Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sirtuins and Cancer: Role in the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition

The human sirtuins (SIRT1–SIRT7) enzymes are a highly conserved family of NAD+-dependent histone deacetylases, which play a critical role in the regulation of a large number of metabolic pathways involved in stress response and aging. Cancer is an age-associated disease, and sirtuins may have a considerable impact on a plethora of processes that regulate tumorigenesis. In particular, growing evidence suggests that sirtuins may modulate epithelial plasticity by inducing transcriptional reprogramming leading to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion, and metastases. Though commonly regarded as EMT inducers, sirtuins may also suppress this process, and their functional properties seem to largely depend on the cellular context, stage of cancer development, tissue of origin, and microenvironment architecture. Here, we review the role of sirtuins in cancer biology with particular emphasis on their role in EMT.
Caring for a daughter with intellectual disabilities in managing menstruation: A mother's perspective

Abstract Background The concerns of mothers and their experiences while providing help to their daughters with intellectual disability (ID) and considerable support needs during menstruation have rarely been addressed. This qualitative study explored mothers’ experiences and perceptions of managing their daughters’ menstruation. Method Twelve Taiwanese mothers of 13 daughters with ID (1 mother had twins) were interviewed to explore their experiences of providing help to their daughters with high support needs during menstruation. Results Support networks were limited and mothers developed their own strategies for managing their daughter's menstruation. Surgical hysterectomy or use of medication to cease or postpone menstrual bleeding was never considered by the mothers. The financial cost of menstrual pads and nappies was significant. Conclusions Both an appropriate allowance for families involved in the menstrual care of women with ID and access to appropriate support are needed. More information and educational programs need to be provided to relevant professionals and carers.
Assessment of the independent associations of IgG, IgM and IgA isotypes of anticardiolipin with thrombosis in SLE

Objective The Sydney classification criteria for antiphospholipid syndrome include lupus anticoagulant or moderate-to-high titre anticardiolipin IgG or IgM. We explored the association of all anticardiolipin isotypes, lupus anticoagulant and the combination with venous and arterial thrombosis. Methods Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in a large clinical cohort seen quarterly were repeatedly tested by protocol for anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant. Subgroups of patients were defined based on the geometric mean titres of IgG, IgM, IgA anticardiolipin and lupus anticoagulant expressed in dilute Russell's viper venom time (RVVT) seconds for each patient across all cohort visits. These subgroups were compared with respect rates of thrombosis since diagnosis with SLE. Rate ratios were estimated using Cox Proportional Hazards models. Results Of the 1390 cohort members included, there were 284 thrombotic events observed over 17 025 person-years since diagnosis for a rate of 1.7 events per 100 person-years. Those with a geometric mean titre of IgG anticardiolipin >20 had a significantly elevated rate of thromboses (rate ratio 1.8, p=0.0052), whereas there was no evidence of an association between thromboses and elevated IgM geometric mean (rate ratio 1.2, p=0.40). There were relatively few cohort members with elevated IgA geometric mean but the rate of thromboses in that group was elevated (rate ratio 1.7, p=0.23). The associations between anticardiolipin antibodies and thromboses were strongest when considering venous thromboses. Those with two or more elevated anticardiolipin isotypes or those with both IgG anticardiolipin and RVVT did not appear at higher risk than those with a single elevated marker. Conclusion This study supports previous observations that IgG anticardiolipin and lupus anticoagulant are associated with higher rates of thromboses. Our power to study IgA anticardiolipin was limited due to small number of patients with elevated IgA.
Race, Gender, and Teacher Testing: How Informative a Tool Is Teacher Licensure Testing?

