Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CREB‐MEDIATED IL‐6 EXPRESSION IS REQUIRED FOR 15(S)‐HYDROXYEICOSATETRAENOIC ACID‐INDUCED VASCULAR SMOOTH MUSCLE CELL MIGRATION

Migration of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) from media to intima is a key event in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and restenosis. Cyclic AMP response element binding protein (CREB) has been implicated in the regulation of VSMC growth and motility in response to thrombin and angiotensin II. In this study, we tested the role of CREB in an oxidized lipid molecule, 15(S)‐HETE‐induced VSMC migration and injury‐induced restenosis. 15(S)‐HETE stimulated VSMC migration in a CREB‐dependent manner, as measured by the modified Boyden chamber method. Blockade of MEK1, JNK1 or p38MAPK inhibited 15(S)‐HETE‐induced CREB phosphorylation and VSMC migration. 15(S)‐HETE induced expression and secretion of interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), as analyzed by RT‐PCR and ELISA, respectively. Neutralizing anti‐IL‐6 antibodies blocked 15(S)‐HETE‐induced VSMC migration. Adenoviral mediated expression of dominant negative MEK1, JNK1, p38MAPK or CREB suppressed 15(S)‐HETE induced IL‐6 expression in VSMC. Serial 5′‐deletions and site‐directed mutagenesis analysis in an IL‐6 promoter‐dependent luciferase reporter system showed that cAMP response element is essential for 15(S)‐HETE‐induced IL‐6 expression. Dominant negative CREB also suppressed balloon injury‐induced IL‐6 expression and neointima formation. Thus, these results suggest a role for MAPK‐dependent CREB‐mediated IL‐6 expression in 15(S)‐HETE‐induced VSMC migration. These findings also suggest a role for CREB in balloon injury‐induced IL‐6 expression and neointima formation.
Shoulder crane: a concept of suspension, stability, control and motion

Framework and suspensory cascade This novel model uses the structure and workings of the industrial crane as a simile to explain the function of the human shoulder. As a crane consists of a base, axial tower, boom and suspensory cascade that move and position loads in space, the base consists of the pelvic platform, with outriggers (legs) that provide stability in human body. The axial tower consists of an articulated spinal column and thoracic platform, which are stabilised by the core muscles. The clavicular boom articulates with the anterior thoracic platform and is elevated by the trapezius from the posterior tower. The ‘suspensory cascade’ extends from the skull and cervical spine to the trapezius and on to the clavicle, coracoclavicular ligaments, coracoid process, coracohumeral ligament and humeral head. Motion The rotator cuff muscles take origin from the scapula and coalesce with each other to form a multilayered rotator cuff tendon and cable, which cups to closely contain the humeral head. The four muscles insert into the common tendon and together share the load to stabilise and mobilise the arm in space. The coracoid is a pulley that allows the scapula to swivel on the coracoclavicular ligaments to enable adjustment of the angle of force transmission delivered by the rotator cuff to the humeral head. Stability and control The inferior glenoid and labrum are a fixed organ of compression, which coalesces with the hammock formed by the static inferior glenohumeral ligaments. The rotator cuff and deltoid compress the humeral head onto this static structure. The biceps tendon passes adjacent to the condensations of the coracohumeral ligament to insert into the mobile superior labrum and glenoid. Contraction of the biceps pulls the mobile superior labrum onto the humeral head and tightens the glenohumeral ligaments that wrap around the humeral head at the extremes of motion. The coracohumeral ligament is a sensory organ that interfaces with these structures and is well positioned to work as a servomechanism to redirect the rotator cuff in providing stability, control and motion. Level of evidence Level V.
Outcomes of concurrent chemoradiotherapy versus chemotherapy alone for esophageal squamous cell cancer patients presenting with oligometastases.

Background The potential survival benefits of adding radiotherapy to systemic therapy for esophageal cancer patients with oligometastases are unknown. Methods In this retrospective analysis, patients with stage IV esophageal cancer (according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer Seventh edition staging system) with ≤3 metastases who underwent chemotherapy with cisplatin/paclitaxel between 2012 and 2015 were identified. Patients received chemotherapy (CT) alone vs. concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) to all metastases. Results Of 461 patients, 97% had squamous cell cancer. One hundred and ninety-six patients (42.5%) received CCRT and 265 (57.5%) underwent CT alone. At week 8, there were 3 (1.5%) complete responses (CR) and 95 (48.5%) partial responses (PR) in the CCRT group, compared to 3 (1.1%) CR and 102 (38.5%) PR in the CT alone group. The overall rate of improvement in dysphagia score was noted in 78.5% of patients in the CCRT group versus 61.5% in the CT alone group (P=0.014). A statistically significant difference was demonstrated in disease control rate between the two groups (81.6% vs. 64.5%, P<0.001). Patients who underwent CCRT had superior median PFS and a trend toward longer median OS compared to those receiving CT alone (8.7 vs. 7.3 months, P=0.002 and 16.8 vs. 14.8 months, P=0.056, respectively). The median OS was 19.3 months in patients who achieved CR/PR, compared to 14.9 months and 9.6 months for patients who had stable disease and progressive disease, respectively (P<0.001). Conclusions Compared to chemotherapy alone, chemoradiation to all sites in patients with esophageal cancer with ≤3 metastases may lead to a modest increase in PFS and a trend toward longer OS. Further investigation of optimal integration of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in these patients is warranted.
An adaptive communication architecture for wireless sensor networks

