Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vanadium Pentoxide Inhalation Provokes Germinal Center Hyperplasia and Suppressed Humoral Immune Responses

Vanadium, an important air pollutant derived from fuel product combustion, aggravates respiratory diseases and impairs cardiovascular function. In contrast, its effects on immune response are conflicting. The aim of our work was to determine if spleens of vanadium-exposed CD1 mice showed histological lesions that might result in immune response malfunction. One hundred and twelve CD-1 male mice were placed in an acrylic box and inhaled 0.02 M vanadium pentoxide (V2O5); actual concentration in chamber ≈1.4 mg V2O5/m3) for 1 hr/d, twice a week, for 12 wk. Control mice inhaled only vehicle. Eight mice were sacrificed prior to the exposures. Eight control and eight V2O5-exposed mice were sacrificed 24 hr after the second exposure of each week until the 12-wk study was over. Another 8 mice that completed the 12-wk regimen were immunized with recombinant Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg; three times over an 8-wk period) before sacrifice and analyses of their levels of anti-HBsAg antibody (HBSAb) using ELISA. In all studies, at sacrifice, blood samples were obtained by direct heart puncture and the spleen was removed, weighed and processed for H-E staining and quantitation of CD19 cells. The results indicated that the spleen weight of V2O5-exposed animals peaked at 9 wk (546 ± 45 vs. 274 ± 27 mg, p < 0.0001) and thereafter progressively decreased (321 ± 39 mg at 12 wk, p < 0.001; control spleen = 298 ± 35 mg). Spleens of V2O5-exposed animals showed an increased number of very large and non-clearly delimited germinal centers (that contained more lymphocytes and megakaryocytes) compared to those of control mice. In addition, their red pulp was poorly delimited and had an increase in CD19+ cells within hyperplasic germinal nodes. The mean HBsAb levels in immunized control mice were greater than that in the exposed hosts (i.e., OD = 0.39 ± 0.03 vs. 0.11 ± 0.05, p < 0.01). HBsAb avidity dropped to a value of 40 in V2O5-exposed animals vs. 86 in controls (p < 0.0001). We conclude that the chronic inhalation of V2O5, a frequent particle (PM2.5) component, induces histological changes and functional damage to the spleen, each of which appear to result in severe effects on the humoral immune response.
Efficacy and efficiency indexes for a multi-criteria industrial performance synthesized by Choquet integral aggregation

Nowadays, despite widespread recognition of the importance of performance measurement systems (PMSs), there are some issues that require further investigation if PMSs are to be effective in their role of control support. This article seeks to illustrate that the Choquet integral aggregation operators can address the problem of taking interactions between performance criteria into account. However, the use of this quite complex approach requires to explicitly define pieces of information aimed at aiding decision makers through a better understanding of the contribution of the elementary performances to the overall one, and better assessing of the different ways of improving the overall performance. In this view, indexes of efficacy and efficiency of the elementary performances aggregated by a 2-additive Choquet integral are proposed and applied to a case submitted by a small and medium-sized company (SME).
Incidence of adverse events associated with percutaneous muscular biopsy among healthy and diseased subjects

The development of the percutaneous muscle biopsy technique is recognized as one of the most important scientific contributions in advancing our understanding of skeletal muscle physiology. However, a concern that this procedure may be associated with adverse events still exists. We reported the incidence of adverse outcomes associated with percutaneous muscle biopsy in healthy and diseased subjects. Medical records of 274 volunteers (496 muscle biopsies) were reviewed. This included 168 healthy subjects (330 muscle biopsies) as well as 106 chronically ill patients (166 muscle biopsies). This latter group encompassed patients with type II diabetes (n=28), osteoarthritis (n=39), inclusion body myositis (n=4), polymyositis (n=4), and chronic heart failure (n=31). The most common occurrences were pain (1.27%), erythema (1.27%), and ecchymosis (1.27%). Panic episode, bleeding, and edema were also reported (0.21%, 0.42%, and 0.84%, respectively), while infection, hematoma, inflammation, denervation, numbness, atrophy, and abnormal scarring were not verified. The percent of incidents did not differ between healthy and ill individuals. In conclusion, the incidence of complications associated with percutaneous muscle biopsy is scarce and of minor clinical relevance. Additionally, the rate of adverse events is comparable between healthy and chronically ill subjects.
Estimation of Heading Angle Difference Between User and Smartphone Utilizing Gravitational Acceleration Extraction