Virtually all states require teachers to undergo licensure testing before participation in the public school labor market. This article analyzes the information these tests provide about teacher effectiveness. The authors find that licensure tests have different predicative validity for student achievement by teacher race. They also find that student achievement is impacted by the race/ethnicity match between teachers and their students, with Black students significantly benefitting from being matched with a Black teacher. As a consequence of these matching effects, the uniform application of licensure standards is likely to have differential impacts on the achievement of White and minority students.
Identification of process-induced residual stress/strain distribution in thick thermoplastic composites based on in situ strain monitoring using optical fiber sensors

In thick thermoplastic composite laminates, nonuniform temperature distribution arises in the through-thickness direction during high-rate manufacturing processes. This causes the so-called thermal skin-core effect. The surface region solidified in advance constrains shrinking of the inside region, so nonuniform residual stress/strain distribution arises in the through-thickness direction. This study quantitatively clarified this mechanism and identified the amount of residual stress/strain by utilizing fiber optic–based internal strain measurement and process simulation. First, in-plane transverse strain of thin carbon fiber/polyphenylenesulfide laminates was measured using fiber Bragg grating sensors to determine two key parameters for stress/strain simulation; thermal/crystalline shrinkage strain and composite stiffness. Abaqus-based simulation using these properties was then performed to calculate stress/strain distribution in thick laminates. The simulated strain agreed well with the measured value and it was confirmed that the residual stress developed in a relatively low temperature range. In addition, transverse three-point bending tests were conducted to validate the amount of residual stress calculated by the simulation. The bending strength increased by the thermal skin-core effect and the amount of strength increase coincided with the simulation, confirming the validity of the simulation. Extension of the proposed approach to the evaluation of the morphological skin-core effect is also discussed.
Automatic Segmentation of Dynamic Objects from an Image Pair

Automatic segmentation of objects from a single image is a challenging problem which generally requires training on large number of images. We consider the problem of automatically segmenting only the dynamic objects from a given pair of images of a scene captured from different positions. We exploit dense correspondences along with saliency measures in order to first localize the interest points on the dynamic objects from the two images. We propose a novel approach based on techniques from computational geometry in order to automatically segment the dynamic objects from both the images using a top-down segmentation strategy. We discuss how the proposed approach is unique in novelty compared to other state-of-the-art segmentation algorithms. We show that the proposed approach for segmentation is efficient in handling large motions and is able to achieve very good segmentation of the objects for different scenes. We analyse the results with respect to the manually marked ground truth segmentation masks created using our own dataset and provide key observations in order to improve the work in future.
Troxacitabine and imatinib mesylate combination therapy of chronic myeloid leukaemia: preclinical evaluation

The in vitro and in vivo activity of a deoxycytidine analogue, troxacitabine, alone or in combination with imatinib mesylate (IM), was evaluated against human chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) cell lines both sensitive (KBM5 and KBM7) and resistant (KBM5‐R and KBM7‐R) to IM. These cell lines differ in their sensitivity to IM but all showed similar sensitivity to treatment with troxacitabine (IC50 = 0·5–1 μmol/l). Combined treatment with troxacitabine and IM revealed additive or synergistic effects. Greater apoptotic response was seen with combined treatment than with either agent alone in KBM7‐R cells. In clonogenic assays, troxacitabine showed activity against mononuclear cells from CML patients (IC50 = 0·01 μmol/l) with either IM‐sensitive or resistant disease. In vivo efficacy studies were carried out in severe combined immunodeficient mice bearing KBM5 or KBM5‐R cells. Troxacitabine was administered i.p. daily for 5 d starting on day 20, at doses of 5, 10, 20, or 25 mg/kg. IM was administered i.p. twice a day for 10 d at a dose of 50 mg/kg starting on day 25. In this setting of late stage disease, troxacitabine led to a significant increase in life span, while IM did not. When IM was combined with troxacitabine at 10 and 25 mg/kg in the KBM5 xenograft model, a further increase in life span was observed and some mice achieved long‐term survival. These data indicate that the combination of troxacitabine and IM has significant preclinical activity in advanced CML and that clinical evaluation of this combination is warranted.
Energy flow, thermoelectricity and Fourier's law at the nanoscale

