Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specific proto-oncogenic tyrosine kinases of src family are enriched in cell-to-cell adherens junctions where the level of tyrosine phosphorylation is elevated

To approach the transmembrane signaling pathway in the cell-to-cell adherens junctions (AJ), AJ-specific tyrosine phosphorylation was analyzed. When various types of rat adult tissues were pretreated with sodium orthovanadate, a potent inhibitor of tyrosine phosphatase, immunofluorescence microscopy showed that anti-phosphotyrosine polyclonal antibody specifically stained the undercoat of the cell-to- cell AJ. This indicates that the tyrosine kinase activity is elevated at the undercoat of the cell-to-cell AJ of adult tissues. To identify tyrosine kinases responsible for the high level of tyrosine phosphorylation at AJ, we have performed in vitro phosphorylation experiments with cell-to-cell AJ isolated from rat liver (Tsukita, Sh. and Sa. Tsukita. 1989. J. Cell Biol. 108:31-41) and immunoblotting analyses with specific antibodies for tyrosine kinases. As a result, three proto-oncogenic tyrosine kinases of src family, c-yes, c-src, and lyn kinases, were identified as major tyrosine kinases in the cell-to- cell AJ of hepatocytes. Furthermore, it was immunofluorescently shown that at least two of these kinases, c-yes and c-src kinases, were enriched at the cell-to-cell AJ of various types of cells including hepatocytes. Based on these findings, it is concluded that, in various types of cells, specific proto-oncogenic tyrosine kinases of src-family (c-yes and c-src) are enriched to work as signal mediators in the cell- to-cell AJ where the level of tyrosine phosphorylation is elevated.
Send Orders of Reprints at Reprints@benthamscience.net Transcutaneous Treatment with Vetdrop ® Sustains the Adjacent Cartilage in a Microfracturing Joint Defect Model in Sheep

The significance of the adjacent cartilage in cartilage defect healing is not yet completely understood. Furthermore, it is unknown if the adjacent cartilage can somehow be influenced into responding after cartilage damage. The present study was undertaken to investigate whether the adjacent cartilage can be better sustained after microfracturing in a cartilage defect model in the stifle joint of sheep using a transcutaneous treatment concept (Vetdrop ®). Carprofen and chito-oligosaccharids were added either as single components or as a mixture to a vehicle suspension consisting of a herbal carrier oil in a water-in-oil phase. This mixture was administered onto the skin with the aid of a specific applicator during 6 weeks in 28 sheep, allocated into 6 different groups, that underwent microfracturing surgery either on the left or the right medial femoral condyle. Two groups served as control and were either treated intravenously or sham treated with oxygen only. Sheep were sacrificed and their medial condyle histologically evaluated qualitatively and semi-quantitatively according to 4 different scoring systems (Mankin, ICRS, Little and O'Driscoll). The adjacent cartilage of animals of group 4 treated transcutaneously with vehicle, chito-oligosaccharids and carprofen had better histological scores compared to all the other groups Complete defect filling was absent from the transcutaneous treatment groups. The experiment suggests that the adjacent cartilage is susceptible to treatment and that the combination of vehicle, chito-oligosaccharids and carprofen may sustain the adjacent cartilage during the recovery period.
Low Complexity Message Passing-Based Receiver Design for Wiener Phase-Noise Channels

This letter concerns low complexity receiver design for Wiener phase-noise channels, where the variance of the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is unknown. By representing the system with a factor graph, both the variational message passing and the sum-product message passing are used to achieve efficient joint decoding, phase noise estimation, and AWGN precision (the reciprocal of AWGN variance) estimation. Compared with the state-of-the-art receiver, the proposed receiver is able to achieve the same performance with much lower complexity.
The Decline of the Source Population of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Their Luminosity Function

The source population of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) declines toward the present epoch, being consistent with the measured decline of the star formation rate. We show this using the brightness distribution of 3255 long BATSE GRBs found in an off-line scan of the BATSE continuous 1.024 s count rate records. The significance of this conclusion is enhanced by the detection of three GRBs with known redshifts brighter than 1052 ergs s-1 during the last two years. This is an argument in favor of the generally believed idea that GRBs are strongly correlated with star production, at least on cosmological timescales, and favors the association of long GRBs with collapses of supermassive stars. However, we still cannot rule out neutron star mergers if the typical delay time for binary system evolution is relatively short. If we assume a steep decline of the GRB population at z > 1.5, then their luminosity function can be clearly outlined. The luminosity function is close to a power law, dN/dL ∝ L-1.4, for low luminosities over at least 1.7 orders of magnitude. Then, the luminosity function breaks to a steeper slope or to an exponential decline around L ~ 3 × 1051 ergs s-1 in the 50-300 keV range, assuming isotropic emission.
On data-driven control design for non-minimum-phase plants: A comparative view