When a user walks with a smartphone, acceleration is divided into three components. Two of the components are the vertical and horizontal accelerations according to walking dynamics, while the third is gravitational acceleration. Gravitational acceleration cannot be separated from the other two using only an accelerometer, because all accelerations are measured simultaneously. To separate the gravitational acceleration, a projection of all accelerations onto the vertical axis should be carried out using a coordinate transformation. However, the coordinate transformation itself also requires the accurate gravitational acceleration, which is a dilemma. To solve the problem, we propose a new method to extract the gravitational acceleration from additional accelerations based on a simplified walking model. The main idea is to find two time points to eliminate the additional accelerations with respect to two newly defined coordinates. The proposed method theoretically provides an optimal solution for the extraction of gravitational acceleration under the simplified model. It was mathematically analyzed and applied to the estimation problem of angle difference between the user's heading and the heading of a smartphone. The other contribution of this paper is in bandpass filtering to mitigate the estimation error of angle difference. Its center frequency is adaptively changed according to the step frequency. In experiments, the gravitational acceleration was extracted with remarkable accuracy. Therefore, the estimation of angle difference between the user's heading and the heading of a smartphone yielded stable and accurate performance.
Neuropeptide Y Overexpressing Female and Male Mice Show Divergent Metabolic but Not Gut Microbial Responses to Prenatal Metformin Exposure

Background Prenatal metformin exposure has been shown to improve the metabolic outcome in the offspring of high fat diet fed dams. However, if this is evident also in a genetic model of obesity and whether gut microbiota has a role, is not known. Methods The metabolic effects of prenatal metformin exposure were investigated in a genetic model of obesity, mice overexpressing neuropeptide Y in the sympathetic nervous system and in brain noradrenergic neurons (OE-NPYDβH). Metformin was given for 18 days to the mated female mice. Body weight, body composition, glucose tolerance and serum parameters of the offspring were investigated on regular diet from weaning and sequentially on western diet (at the age of 5–7 months). Gut microbiota composition was analysed by 16S rRNA sequencing at 10–11 weeks. Results In the male offspring, metformin exposure inhibited weight gain. Moreover, weight of white fat depots and serum insulin and lipids tended to be lower at 7 months. In contrast, in the female offspring, metformin exposure impaired glucose tolerance at 3 months, and subsequently increased body weight gain, fat mass and serum cholesterol. In the gut microbiota, a decline in Erysipelotrichaceae and Odoribacter was detected in the metformin exposed offspring. Furthermore, the abundance of Sutterella tended to be decreased and Parabacteroides increased. Gut microbiota composition of the metformin exposed male offspring correlated to their metabolic phenotype. Conclusion Prenatal metformin exposure caused divergent metabolic phenotypes in the female and male offspring. Nevertheless, gut microbiota of metformin exposed offspring was similarly modified in both genders.
Design of an optimal V/f control for a super high speed permanent magnet synchronous motor

In this paper, a new design approach of an optimal V/f control for a super high speed permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is presented. The stator resistance of PMSM is generally neglected in design of a V/f control and compensated only by a boost voltage. However, due to the extra small size requirement of the proposed super high speed PMSM, stator resistance cannot be neglected any more. In this paper, the optimal design of a V/f control curve with consideration of the stator resistance is provided. The effect of the stator resistor to the V/f control curve is analyzed, it enables utilization of a simple and easy V/f control curve for an open-loop control of the super high speed PMSM. Simulation results are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed design technique.
Crystal structure of the C‐terminal domain of splicing factor Prp8 carrying retinitis pigmentosa mutants