Advances in the fabrication and characterization of nanoscale systems now allow for a deeper understanding of one of the most basic issues in science and technology: the flow of energy at the microscopic level. This knowledge is also likely to impact our ability to build more efficient devices for energy generation, storage and conversion. In this Colloquium we survey recent advances and present understanding of physical mechanisms of energy transport in nanostructures. We examine basic issues such as thermoelectricity, local temperature and heating, and the relation between energy current density and temperature gradient - known as Fourier's law. We critically report on both theoretical and experimental progress in each of these issues, and discuss future research opportunities in the field.
Multipair Massive MIMO Two-Way Full-Duplex Relay Systems with Hardware Impairments

Hardware impairments, such as phase noise, quantization errors, non-linearities, and noise amplification, have baneful effects on wireless communications. In this paper, we investigate the effect of hardware impairments on multipair massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) two-way full-duplex relay systems with amplify-and-forward scheme. More specifically, novel closed-form approximate expressions for the spectral efficiency are derived to obtain some important insights into the practical design of the considered system. When the number of relay antennas 𝒩 increases without bound, we propose a hardware scaling law, which reveals that the level of hardware impairments that can be tolerated is roughly proportional to $\sqrt{N}$. This new result inspires us to design low-cost and practical multipair massive MIMO two-way full-duplex relay systems. Moreover, the optimal number of relay antennas is derived to maximize the energy efficiency. Finally, Motor-Carlo simulation results are provided to validate our analytical results.
Expressions of E-cadherin , p 120 ctn , β-catenin and NF-κ B in Ulcerative Colitis *

This study was aimed to investigate the expressions of E-cadherin, p120ctn, β-catenin and NF-κB in ulcerative colitis (UC) tissues and the implications of their expressions in the pathogenesis of UC. The expressions of E-cadherin, p120ctn, β-catenin and NF-κB were detected by immunohistochemistry, and those of p120ctn and NF-κB by Western blotting in 23 cases of UC and 17 cases of normal colonic tissues. The relationship between the expression of E-cadherin or NF-κB and that of p120ctn was analyzed by Spearman rank correlation analysis. The results showed that in UC and normal colonic groups, the abnormal expression rate of E-cadherin, p120ctn, β-catenin, and NF-κB was 52.2% vs. 0 (P<0.05), 73.9% vs. 23.5% (P<0.05), 65.2% vs. 17.6% (P<0.05) and 78.4% vs. 23.5% (P<0.05), respectively. p120ctn expression was positively correlated with E-cadherin expression (r=0.404, P<0.05), but negatively with nuclear NF-κB expression (r= – 0.347, P<0.05). Western blotting showed that as compared with the normal controls, the p120ctn protein level was significantly decreased (P<0.05), whereas the NF-κB protein level was increased (P<0.05) in UC tissues. It was concluded that in the colonic tissues of UC patients, the expressions of E-cadherin, p120ctn and β-catenin are decreased, suggesting the mucosal barrier is impaired in UC. Moreover, NF-κB is increased and activated in the UC tissues, resulting in the inflammation in UC. p120ctn may influence the UC development through modulating intercellular adhesion and inflammatory response.
Efficient Cryptographic Key Generation using Biometrics

Biometrics gives a lot of methods in high-secure applications while using natural, user-friendly and fast authentication. Cryptography is intended to ensure the secrecy and authenticity of message. The cryptographic key will be long, so it is difficult to remember, protecting the confidentiality of the cryptographic keys is one of the significant issues to be deal with. This can be efficiently solved by the integration of biometrics with cryptography. Conventional techniques depend on biometric features like face, fingerprint, hand geometry, iris, signature, keystroke, voice and the like for the extraction of key. Instead of storing key we will generate the key dynamically with the help of biometrics. Here we will use Finger print to generate key, which is safe and fast. This key can be used for any type of cryptography.
Semantic tokenization of verbalized numbers in language modeling

