Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glucosamine Inhibits Decidualization of Human Endometrial Stromal Cells and Decreases Litter Sizes in Mice1

ABSTRACT Embryo implantation in the uterus depends on decidualization of the endometrial stromal cells (ESCs), and glucose utilization via the pentose phosphate pathway is critical in this process. We hypothesized that the amino sugar glucosamine may block the pentose phosphate pathway via inhibition of the rate-limiting enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase in ESCs and therefore impair decidualization and embryo implantation, thus preventing pregnancy. Both human primary and immortalized ESCs were decidualized in vitro in the presence of 0, 2.5, or 5 mM glucosamine for 9 days. Viability assays demonstrated that glucosamine was well tolerated by human ESCs. Exposure of human ESCs to glucosamine resulted in significant decreases in the activity and expression of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and in the mRNA expression of the decidual markers prolactin, somatostatin, interleukin-15, and left-right determination factor 2. In mouse ESCs, expression of the decidual marker Prp decreased upon addition of glucosamine. In comparison with control mice, glucosamine-treated mice showed weak artificial deciduoma formation along the stimulated uterine horn. In a complementary in vivo experiment, a 60-day-release glucosamine (15, 150, or 1500 μg) or placebo pellet was implanted in a single uterine horn of mice. Mice with a glucosamine pellet delivered fewer live pups per litter than those with a control pellet, and pup number returned to normal after the end of the pellet-active period. In conclusion, glucosamine is a nonhormonal inhibitor of decidualization of both human and mouse ESCs and of pregnancy in mice. Our data indicate the potential for development of glucosamine as a novel, reversible, nonhormonal contraceptive.
An intelligent matcher for schema mapping problem

Data exchange between companies needs to fulfill the requirements of common data format and data representation. The core technique for solving schema conflict in data exchange is matching imported XML documents into internal schemas. There are two major methods in schema mapping: linguistic matching and structural matching. Based on previous research results, one single method can not effectively solve the schema mapping problems. Therefore, this paper proposes an intelligent schema matcher based on the similarity flooding method to solve the schema matching problem in one-to-one case. This intelligent matcher uses linguistic similarity values to simplify the directed graph to increase the effectiveness of schema mapping. This matcher reduces the computational effort due to the simplification of the graph, and it increases the matching performances compared to the original similarity flooding method in many indices.
Polymorphisms in the LOC387715/ARMS2 Putative Gene and the Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are neurodegenerative disorders that share a high prevalence among elderly people, the extracellular deposition of β-amyloid and the involvement of genetic factors in their aetiology. Genetic linkage with the chromosome regions 10q26 and 10q24–25 have been shown for ARMD and AD, respectively. The rs10490924 polymorphism, the major determinant of the 10q26 association with ARMD, determines the A69S substitution in the LOC387715/ARMS2 gene. Little information is available about the expression of the gene in humans. Methods: We analysed the expression of the gene by RT-PCR in the brain and we looked for nucleotide variations in the gene sequence by DHPLC. Results: We found specific gene transcripts in the hippocampus, cortex and cerebellum. The genetic analysis identified two other common variations, which determine the R3H change (rs10490923) and a premature stop codon (rs2736911), respectively. The analysis of their distribution in 213 AD patients and 149 controls revealed a trend for a reduced frequency of the variant allele of rs2736911 in AD patients (p = 0.038), with an odds ratio of 0.631. Conclusion: The LOC387715/ARMS2 gene is expressed in the human brain, and it may concur to the individual risk for AD.
STABILITYANALYSIS OF 8 T SCHMITT TRIGGER BASED SRAM

This paper presents an 8T Schmitt Trigger (ST) based SRAM design to improve the read stability and power dissipation of conventional 6T SRAM cell. The ST based SRAM cell incorporates built-in feedback mechanism in order to attain robust read operation. The read stability of the cell is 2.5× higher than that of 6T SRAM cell at 1.8V and it can retain data even at a lower Vmin of 0.3V. Also, power consumption is reduced by 22% compared to 6T SRAM design. The layout drawn using 120nm technology rule shows that the 8T ST SRAM occupies 1.2× higher area compared to 6T SRAM cell. Peripheral circuits for the 8T ST SRAM are introduced. Except the precharge circuit and basic SRAM cells, the remaining part of the circuitry is same for both single bit 6T and 8T ST SRAM array design. The single bit 8T ST SRAM array consumes less power and area in nano-scaled technologies. The proposed design was simulated in Mentor Graphics ELDO using TSMC 180nm technology.
Preliminary study on decreasing the expression of FOXP3 with miR-155 to inhibit diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