As sensor networks move towards increasing heterogeneity, the number of link layers, MAC protocols, and underlying transportation mechanisms increases. System developers must adapt their applications and systems to accommodate a wide range of underlying protocols and mechanisms. However, existing communication architectures for sensor networks are not designed for this heterogeneity and therefore the system developer must redevelop their systems for each underlying communication protocol or mechanism. To remedy this situation, we present a communication architecture that adapts to a wide range of underlying communication mechanisms, from the MAC layer to the transport layer, without requiring any changes to applications or protocols. We show that the architecture is expressive enough to accommodate typical sensor network protocols. Measurements show that the increase in execution time over a non-adaptive architecture is small.
Decomposition-based global optimization for optimal design of power distribution systems

This paper is concerned with global optimization of an alternating current optimal power flow (ACOPF) problem for optimal design of power distribution systems. The global optimization is challenging due to the high nonconvexity and the large size of the problem. An enhanced decomposition-based global optimization method is developed, based on the optimization model and the global optimization framework presented by Frank and Rebennack [1]. The constraint qualification failure that may arise in the proposed optimization framework is avoided by a novel problem reformulation. Case study results demonstrate the potential of the proposed framework for global optimization of realistic ACOPF problems.
Improving region selection in dynamic optimization systems

The performance of a dynamic optimization system depends heavily on the code it selects to optimize. Many current systems follow the design of HP Dynamo and select a single interprocedural path, or trace, as the unit of code optimization and code caching. Though this approach to region selection has worked well in practice, we show that it is possible to adapt this basic approach to produce regions with greater locality, less needless code duplication, and fewer profiling counters. In particular, we propose two new region-selection algorithms and evaluate them against Dynamo's selection mechanism, next-executing tail (NET). Our first algorithm, last-executed iteration (LEI), identifies cyclic paths of execution better than NET, improving locality of execution while reducing the size of the code cache. Our second algorithm allows overlapping traces of similar execution frequency to be combined into a single large region. This second technique can be applied to both NET and LEI, and we find that it significantly improves metrics of locality and memory overhead for each
Deep Learning for Super-resolution Vascular Ultrasound Imaging

Based on the intravascular infusion of gas microbubbles, which act as ultrasound contrast agents, ultrasound localization microscopy has enabled super resolution vascular imaging through precise detection of individual microbubbles across numerous imaging frames. However, analysis of high-density regions with significant overlaps among the microbubble point spread functions typically yields high localization errors, constraining the technique to low-concentration conditions. As such, long acquisition times are required for sufficient coverage of the vascular bed. Algorithms based on sparse recovery have been developed specifically to cope with the overlapping point-spread-functions of multiple microbubbles. While successful localization of densely-spaced emitters has been demonstrated, even highly optimized fast sparse recovery techniques involve a time-consuming iterative procedure. In this work, we used deep learning to improve upon standard ultrasound localization microscopy (Deep-ULM), and obtain super-resolution vascular images from high-density contrast-enhanced ultrasound data. Deep-ULM is suitable for real-time applications, resolving about 1250 high-resolution patches (128×128 pixels) per second using GPU acceleration.
The Optical Resonances in Carbon Nanotubes Arise from Excitons

Optical transitions in carbon nanotubes are of central importance for nanotube characterization. They also provide insight into the nature of excited states in these one-dimensional systems. Recent work suggests that light absorption produces strongly correlated electron-hole states in the form of excitons. However, it has been difficult to rule out a simpler model in which resonances arise from the van Hove singularities associated with the one-dimensional bond structure of the nanotubes. Here, two-photon excitation spectroscopy bolsters the exciton picture. We found binding energies of ∼400 millielectron volts for semiconducting single-walled nanotubes with 0.8-nanometer diameters. The results demonstrate the dominant role of many-body interactions in the excited-state properties of one-dimensional systems.
Bounded-Size Rules: The Barely Subcritical Regime