In spoken dialogsystems, number strings frequentlycarry crucial information such as DATE, TIME, and PRICE. Yet numbers are inherently difﬁcult to recognize, partly because reliable statistics for training a language model is hard to obtain. In this paper, we take the advantage of the fact that dialog systems perform some form of semantic parsing. We use this parsing information to distinguish between the occurrences of number expressions in various semantic roles, as for example between the word “one” in “one o’clock”, “sunday june one” and “another one” to improve the performance of the language model and thus reduce the error rate. We process number expressions with the same spelling, but different semantics, as separate language model tokens. We have tested this approach in a speech recognition system used as a part of a dialog system for the Air Travel domain. In a controlled experiment, the proposed technique yields a healthy 9.75% relative (overall) word error reduction on a test set of 689 sentences, collected using a live telephony Air Travel system.
Reproducibility of cerebral oxygenation measurement in neonates and infants in the clinical setting using the NIRO 300 oximeter*

Objective: To study reproducibility of cerebral tissue oxygenation index (cTOI) values in neonates and infants in a clinical setting using the NIRO 300 oximeter (Hamamatsu Photonics, Hamamatsu City, Japan). Design: Clinical, observational study. Setting: University hospital, pediatric intensive care unit. Patients: Twenty neonatal and pediatric intensive care patients (age 0–190 days; median 4.5 days). Interventions: Reproducibility of cTOI was measured at the lateral forehead of the patients. Measurements and Main Results: Sensor exchange experiments were performed by removing the sensor and reapplying another sensor (sensor 1 vs. sensor 2) at the same position. Simultaneous measurements, comparing cTOI values from the right and left forehead, were performed using both sensors. Corresponding sensor exchange experiments were performed within 10 mins. All tests were done under stable, steady-state cardiorespiratory conditions. Data were compared using Bland-Altman bias analysis and paired, two-sided Student's t-test (p < .05). Sensor exchange experiments and simultaneous left-to-right forehead measurements revealed only small mean differences (<5%) and no significant differences between corresponding values (p = .953/.164). However, Bland-Altman bias analysis revealed poor agreement with large 95% limits of agreement in particular for sensor exchange experiments (−17.8% to 17.6%) and less for simultaneous left and right measurements (−14.4% to 10.4%). Conclusions: The present study shows that cTOI measurements using the NIRO 300 oximeter at the lateral forehead of neonates and infants are not well reproducible under clinical conditions. This raises the question whether generally valid normal values can be defined with the used approach and makes it difficult to determine a normal range of cerebral oxygenation.
A Virtual Reality Scenario for All Seasons: The Virtual Classroom

ABSTRACT Treatment and rehabilitation of the cognitive, psychological, and motor sequelae of central nervous system dysfunction often relies on assessment instruments to inform diagnosis and to track changes in clinical status. Typically, these assessments employ paper-and-pencil psychometrics, hands-on analog/computer tests, and rating of behavior within the context of real-world functional environments. Virtual reality offers the option to produce and distribute identical “standard” simulation environments in which performance can be measured and rehabilitated. Within such digital scenarios, normative data can be accumulated for performance comparisons needed for assessment/diagnosis and for treatment/rehabilitation purposes. In this manner, reusable archetypic virtual environments constructed for one purpose can also be applied for applications addressing other clinical targets. This article will provide a review of such a retooling approach using a virtual classroom simulation that was originally developed as a controlled stimulus environment in which attention processes could be systematically assessed in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This system is now being applied to other clinical targets including the development of tests that address other cognitive functions, eye movement under distraction conditions, social anxiety disorder, and the creation of an earthquake safety training application for children with developmental and learning disabilities.
Is Europe an Optimum Currency Area? Business Cyc1es in the EU