Prp8 is a critical pre‐mRNA splicing factor. Prp8 is proposed to help form and stabilize the spliceosome catalytic core and to be an important regulator of spliceosome activation. Mutations in human Prp8 (hPrp8) cause a severe form of the genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa, RP13. Understanding the molecular mechanism of Prp8's function in pre‐mRNA splicing and RP13 has been hindered by its large size (over 2000 amino acids) and remarkably low‐sequence similarity with other proteins. Here we present the crystal structure of the C‐terminal domain (the last 273 residues) of Caenorhabditis elegans Prp8 (cPrp8). The core of the C‐terminal domain is an α/β structure that forms the MPN (Mpr1, Pad1 N‐terminal) fold but without Zn2+ coordination. We propose that the C‐terminal domain is a protein interaction domain instead of a Zn2+‐dependent metalloenzyme as proposed for some MPN proteins. Mapping of RP13 mutants on the Prp8 structure suggests that these residues constitute a binding surface between Prp8 and other partner(s), and the disruption of this interaction provides a plausible molecular mechanism for RP13.
Clinicopathological Significance of MTA 1 Expression in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Background: Metastasis associated gene 1(MTA1) is one of the most deregulated molecules in human cancer and leads to cancer progression and metastasis. We performed a meta-analysis to determine the correlations between MTA1 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: We searched PubMed, Springer, Science Direct, Google Scholar and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) for relevant articles. For statistical analyses, we used R3.1. 1 software. The fixed or random effects model was employed based on the results of the statistical test for homogeneity. Results: Seven studies involving 660 NSCLC patients were included. The proportion of MTA1 overexpression with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was 0.53(95% CI: 0.43-0.62) in NSCLC patients; 0.47(95% CI: 0.40-0.55) in age <60 years and 0.52(95% CI: 0.34-0.70) in age ≥60 years; 0.5(95% CI: 0.41-0.62) in males and 0.51(95% CI: 0.39-0.62) in females; 0.59(95% CI: 0.48-0.69) in squamous cell carcinoma (SC) and 0.57(95% CI: 0.46-0.67) in adenocarcinoma (AC); 0.39(95% CI: 0.23-0.56) in well-differentiated tumors, 0.44(95% CI: 0.37-0.51) in moderately differentiated tumors and 0.55(95% CI: 0.37-0.51) in poorly differentiated tumors; 0.48(95% CI: 0.36-0.60) in clinical grade (III-IV) NSCLC and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.69-0.81) in clinical grade (I-II) NSCLC; 0.58(95% CI: 0.45-0.71) in T Stage (T1/T2) NSCLC; 0.68(95% CI: 0.49-0.82) in NSCLC patients with lymph node positivity and 0.51(95% CI: 0.43-0.58) in NSCLC patients with lymph node negativity. Conclusions: These results indicated that MTA1 might be a valuable biomarker in the diagnosis of NSCLC. MTA1 overexpression was significantly associated with age ≥60 years, gender, histopathological type, clinical grade (I-II), T stage (T1/T2) and lymph node positivity in NSCLC patients.
Akt‐mediated regulation of NFκB and the essentialness of NFκB for the oncogenicity of PI3K and Akt