Bounded-size rules (BSRs) are dynamic random graph processes which incorporate limited choice along with randomness in the evolution of the system. Typically one starts with the empty graph and at each stage two edges are chosen uniformly at random. One of the two edges is then placed into the system according to a decision rule based on the sizes of the components containing the four vertices. For bounded-size rules, all components of size greater than some fixed K ≥ 1 are accorded the same treatment. Writing BSR(t) for the state of the system with ⌊nt/2⌋ edges, Spencer and Wormald [26] proved that for such rules, there exists a (rule-dependent) critical time tc such that when t < tc the size of the largest component is of order log n, while for t > tc, the size of the largest component is of order n. In this work we obtain upper bounds (that hold with high probability) of order n2γ log4n, on the size of the largest component, at time instants tn = tc−n−γ, where γ ∈ (0,1/4). This result for the barely subcritical regime forms a key ingredient in the study undertaken in [4], of the asymptotic dynamic behaviour of the process describing the vector of component sizes and associated complexity of the components for such random graph models in the critical scaling window. The proof uses a coupling of BSR processes with a certain family of inhomogeneous random graphs with vertices in the type space $\mathbb{R}_+\times \mathcal{D}([0,\infty):\mathbb{N}_0)$, where $\mathcal{D}([0,\infty):\mathbb{N}_0)$ is the Skorokhod D-space of functions that are right continuous and have left limits, with values in the space of non-negative integers $\mathbb{N}_0$, equipped with the usual Skorokhod topology. The coupling construction also gives an alternative characterization (from the usual explosion time of the susceptibility function) of the critical time tc for the emergence of the giant component in terms of the operator norm of integral operators on certain L2 spaces.
Improved Detection and Accuracy of Mycobacterium Species Identification from Paraffin Embedded Tissues of Patients by Using Multigene Targeted PCR and Sequencing

Abstract Background Prompt and accurate identification and differentiation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-complex (MTBC) from non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) is crucial for the selection of antimicrobial treatment and appropriate public health response. Diagnosis and characterization of mycobacteria is challenging due to diverse clinical presentations, lack of sensitivity of smear microscopy, and fastidious culture identification. Moreover, because of clinical suspicion of noninfectious conditions, specimens are often not processed for culture and formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues are the only specimens available. For rapid and accurate identification of Mycobacterium spp. from patient tissues, sensitive and specific molecular assays combined with other tissue-based methods are vital. Methods We extracted DNA from FFPE tissues from 931 patients with clinical and histopathological suspicion of mycobacterial infection (received during 2013–2016) and evaluated by multistage, multigene targeted Mycobacterium-genus, complexes-and species-specific PCR assays (targets including 16S rRNA, rpoB, groEL, IS6110, RLEP) and sequencing. Tissues were also examined by acid-fast bacilli (AFB) stains and mycobacteria immunohistochemistry (IHC). Assays to detect mutations associated with drug resistance were performed on MTBC cases. Results A Mycobacterium species was detected in 465 (50%) cases by PCR and sequencing. Of these, 380 (82%) were positive by Mycobacterium PCR targeting 16S rRNA. 85 cases (18%), including 9 MTBC, 12 M. avium complex and 3 M. leprae, were positive by other PCRs. Co-infection of MTBC and NTM spp. was detected in 5 cases. Of 465 PCR positive cases, 327 (70%) showed immunostaining and 223 (48%) were AFB-positive. Molecular markers for drug resistance were detected in 9 out of 88 (10%) tested MTBC cases. Conclusion FFPE tissue analysis by multigene targeted PCR assays expands the opportunities for rapid identification of Mycobacterium species, allows differentiation of MTBC from NTM, and helps to detect co-infections. Using multigene targeted PCRs in combination with histopathology and IHC improve the accuracy of diagnosis, particularly in the presence of commensal and environmental pathogens. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.
Van prelexicaal naar lexicaal in gesproken uitingen van dove kinderen (From prelexical to lexical in the spoken utterances of deaf children)

This paper concerns a research design for the Ph.D.-project titled 'From prelexical to lexical in the spoken utterances of deaf children' which has just started in 1996. Some general research questions will be mentioned as well as the methods that we intend to use. The various aspects of the speech development which will be studied are separately described together with some relevant literature. Specific questions for research are formulated and ways are indicated to analyze them.
Schema Repository for Database Schema Evolution

The paper presents a schema repository, an original repository containing different kinds of database schemas. The repository is part of a multidisciplinary approach for schema evolution called the predictive approach for database evolution. The schema repository has a dual role in the approach: (1) During the data-mining process, the repository identifies and analyzes trends on collected schemas belonging to the same domain. (2) The repository is used in the building of the requirements ontology - a domain ontology that contributes in the database design and its evolution. This paper presents both the design and a heuristic-based method to populate such a repository
Clinical and neuropathological characteristics of hippocampal sclerosis: a community-based study.