This paper aims to assess whether the EU is an optimum currency area (OCA)by examining synchronization of business cycles and long-run outþut linkages in the EU countries. We argue that a necessary condition for the desirability of EMU membership for national economies is that the degree of shocks affecting them should be similar. Given the low power of unit root tests, we measure the relative importance of permanent versus transitory component in output. The existence of a "European business cycle" is confirmed by correlation and cointegration analysis respectively. Finally, it appears that monetary coordination, by reducing exchange rate volatili, results more synchronised cycles. EMU is therefore likely to be a successful experience, since the benefits of monetary integration will outweigh the costs of surrendering the exchange rate instrument.
The Inclusion of Students with Dyslexia in Higher Education: A Systematic Review Using Narrative Synthesis

This article reports on a study focusing on the inclusion of students with dyslexia in higher education (HE). A systematic review was carried out to retrieve, critically appraise and synthesize the available evidence on how the inclusion of students with dyslexia can be fostered in HE. The 15 studies included in the final synthesis employed descriptive designs and overwhelmingly used qualitative methods to explore dyslexic students' perceptions on the impact of teaching, support and accommodation in their own learning experience. A critical appraisal of these studies revealed a landscape of significant gaps in the available stock of evidence on the inclusion of students with dyslexia in HE. The synthesis of the available evidence is presented in a narrative of five cross-study thematic areas: student coping strategies, being identified as dyslexic, interaction with academic staff, accessibility and accommodations, and using assistive technologies and information and communication technologies. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Enzymatic Formulation Capable of Degrading Scrapie Prion under Mild Digestion Conditions

The prion agent is notoriously resistant to common proteases and conventional sterilisation procedures. The current methods known to destroy prion infectivity such as incineration, alkaline and thermal hydrolysis are harsh, destructive, environmentally polluting and potentially hazardous, thus limit their applications for decontamination of delicate medical and laboratory devices, remediation of prion contaminated environment and for processing animal by-products including specified risk materials and carcases. Therefore, an environmentally friendly, non-destructive enzymatic degradation approach is highly desirable. A feather-degrading Bacillus licheniformis N22 keratinase has been isolated which degraded scrapie prion to undetectable level of PrPSc signals as determined by Western Blot analysis. Prion infectivity was verified by ex vivo cell-based assay. An enzymatic formulation combining N22 keratinase and biosurfactant derived from Pseudomonas aeruginosa degraded PrPSc at 65°C in 10 min to undetectable level -. A time-course degradation analysis carried out at 50°C over 2 h revealed the progressive attenuation of PrPSc intensity. Test of residual infectivity by standard cell culture assay confirmed that the enzymatic formulation reduced PrPSc infectivity to undetectable levels as compared to cells challenged with untreated standard scrapie sheep prion (SSBP/1) (p-value = 0.008 at 95% confidence interval). This novel enzymatic formulation has significant potential application for prion decontamination in various environmentally friendly systems under mild treatment conditions.
Planar Triorthogonal Diversity Slot Antenna

This communication proposes an easily manufacturable multifunction multiport planar slot antenna with triorthogonal pattern diversity. Distinct radiation patterns are emitted via a common square radiative slot by exploiting three orthogonal modes. These slot modes consist of a magnetic current loop mode with an omnidirectional linearly polarized (OLP) radiation pattern, and two degenerated linear slot modes radiating broadside with orthogonal linear polarizations (LPs). The triorthogonal patterns are obtained in an overlapping frequency band, and the mutual coupling between the ports is minimized through a differential feeding arrangement. This new concept of multiport diversity slot antenna is validated experimentally at a frequency of 5.9 GHz, successfully demonstrating the operation modalities of OLP and LP radiation patterns. A minimum triorthogonal overlapping impedance bandwidth of 2.3% is measured with interport coupling below −35 dB. The proposed antenna could be used as a pattern and polarization diversity antenna, where additionally, a linear combination of the primary triorthogonal patterns can be exploited to further enhance flexibility in pattern generation.