The paper provides a comparison between noniterative direct data-driven control design approaches for non-minimum-phase systems. In particular, the most well known methods, i.e., Correlation based Tuning and Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning, are compared to the recently introduced non-iterative version of the Unfalsified Approach for control system design. The overall comparative analysis is substantiated by a thorough simulation campaign on two benchmark problems.
ResearchDoom and CocoDoom: Learning Computer Vision with Games

In this short note we introduce ResearchDoom, an implementation of the Doom first-person shooter that can extract detailed metadata from the game. We also introduce the CocoDoom dataset, a collection of pre-recorded data extracted from Doom gaming sessions along with annotations in the MS Coco format. ResearchDoom and CocoDoom can be used to train and evaluate a variety of computer vision methods such as object recognition, detection and segmentation at the level of instances and categories, tracking, ego-motion estimation, monocular depth estimation and scene segmentation. The code and data are available at this http URL
Total teleportation of a single-photon state

Recent demonstrations of teleportation have transferred quantum information encoded into either polarization or fieldquadrature degrees of freedom (DOFs), but an outstanding question is how to simultaneously teleport quantum information encoded into multiple DOFs. We describe how the transverse-spatial, spectral and polarization states of a single photon can be simultaneously teleported using a pair of multimode, polarization-entangled photons derived from spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Furthermore, when the initial photon pair is maximally entangled in the spatial, spectral, and polarization DOFs then the photon's full quantum state can be reliably teleported using a Bell-state measurement based on sum-frequency generation.
Normal or Even Increased Dendritic Cell and Peripheral Blood Lymphocyte Subsets With Regulatory Phenotype in Clinically Stable Long-Term HIV-Infected Patients With Hemophilia on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

Summary:Defective regulatory components of the immune system seem to contribute to HIV disease progression. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was reported to restore malfunctioning immunologic regulatory components. To corroborate this hypothesis, we studied different dendritic-cell (DC) and T-cell subsets with regulatory phenotype in 41 clinically stable patients with hemophilia more than 25 years after infection with HIV and 10 years after initiation of HAART. Compared with healthy controls, patients showed normal DC1 and DC2 levels, increased CD8+ peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) counts and T helper (Th) 2 proportions, and decreased Th1, CD3+CD4+CD127+, and CD3+CD8+CD127+ PBL proportions. High viral load was associated with high DC1, whereas high CD8+ PBL counts were associated with low DC2. CD3+CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ (regulatory T [Treg] cell) and CD3+CD8+CD28−Foxp3+ PBL counts (suppressor T [Ts] cell) exhibited normal levels in patients with undetectable retroviral load, were increased in parallel to retroviral load, and were associated with low CD8+ T lymphocytes and low CD19+ B lymphocytes. Normal or even increased levels of DCs and normal or even increased levels of PBL with a Treg or Ts phenotype that coincide with viral load increases and CD8+ T- and CD19+ B-lymphocyte decreases suggest a functioning immunoregulatory system that reacts to HIV replication. Increased CD8+ PBL counts imply immunocompetence. Increased CD8+ PBL counts and normal or even upregulated immunoregulatory cells might stabilize our long-term HIV-infected patients with hemophilia clinically.
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE FINANCING AND FOREIGN EXCHANGE PARITY RELATIONS

Given the increasing importance of financing in foreign currency denominated debt, researchers have shown the conditions under which raising capital denominated in a foreign currency becomes feasible. We extend this literature in the context of a multinational corporation (MNC) by modeling the rivalry between equity and debt under a modified general equilibrium framework. We derive (i) international exchange rate parity relations as extensions of the risk free debt finance models under risk aversion and market imperfections such as taxes, and (ii) optimal capital structure of an MNC using the principle of Paretooptimality. JEL Classifications: G32; F23; F30
Interleukin-1 receptor antagonist modulates inflammation and scarring after ligament injury