The serine/threonine kinase Akt (cellular homolog of murine thymoma virus akt8 oncogene), also known as PKB (protein kinase B), is activated by lipid products of phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K). Akt phosphorylates numerous protein targets that control cell survival, proliferation and motility. Previous studies suggest that Akt regulates transcriptional activity of the nuclear factor‐κB (NFκB) by inducing phosphorylation and subsequent degradation of inhibitor of κB (IκB). We show here that NFκB‐driven transcription increases in chicken embryonic fibroblasts (CEF) transformed by myristylated Akt (myrAkt). Accordingly, both a dominant negative mutant of Akt and Akt inhibitors repress NFκB‐dependent transcription. The degradation of the IκB protein is strongly enhanced in Akt‐transformed cells, and the loss of NFκB activity by introduction of a super‐repressor of NFκB, IκBSR, interferes with PI3K‐ and Akt‐induced oncogenic transformation of CEF. The phosphorylation of the p65 subunit of NFκB at serine 534 is also upregulated in Akt‐transformed cells. Our data suggest that the stimulation of NFκB by Akt is dependent on the phosphorylation of p65 at S534, mediated by IKK (IκB kinase) α and β. Akt phosphorylates IKKα on T23, and this phosphorylation event is a prerequisite for the phosphorylation of p65 at S534 by IKKα and β. Our results demonstrate two separate functions of the IKK complex in NFκB activation in cells with constitutive Akt activity: the phosphorylation and consequent degradation of IκB and the phosphorylation of p65. The data further support the conclusion that NFκB activity is essential for PI3K‐ and Akt‐induced oncogenic transformation. © 2009 UICC
Case Flow Management net-project – The Practical Value for Civil Justice in the Netherlands

The problem of court delays has caused a widespread need for fast and efficient civil procedures that are able to maintain a high standard of quality. The EU-funded research project – ‘CFMnet: Towards European Caseflow Management development network – Identifying, developing and sharing best practices’ – wants to meet this need with a collection of European (CFM) practices in a handbook and an online platform. Does the CFMnet-project have an added value for the judiciary in the Netherlands? The Netherlands is currently reforming the judiciary in a major transformation called Quality and Innovation ( Kwaliteit en Innovatie ). The flexible methodology of this project pre-eminently allows for the inclusion of new ideas. This research shows that the CFMnet-project provides both relevant and irrelevant information for the Netherlands. On the one hand, there are some important practices in the CFMnet handbook that are currently unused in the Netherlands, for instance the centralised management of court experts, real-time case management and certain ICT tools. On the other hand, the Dutch jurisdiction is already familiar with a surprisingly high number of practices that are proposed in the handbook, such as summary proceedings and the division of labour between the court clerk and
Evidence of diagnostic specificity in the neural correlates of facial affect processing in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia: a meta-analysis of functional imaging studies

Background Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) may overlap in etiology and phenomenology but differ with regard to emotional processing. We used facial affect as a probe for emotional processing to determine whether there are diagnosis-related differences between SZ and BD in the function of the underlying neural circuitry. Method Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies published up to 30 April 2012 investigating facial affect processing in patients with SZ or BD were identified through computerized and manual literature searches. Activation foci from 29 studies encompassing 483 healthy individuals, 268 patients with SZ and 267 patients with BD were subjected to voxel-based quantitative meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation (ALE). Results Compared to healthy individuals, when emotional facial stimuli were contrasted to neutral stimuli, patients with BD showed overactivation within the parahippocampus/amygdala and thalamus and reduced engagement within the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) whereas patients with SZ showed underactivation throughout the entire facial affect processing network and increased activation in visual processing regions within the cuneus. Patients with BD showed greater thalamic engagement compared to patients with SZ; in the reverse comparison, patients with SZ showed greater engagement in posterior associative visual cortices. Conclusions During facial affect processing, patients with BD show overactivation in subcortical regions and underactivation in prefrontal regions of the facial affect processing network, consistent with the notion of reduced emotional regulation. By contrast, overactivation within visual processing regions coupled with reduced engagement of facial affect processing regions points to abnormal visual integration as the core underlying deficit in SZ.
An Evaluation of the Effects of Smoking on Codeine Pharmacokinetics and Bioavailability in Normal Human Volunteers

