analyse des relations sociales.
Okuduğunu anlama testi geliştirilmesi: Geçerlik ve güvenirlik çalışması

Bu calismada ilkokul dorduncu sinif ogrencilerine yonelik bir okudugunu anlama testi gelistirilmesi amaclanmistir. Bu amac dogrultusunda alan yazindaki farkli testler incelenmistir. Gelistirilecek olan testin gecerlik ve guvenirlik calismalarinin yapilmasi amaciyla ilkokullar icin Turkce ders ve calisma kitaplari ile farkli hikâye kitaplarinda yer alan metinler incelenmistir. Oncelikle okudugunu anlama kazanimlarina bagli olarak belirtke tablosu hazirlanarak bir madde havuzu olusturulmustur. Hazirlanan taslak test kapsam gecerliligi icin alan uzmanlarinin goruslerine sunulmustur. Uzman goruslerine gore sorular uzerinde duzenleme ve degisiklikler yapilarak test son halini almistir. Taslak test, bir ilkokulda 34 ogrenci uzerinde on uygulama olarak uygulanmistir. On uygulama sonucu yapilan duzeltme ve degisikliklerle elde edilen test 2016-2017 egitim ogretim yili bahar doneminde uygulanmistir. Asil uygulamalar, Denizli merkez ilcelerinde yer alan farkli sosyoekonomik duzeylerden uc farkli ilkokulun dorduncu siniflarina devam eden 348 ogrenci ile calisilmistir. Elde edilen veriler SPSS 20 paket programina aktarilarak istatistiksel hesaplamalar yapilmistir. Bu hesaplamalara gore nihai testteki maddelerin madde gucluklerinin . 42 ile . 95 arasinda degistigi gorulmektedir. Yine maddelerin ayirt edicilik indekslerinin de . 26 ile . 52 arasinda degistigi belirlenmistir. Yapilan bagimsiz gruplar icin t testi sonuclarina gore alt ve ust %27’lik dilimler arasinda tum maddelerin ayirt edicilik degerlerinin anlamli oldugu gorulmektedir. Nihai testten alinabilecek en dusuk puan 0 ve en yuksek puan 32’dir. Testin ortalama guclugu . 67 ve ortalama ayirt edicilik indeksi . 37’dir. Nihai test icin KR-20 guvenirlik katsayisi . 83 olarak hesaplanmistir. Bu sonuc testin oldukca guvenilir oldugunu gostermektedir.
AN EVALUATION OF DFP AND CR AS METHODS OF MEASURING RED CELL LIFE SPAN IN MAN.

DFP32 or Cr51 red cell survival studies were performed in 39 patients with hematologic disorders. In each case the erythrocyte life span was also determined using the C14-labeled glycine technic. Good agreement was found between the survival data obtained by the DFP32 and the glycine method. The red cell Cr51 T½ failed to reflect moderate shortening of red cell survival in a significant number of cases when a 25 day half-time was taken as the lower limit of normal. The occasional discrepancy between the erythrocyte life spans obtained with labeled glycine and the Cr51 halftime is probably the result of the limitations of the prevalent method of Cr51 data analysis and of the wide range of Cr51 elution rates in disease. Because of its simplicity and reliability, the DFP32 technics appears to be the method of choice for the determination of red cell survival.
Dynamic histogram equalization based on gray level labeling

Histogram equalization is one of the well-known methods for contrast enhancement. However, the conventional contrast enhancement methods based on histogram equalization still show some problems such as washed out appearance and gradation artifact. To overcome such drawbacks, we propose a novel dynamic histogram equalization method based on gray level labeling method. The main contribution of the proposed method is to expand the dynamic range of the subhistogram up to the entire dynamic range of the input image while the intensity orders of adjacent pixels are preserved. The proposed method first decomposes the image histogram into a number of sub-histograms based on gray level labeling method. A full dynamic range of input gray level is assigned to each sub-histogram and each transform function is calculated based on the bi-histogram equalization method. Finally, a contrast enhanced pixel value is the weighted average of the results from each transform function. Experimental results show that the proposed method produces better contrast enhanced images than several histogram equalization based methods without introducing several side effects.
Study of Unsteady Swirling Flow in a Hydrodynamic Vortex Chamber

The paper reports on the results of experimental and numerical study of nonstationary swirling flow in an isothermal model of vortex burner. It has been identified that main source of the instability is related to a precessing vortex core (PVC) phenomenon. The PVC induced flow pulsation characteristics such as precession frequency and its variation as a function of flowrate and swirl number have been explored making use of acoustic probes. Additionally pressure transducers were used to measure the pressure drops on the working chamber and across the vortex flow. The experiments have been included also the mean velocity measurements making use of a laser-Doppler anemometry. The features of instantaneous flowfield generated by the PVC were analyzed employing a commercial CFD code (Star-CCM+) based on Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) approach. Validity of the numerical code has been checked by comparison calculated flowfield data with the obtained experimental results. It has been confirmed particularly that the CFD code applied correctly reproduces the flow features. Keywords—Acoustic probes, detached eddy simulation (DES), laser-Doppler anemometry (LDA), precessing vortex core (PVC).
Fast Intra-Mode Prediction Algorithm in H.264/AVC Video Coding