The aim of the present study was to analyze the association between the transcription factor forkhead box P3 (FOXP3) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and investigate the effect of microRNA-155 (miR-155) on the generation and development of FOXP3 in DLBCL. The reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) technique was used to determine the expression of FOXP3 in the human DLBCL cell lines Ly1, Ly8 and Ly10, and in normal B cells. An immunohistochemical method was used to determine FOXP3 expression in 60 DLBCL tumor and adjacent tissues, and a retrospective analysis of FOXP3 expression in tumor tissues and clinical data was performed. The lentiviral transfection technique was used to silence the miR-155 gene in mouse A20 cells to analyze the influence of miR-155 on FOXP3 in DLBCL. The A20 cell line with a silenced miR-155 gene was used to perform a tumorigenicity assay in BALB/c mice, and to compare the tumorigenicity rate and the tumor growth rate. The results identified that the expression of the transcription factor FOXP3 in the human DLBCL cell lines was increased compared with normal B cells; FOXP3 in human DLBCL tumor issues was increased compared with the tumor-adjacent tissue, and the increased expression of FOXP3 was identified as an indicator of poor prognosis of patients with DLBCL in the middle and late period; FOXP3 level decreased subsequent to silencing miR-155 in A20 cells; A20 cells with the low-expression miR-155 gene were used to determine the tumorigenicity in BALB/c mice and it was identified that the tumorigenicity of the low-expression miR-155 gene group was decreased compared with the untransfected group. Therefore, miR-155 may be a regulatory factor of FOXP3, and miR-155 may be associated with the metastasis and prognosis of patients with DLBCL.
Path planning of rotorcrafts in unknown environment

In this paper, we introduced an online path planning method which is able to be implemented on micro rotorcrafts with limited payload and computational power. The method enables automatic flight of such vehicles in GPS-denied and obstacle-strewn environments by adopting efficient trajectory generation algorithms. A series of two point boundary value problem (TPBVP) is solved analytically to formulate the overall path. Advantages of the proposed approach includes its stability and efficiency thanks to the closed-form solution to each trajectory segment. The result has been realized and demonstrated on real rotorcrafts. The video of flight tests can be found at: http://uav.ece. nus.edu. sg/robust-online-path-planning-Lai2015.html.
A S IMPLE BUT T OUGH-TOB EAT

The success of neural network methods for computing word embeddings has motivated methods for generating semantic embeddings of longer pieces of text, such as sentences and paragraphs. Surprisingly, Wieting et al (ICLR’16) showed that such complicated methods are outperformed, especially in out-of-domain (transfer learning) settings, by simpler methods involving mild retraining of word embeddings and basic linear regression. The method of Wieting et al. requires retraining with a substantial labeled dataset such as Paraphrase Database (Ganitkevitch et al., 2013). The current paper goes further, showing that the following completely unsupervised sentence embedding is a formidable baseline: Use word embeddings computed using one of the popular methods on unlabeled corpus like Wikipedia, represent the sentence by a weighted average of the word vectors, and then modify them a bit using PCA/SVD. This weighting improves performance by about 10% to 30% in textual similarity tasks, and beats sophisticated supervised methods including RNN’s and LSTM’s. It even improves Wieting et al.’s embeddings. This simple method should be used as the baseline to beat in future, especially when labeled training data is scarce or nonexistent. The paper also gives a theoretical explanation of the success of the above unsupervised method using a latent variable generative model for sentences, which is a simple extension of the model in Arora et al. (TACL’16) with new “smoothing” terms that allow for words occurring out of context, as well as high probabilities for words like and, not in all contexts.
Interpretative Bias: Indicators of Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression

Objectives: The study aimed at testing the existence of interpretative bias in remitted depressives as compared to unipolar depressives and never-depressed individuals. Method: Cognitive Bias Questionnaire was administered on 10 individuals each with unipolar depression, remitted depression, and never-depressed participants. Participants were presented with vague and ambiguous vignettes of potentially problematic situation that individuals often encounter their daily lives. Each vignette is followed by four questions with four response options reflecting a depressed-distorted, depressed-nondistorted, nondepressed-distorted, or nondepressed- nondistorted option. Participants choose the response option that best represents how they would respond to the situation if it actually happened to them. Results: Unipolar depressives interpret their condition as high on depressive mood symptoms as well as distorted thoughts whereas remitted depressives interpret their condition as high on distorted thoughts alone. Conclusions: It may suggest that despite of reduction in level of symptomatic severity of depression, cognitive errors are still maintained during remission, can increase one’s vulnerability for relapse. It implies that management of depression should focus on reducing cognitive vulnerability to depression, rather than only targeting a reduction in the symptoms.
Differential frost heave model for patterned ground formation: Corroboration with observations along a North American arctic transect

[1] Frost boils in the Arctic are a manifestation of patterned ground in the form of nonsorted circles. Active frost boils involve convection of water through the soil that can bring basic salts from depth to the surface. As such, active frost boils can mitigate acidification and thereby strongly influence the type of vegetation supported by Arctic soils. The presence or absence of active frost boils is thought to play a pivotal role in establishing the sharp demarcation between moist nonacidic tundra (MNT) and moist acidic tundra (MAT) in the Arctic. The focus of this paper is to corroborate the predictions of a mathematical model that relates observable patterned ground features to ecosystem parameters with observations at the field sites along the North American Arctic Transect (NAAT) established by the Biocomplexity of Patterned-Ground Ecosystems Project. Model predictions indicate that recurrent one-dimensional frost heave can become unstable and evolve into multidimensional differential frost heave (DFH). A laboratory frost heave simulation produced a 28-cm pattern in an active layer of 10 cm, which agrees with linear stability theory predictions. A finite element solution predicts three-dimensional patterns with approximately 3-m spacing develop in a 1.0-m active layer with a surface n factor of 0.35, which agrees well with field observations from the NAAT. The lack of significant frost boil activity in the MAT is a result of suppression of DFH owing to denser surface vegetation characterized by low n factors. Prominent active frost boils are observed in the MNT at higher latitudes with more sparse vegetation characterized by higher n factors that promote DFH. However, at the northernmost field sites frost boils cannot be generated even though the n factors are relatively high owing to very rapid freezing conditions that mitigate DFH.
The Downregulation of microRNA let-7a Contributes to the Excessive Expression of Type I Collagen in Systemic and Localized Scleroderma

Systemic and localized scleroderma (SSc and LSc) is characterized by excessive deposition of collagen and tissue fibrosis in the skin. Although they have fundamental common characteristics including autoimmunity, little is known about the exact mechanism that mediates the excessive collagen expression in these disorders. In the current study, we tried to evaluate the possibility that microRNAs (miRNAs) play some roles in the pathogenesis of fibrosis seen in these diseases. miRNA expression patterns were evaluated by miRNA array analysis, real-time PCR, and in situ hybridization. The function of miRNAs in dermal fibroblasts was assessed using miRNA inhibitors, precursors, or protectors. In the mouse model of bleomycin-induced dermal sclerosis, the overexpression of miRNAs was performed by i.p. miRNA injection. We demonstrated let-7a expression was downregulated in SSc and LSc skin both in vivo and in vitro, compared with normal or keloid skin. The inhibition or overexpression of let-7a in human or mouse skin fibroblasts affected the protein expression of type I collagen or luciferase activity of collagen 3′-untranslated region. Also, we found let-7a was detectable and quantitative in the serum and investigated serum let-7a levels in patients with SSc or LSc. let-7a concentration was significantly decreased in these patients, especially in LSc patients. Moreover, we revealed that the intermittent overexpression of let-7a in the skin by i.p. miRNA injection improved the skin fibrosis induced by bleomycin in mice. Investigation of more detailed mechanisms of miRNA-mediated regulation of collagen expression may lead to new therapeutic approaches against SSc and LSc.
Extracting Names From Arabic Text for Question-Answering Systems