Cigarette smoking has been shown to increase the clearance of several drugs, including pentazocine, theophylline, and phenacetin. This effect presumably is mediated through enzyme induction, resulting from inhaled polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Because the O-demethylation pathway for codeine is similar to that of other drugs known to be influenced by cigarette smoking, a study was conducted to compare the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of codeine in smokers and nonsmokers. Twelve volunteers with no history of cigarette smoking and ten volunteers who smoke cigarettes were studied; an open, two-treatment, simultaneous parallel and crossover study design was used. Each volunteer received a single dose of codeine sulfate 60 mg po and codeine phosphate 60 mg im, in random treatment order, at one-week intervals. Serial blood samples were collected up to 12 hours after dosing, and plasma codeine and morphine concentrations were measured by radioimmunoassay. There was no significant difference between smokers and nonsmokers in either codeine or morphine areas under the plasma concentration-time curves (AUCs), with either route of administration. The relative codeine bioavailability in these groups was 54.8 +/- 4.9 percent and 50.2 +/- 2.1 percent (mean +/- SE), respectively. Smoking was associated with greater variability in plasma concentrations. Interestingly, greater morphine:codeine AUC ratios were observed in both groups after oral than after intramuscular administration. Cigarette smoking should have no clinically important influence on codeine absorption or disposition.
Cost‐effectiveness of palliative surgery versus nonsurgical procedures in gastrointestinal cancer patients

Palliative care is an essential component to multidisciplinary cancer care. Improved symptom control, quality of life (QOL), and survival have resulted from its utilization. Cost‐effectiveness and utility analyses are significant variables that should be considered in comparing benefits and costs of medical interventions to determine if certain treatments are economically justified. This is a review on the cost‐effectiveness of palliative surgery compared to other nonsurgical palliative procedures in patients with unresectable gastrointestinal cancers. J. Surg. Oncol. 2016;114:316–322. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Triplet quantum yields in light-scattering powder samples measured by laser-induced optoacoustic spectroscopy (LIOAS)

In recent years, different methods and techniques have been applied to study the primary photophysical processes occurring in dye-loaded light-scattering powdered samples. In spite of this, there are still no reliable methods for the determination of triplet quantum yields for this kind of systems. Laser-induced optoacoustic spectroscopy (LIOAS) has been extensively used for the determination of triplet quantum yields of dyes in solution. In a previous work, LIOAS was applied to the measurement of absolute emission quantum yields of highly fluorescent powdered samples. Excellent agreement was found with values obtained from reflectance data. In this work, we apply the same technique for the determination of triplet quantum yields of Rose Bengal and Erythrosine B adsorbed on microcrystalline cellulose. In contrast to water and other solvents, internal conversion cannot be neglected in the cellulose environment. The triplet quantum yield for both dyes is around 0.55 and does not change with dye concentration.
Study of Nonlinear Integral Sliding Mode Fault-Tolerant Control

This paper studies an active fault-tolerant control (FTC) design based on an integral sliding mode control (ISMC) strategy for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. It is shown that under the proposed scheme, the closed-loop system can tolerate certain allowable actuator faults whenever fault detection and diagnosis information is available, and the scheme also retains the main advantages of the ISMC technique. These advantages include robustness, rapid response, and ease of implementation. Moreover, the state response of the resulting closed-loop system under normal operation and different fault conditions is predictable from the response of a preselected fault-free certain system, which can be determined by the designer. Consequently, the engineer has the flexibility in selecting an (optimal) control law for the preselected system according to the system requirements. The analytical results obtained are also applied to the attitude control of a spacecraft. The simulation results clearly demonstrate the benefits of the proposed scheme.
Controllability and observability of uncertain systems: A robust measure

This paper deals with the class of polynomially uncertain continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) systems whose uncertainties belong to a semi-algebraic set. The objective is to determine the minimum of the smallest singular value of the controllability or observability Gramian over the uncertainty region. This provides a quantitative measure for the robust controllability or observability degree of the system. To this end, it is shown that the problem can be recast as a sum-of-squares (SOS) problem. In the special case when the uncertainty region is polytopic, the corresponding SOS formulation can be simplified significantly. One can apply the proposed method to any large-scale interconnected system to identify those inputs and outputs that are more effective in controlling the system. This enables the designer to simplify the control structure by ignoring those inputs and outputs whose contribution to the overall control operation is relatively weak. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the results.