A fast intra-mode decision algorithm is proposed on the basis of an inter-mode block type for inter-frames (P-slices). Each macroblock (MB) type has its own intra prediction modes (I16MB and 8× 8 chroma: 4 modes, I4MB and I8MB: 9 modes). This procedure creates a large computational complexity in addition to the inter mode decision procedure. In most cases, there is a high correlation between the best inter-mode block type and the direction of the texture edge or object boundary. Therefore, only a small number of intra-prediction modes are chosen to determine the best intra mode based on this correlation. We experimentally verify that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the speed of the overall encoding time with a negligible loss of image quality and a minimal bit increase. The average loss in PSNR was -0.012 ~ 0.036 dB and the bit increment was approximately -0.194 ~ 0.751%.
Respiratory Health Impact of Working in Sawmills in Eastern Canada

Abstract Air contamination in sawmills can cause respiratory health problems. The authors measured respirable dust, bacteria, endotoxins, and molds collected from 17 sawmills in eastern Canada. A total of 1,205 sawmill workers answered a respiratory-health questionnaire, and they all participated in lung-function measurements, skin-prick tests, and venous blood sampling for specific immunoglobulins against molds found in the sawmills. Workers had normal lung functions, and most respiratory symptoms could be explained by smoking histories. Workers in pine sawmills had a greater prevalence of positive skin-prick test to pine than did workers in sawmills where other woods were used. High levels of specific antibodies were seen in some workers. The presence of a positive skin-prick test and/or specific antibodies had no impact on lung function(s). These Québec sawmill workers did not experience significant respiratory illnesses; however, some of these workers may be at a higher risk of developing asthma and hypersensitivity pneumonitis than nonworkers.
The Effect of Electrode Layout on Nitride-Based Light-Emitting Diodes

Nitride-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with different electrode layouts were fabricated and analyzed. The turn-on voltage (V f) was proved to be highly related to the layout design of N-extending electrode. In addition, the electroluminescence intensity was almost proportional to the area of transparent contact layer (A TCL) subtracting the area of P-extending electrode (A P). Moreover, the current spreading was highly sensitive to the location and route of P- and N-extending electrodes. Good location and route can avoid thermal effect and damage. Finally, this paper proposed an easy and direct concept to estimate and predict the performance of nitride-based LEDs in turn-on voltage, electroluminescence intensity, and current spreading. It was highly potential to improve and change the currently mask design of nitride-based LEDs.
Leishmania major LmACR2 Is a Pentavalent Antimony Reductase That Confers Sensitivity to the Drug Pentostam*

Arsenicals and antimonials are first line drugs for the treatment of trypanosomal and leishmanial diseases. To create the active form of the drug, Sb(V) must be reduced to Sb(III). Because arsenic and antimony are related metalloids, and arsenical resistant Leishmania strains are frequently cross-resistant to antimonials, we considered the possibility that Sb(V) is reduced by a leishmanial As(V) reductase. The sequence for the arsenate reductase of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ScAcr2p, was used to clone the gene for a homologue, LmACR2, from Leishmania major. LmACR2 was able to complement the arsenate-sensitive phenotype of an arsC deletion strain of Escherichia coli or an ScACR2 deletion strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transfection of Leishmania infantum with LmACR2 augmented Pentostam sensitivity in intracellular amastigotes. LmACR2 was purified and shown to reduce both As(V) and Sb(V). This is the first report of an enzyme that confers Pentostam sensitivity in intracellular amastigotes of Leishmania. We propose that LmACR2 is responsible for reduction of the pentavalent antimony in Pentostam to the active trivalent form of the drug in Leishmania.
Effect of orofacial exercises on oral aperture in adults with systemic sclerosis

Purpose: To examine the effect of a home orofacial exercise program on increasing oral aperture among adults with systemic sclerosis (SSc). Method: Forty-eight adults with SSc were assigned randomly to the multifaceted oral-health intervention or usual dental care control group. Participants with an oral aperture of <40 mm in the intervention group received an orofacial exercise program, which included daily manual mouth-stretching and oral-augmentation exercises twice a day with a total of 6 minutes for 6 months. The outcome measure was oral aperture which was measured at baseline, 3-months, and 6-months intervals. Results: A significantly larger increase in oral aperture for participants received the orofacial exercise program was found when compared to those in the usual care at 3 months (P = 0.01), but not at 6-months evaluation. Participants’ adherence rate to the exercise program was low (48.9%). Conclusions: The orofacial exercise program intervention for adults with SSc and microstomia did not show significant improvement at 6 months. In addition to the low exercise adherence rate, insufficient frequencies, repetitions, and durations of the orofacial exercises may contribute to these results. Implications for Rehabilitation Microstomia in adults with systemic sclerosis (SSc) has profound impacts on their quality of life. Orofacial exercise programs have the potential to improve the size of oral aperture. Brief daily orofacial home exercises for 6 months did not result in a significant increase in the size of oral aperture.