Tagging and extracting proper names is an important key for improving the effectiveness of question-answering systems. The valuable information in the text usually is located around proper names, to collect this information it should be found first. By extracting proper names from the text we provide question-answering systems with both the proper name found in the text, some information about it and where it was found. The proper names in Arabic do not start with capital letter as in many other languages so special treatment is needed to find them in a text. Little research has been conducted in this area; most efforts have been based on a number of heuristic rules used to find names in the text. In this paper we present a new technique to extract names from text by building a database and graphs to represent the words that might form a name and the relationships between them. First we mark the phrases that might include names, second we build graphs to represent the words in these phrases and the relationships between them, third we apply rules to find the names.
Mechanomyography and Torque during FES-Evoked Muscle Contractions to Fatigue in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury

A mechanomyography muscle contraction (MC) sensor, affixed to the skin surface, was used to quantify muscle tension during repetitive functional electrical stimulation (FES)-evoked isometric rectus femoris contractions to fatigue in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). Nine persons with motor complete SCI were seated on a commercial muscle dynamometer that quantified peak torque and average torque outputs, while measurements from the MC sensor were simultaneously recorded. MC-sensor-predicted measures of dynamometer torques, including the signal peak (SP) and signal average (SA), were highly associated with isometric knee extension peak torque (SP: r = 0.91, p < 0.0001), and average torque (SA: r = 0.89, p < 0.0001), respectively. Bland-Altman (BA) analyses with Lin’s concordance (ρC) revealed good association between MC-sensor-predicted peak muscle torques (SP; ρC = 0.91) and average muscle torques (SA; ρC = 0.89) with the equivalent dynamometer measures, over a range of FES current amplitudes. The relationship of dynamometer torques and predicted MC torques during repetitive FES-evoked muscle contraction to fatigue were moderately associated (SP: r = 0.80, p < 0.0001; SA: r = 0.77; p < 0.0001), with BA associations between the two devices fair-moderate (SP; ρC = 0.70: SA; ρC = 0.30). These findings demonstrated that a skin-surface muscle mechanomyography sensor was an accurate proxy for electrically-evoked muscle contraction torques when directly measured during isometric dynamometry in individuals with SCI. The novel application of the MC sensor during FES-evoked muscle contractions suggested its possible application for real-world tasks (e.g., prolonged sit-to-stand, stepping,) where muscle forces during fatiguing activities cannot be directly measured.
La voie ferrée et sa fondation - Modélisation mathématique

La presente these a pour but principal d'approfondir, a l'aide d'une modelisation mathematique, les divers aspects du comportement mecanique du systeme complet " voie ferree-fondation ". La these comporte quatre chapitres, dans lesquels sont traites les themes suivants. Dans le premier chapitre on etablit une modelisation en elasto-plasticite du systeme " rail-traverses-couches d'assise-plate-forme ", en utilisant la methode des elements finis. Dans le deuxieme chapitre, on determine les epaisseurs rationnelles des couches d'assise, apres avoir etudie successivement, a l'aide de cette modelisation, l'influence sur le comportement mecanique de la voie ferree des parametres suivants : - type et longueur de la traverse, - qualite du sol de la plate-forme, - surcharges dynamiques dues aux defauts geometriques de la voie, - tonnage supporte, - niveau des operations d'entretien de la voie. Dans le troisieme chapitre, on etudie le comportement a la fatigue des materiaux constitutifs des couches d'assise et de la plate-forme. Dans le quatrieme chapitre, on analyse le probleme de la propagation des vibrations ferroviaires dans les sols environnants et on etudie notamment la dissipation de l'energie vibratoire dans la couche de ballast.
Strategy for Foaming Improvement of Whey Protein Concentrates by Addition of Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose and Heating: Relation with Interfacial Properties