BACKGROUND Hippocampal sclerosis (HS) is a neuropathologic finding characterized by neuronal loss and gliosis in the CA-1 and subiculum of the hippocampus. Previous studies of HS have shown that this is a common postmortem finding in elderly subjects with dementia. However, these studies were from selected samples and therefore are not necessarily representative of patients seen in the general medical community. OBJECTIVES To examine the clinical and pathologic characteristics of HS in a community-based case series of dementia and to compare these characteristics with those observed in subjects with Alzheimer disease (AD) from the same study sample. METHODS One hundred thirty-four autopsy cases were available from a community-based registry of dementia. Sixteen cases (12%) had a postmortem diagnosis of HS. Thirty-two comparison control cases with a neuropathologic diagnosis of AD were selected from the same files. Each case of HS was reviewed for HS neuropathologic features, including severity, distribution, and additional pathologic processes. Blinded review of clinical characteristics for the HS and control groups was performed to assess risk factors. RESULTS There was a wide range of severity and distribution of HS lesions between cases and substantial variability in lesion severity and age within individual cases. Serial neuropsychologic and behavioral assessments revealed similar clinical features and rates of dementia progression between HS and AD groups. Of all neuropsychologic tests performed at enrollment, only enhanced performance on Trails A differentiated the HS from the AD group (64 seconds, 0 errors vs 114 seconds, 0.6 errors; P< or = .05). The number of AD cases with at least 1 apolipoprotein epsilon 4 allele was significantly greater than the HS cases (61% vs 31%; chi(2) = 3.81, P< or = . 05). Although medical record review indicated higher frequencies of clinical stroke and neuroradiologic white matter abnormalities in the HS group, risk factors for vascular disease and neuropathologic evidence of cerebrovascular disease did not differ between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that HS is a frequent pathologic finding in community-based dementia. Individuals with HS have similar initial symptoms and rates of dementia progression to those with AD and therefore are frequently misclassified as having AD. Our clinical and pathologic findings suggest that HS has characteristics of a progressive disorder although the underlying cause remains elusive.
Is the Homunculus Aware of Sensory Adaptation?

Neural activity and perception are both affected by sensory history. The work presented here explores the relationship between the physiological effects of adaptation and their perceptual consequences. Perception is modeled as arising from an encoder-decoder cascade, in which the encoder is defined by the probabilistic response of a population of neurons, and the decoder transforms this population activity into a perceptual estimate. Adaptation is assumed to produce changes in the encoder, and we examine the conditions under which the decoder behavior is consistent with observed perceptual effects in terms of both bias and discriminability. We show that for all decoders, discriminability is bounded from below by the inverse Fisher information. Estimation bias, on the other hand, can arise for a variety of different reasons and can range from zero to substantial. We specifically examine biases that arise when the decoder is fixed, unaware of the changes in the encoding population (as opposed to aware of the adaptation and changing accordingly). We simulate the effects of adaptation on two well-studied sensory attributes, motion direction and contrast, assuming a gain change description of encoder adaptation. Although we cannot uniquely constrain the source of decoder bias, we find for both motion and contrast that an unaware decoder that maximizes the likelihood of the percept given by the preadaptation encoder leads to predictions that are consistent with behavioral data. This model implies that adaptation-induced biases arise as a result of temporary suboptimality of the decoder.
Analyzing future communities in growing citation networks

Citation networks contain temporal information about what researchers are interested in at a certain time. A community in such a network is built around either a renowned researcher or a common research field; either way, analyzing how the community will change in the future will give insight into the research trend in the future. The paper proposes methods to analyze how communities change over time in the citation network graph without additional external information and based on node and link prediction and community detection. Different combinations of the proposed methods are also analyzed. Experiments show that the proposed methods can identify the changes in citation communities multiple years in the future with performance differing according to the analyzed time span. Furthermore, the method is shown to produce higher performance when analyzing communities to be disbanded and to be formed in the future.
Trans-generational immune priming in honeybees

Maternal immune experience acquired during pathogen exposure and passed on to progeny to enhance resistance to infection is called trans-generational immune priming (TgIP). In eusocial insects like honeybees, TgIP would result in a significant improvement of health at individual and colony level. Demonstrated in invertebrates other than honeybees, TgIP has not yet been fully elucidated in terms of intensity and molecular mechanisms underlying this response. Here, we immune-stimulated honeybee queens with Paenibacillus larvae (Pl), a spore-forming bacterium causing American Foulbrood, the most deadly bee brood disease worldwide. Subsequently, offspring of stimulated queens were exposed to spores of Pl and mortality rates were measured to evaluate maternal transfer of immunity. Our data substantiate the existence of TgIP effects in honeybees by direct evaluation of offspring resistance to bacterial infection. A further aspect of this study was to investigate a potential correlation between immune priming responses and prohaemocytes–haemocyte differentiation processes in larvae. The results point out that a priming effect triggers differentiation of prohaemocytes to haemocytes. However, the mechanisms underlying TgIP responses are still elusive and require future investigation.