The objective of this work was to determine the effect of heat application on whey protein concentrate (WPC) in combination with hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) addition to improve the foaming properties of the system and to relation these with the interfacial ones. Under these conditions 1 × 10-2 and 1% w/w of whey protein solutions were mixed with 1 × 10-2 and 1% w/w of polysaccharide. Solutions were heat treated for 30 min using a thermostatic bath at 90°C. The foams were produced using a foaming commercial instrument. Foam formation and their stability were measured by conductimetric and optical methods. Time-dependent surface pressure (π); kinetics of absorption and dilatational properties of adsorbed WPC/E4M mixed films at the air–water interface was performed by an automatic drop tensiometer. WPC1%/E4M 1 × 10-2% showed the best combination of biopolymers concentrations to increase foaming properties upon heat treatment. WPC aggregation concomitantly with a great polysaccharide capacity of molecular reorganization at the air-liquid interface could be the reason for these finding. The results showed here have their rheological implicances. WPC did not foam at any of the studied concentrations.
Update on Mago Progress

The research area known as MAGO (Russian abbreviation for magnetic implosion) in Russia and as MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) in the United States is an alternative to the main CTF approaches (magnetic confinement systems and inertial confinement fusion). The MAGO/MTF approach consists of two phases: 1. First magnetized hot plasma is produced suitable for further compression (with magnetic field ~0.1 MGs having a closed field line configuration; the plasma is of density ~10 cm-3, temperature -300 eV, and small impurity content, as impurities can contribute to the losses caused by radiation). 2. Then the plasma is compressed in the quasi-adiabatic manner by liners (at velocities on the order of 1 cm/mus) using powerful drivers (e. g., explosive magnetic generators, EMG) and its parameters are brought to the ones meeting the Lawson criterion. Here it is necessary to provide the plasma lifetime of ~10-5 s . To implement this approach, it is necessary to combine two essential elements: hot magnetized plasma generation system and highly energetic compression system. In the MAGO chambers, DT plasma of the following parameters has been produced in a cylindrical bulk with 5-8 cm height, 6-10 cm outer radius, and 0.9-1.2 cm inner radius: average density 8ldr10 cm-3 , average temperature 200-250 eV , characteristic azimuthal magnetic field in the plasma ~0.15 MG . In the joint VNIIEF/LANL experiment HEL-1 a liner with the parameters (~25 MJ energy, ~0.8 cm/mus velocity) necessary to reach ignition at compression stage was obtained. As ID and 2D computations of pure plasma compression by a liner with the parameters close to those in the experiment HEL-1 show, the plasma with the characteristics corresponding to the Lawson criterion can be produced in this case. However, the data obtained in preliminary heating experiments using X-ray diodes, suggests ~2-3 mus plasma lifetime, which is insufficient to ensure the ignition in compression. Basing on the computed and experimental data one can conclude that the most important mechanism that contributes to MAGO plasma cooling is contamination of the plasma with impurities and it's cooling due to irradiation on impurities. This plasma contamination can result from the plasma mixing with the insulator vapors (which can be produced from //-pushed discharge) and wall material washout by the plasma. During the plasma compression in the MAGO chamber the mass washed out from the chamber walls can be even larger than that at the preheating phase. So light materials (carbon, beryllium or lithium for walls, beryllium oxide, boron carbide, boron nitride for insulator) should be used in experiments on DT plasma compression in the MAGO chamber. Using light materials for the chamber walls and insulator can increase the plasma lifetime and make the plasma suitable for the liner-plasma experiments.
Optimal STATCOM Sizing and Placement Using Particle Swarn Optimization

Heuristic approaches are traditionally applied to find the size and location of flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) devices in a small power system. Nevertheless, more sophisticated methods are required for placing them in a large power network. Recently, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique has been applied to solve power engineering optimization problems giving better results than classical methods. This paper shows the application of PSO for optimal sizing and allocation of a static compensator (STATCOM) in a power system. A 45 bus system (part of the Brazilian power network) is used as an example to illustrate the technique. Results show that the PSO is able to find the best solution with statistical significance and a high degree of convergence. A detailed description of the method, results and conclusions are also presented