Abstract Ligaments have limited regenerative potential and as a consequence, repair is protracted and results in a mechanically inferior tissue more scar-like than native ligament. We previously reported that a single injection of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) delivered at the time of injury, decreased the number of M2 macrophage-associated inflammatory cytokines. Based on these results, we hypothesized that IL-1Ra administered after injury and closer to peak inflammation (as would occur clinically), would more effectively decrease inflammation and thereby improve healing. Since IL-1Ra has a short half-life, we also investigated the effect of multiple injections. The objective of this study was to elucidate healing of a medial collateral ligament (MCL) with either a single IL-1Ra injection delivered one day after injury or with multiple injections of IL-1Ra on days 1, 2, 3, and 4. One day after MCL injury, rats received either single or multiple injections of IL-1Ra or PBS. Tissue was then collected at days 5 and 11. Both single and multiple IL-1Ra injections reduced inflammatory cytokines, but did not change mechanical behavior. A single injection of IL-1Ra also reduced the number of myofibroblasts and increased type I procollagen. Multiple IL-1Ra doses provided no additive response and, in fact, reduced the M2 macrophages. Based on these results, a single dose of IL-1Ra was better at reducing the MCL-derived inflammatory cytokines compared to multiple injections. The changes in type I procollagen and myofibroblasts further suggest a single injection of IL-1Ra enhanced repair of the ligament but not sufficiently to improve functional behavior.
Nonrigid image registration method for thoracic CT images using vessel structure information

Temporal Subtraction Technique is one of effective tools for diagnosis of lung cancer from thoracic CT images. By comparing two images of the same subject but shot at different time, the detection of temporal changing becomes facilitated. To acquire a more accurate subtraction image, the registration of these two images is critical. However it is not easy as the influence of the slight structures such as lung blood vessel. In this paper, a novel nonrigid image registration method based on vessel structure information is proposed. The similarity of the vessels structure is defined by means of the likelihood function of vessels structure and their direction. We combine this similarity of vessels with the intensity information of images. And the metrics are used as similarity measure in registration procedure. The proposed method has been applied to thoracic MDCT images, and the improvement of registration accuracy was investigated. The efficiency of our proposed method was indicated.
Pericytes Contribute to the Disruption of the Cerebral Endothelial Barrier via Increasing VEGF Expression: Implications for Stroke

Disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity occurring during the early onset of stroke is not only a consequence of, but also contributes to the further progression of stroke. Although it has been well documented that brain microvascular endothelial cells and astrocytes play a critical role in the maintenance of BBB integrity, pericytes, sandwiched between endothelial cells and astrocytes, remain poorly studied in the pathogenesis of stroke. Our findings demonstrated that treatment of human brain microvascular pericytes with sodium cyanide (NaCN) and glucose deprivation resulted in increased expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) via the activation of tyrosine kinase Src, with downstream activation of mitogen activated protein kinase and PI3K/Akt pathways and subsequent translocation of NF-κB into the nucleus. Conditioned medium from NaCN-treated pericytes led to increased permeability of endothelial cells, and this effect was significantly inhibited by VEGF-neutralizing antibody. The in vivo relevance of these findings was further corroborated in the stroke model of mice wherein the mice, demonstrated disruption of the BBB integrity and concomitant increase in the expression of VEGF in the brain tissue as well as in the isolated microvessel. These findings thus suggest the role of pericyte-derived VEGF in modulating increased permeability of BBB during stroke. Understanding the regulation of VEGF expression could open new avenues for the development of potential therapeutic targets for stroke and other neurological disease.
Generating with a Grammar Based on Tree Descriptions: a Constraint-Based Approach

While the generative view of language processing builds bigger units out of smaller ones by means of rewriting steps, the axiomatic view eliminates invalid linguistic structures out of a set of possible structures by means of well formedness principles. We present a generator based on the axiomatic view and argue that when combined with a TAG-like grammar and a flat semantics, this axiomatic view permits avoiding drawbacks known to hold either of top-down or of bottom-up generators.
Combinatorial Approximation Algorithms for MaxCut using Random Walks

We give the first combinatorial approximation algorithm for Maxcut that beats the trivial 0.5 factor by a constant. The main partitioning procedure is very intuitive, natural, and easily described. It essentially performs a number of random walks and aggregates the information to provide the partition. We can control the running time to get an approximation factor-running time tradeoff. We show that for any constant b > 1.5, there is an O(n^{b}) algorithm that outputs a (0.5+delta)-approximation for Maxcut, where delta = delta(b) is some positive constant. One of the components of our algorithm is a weak local graph partitioning procedure that may be of independent interest. Given a starting vertex $i$ and a conductance parameter phi, unless a random walk of length ell = O(log n) starting from i mixes rapidly (in terms of phi and ell), we can find a cut of conductance at most phi close to the vertex. The work done per vertex found in the cut is sublinear in n.
Sparse Dissimilarity-Constrained Coding for Glaucoma Screening

Objective: Glaucoma is an irreversible chronic eye disease that leads to vision loss. As it can be slowed down through treatment, detecting the disease in time is important. However, many patients are unaware of the disease because it progresses slowly without easily noticeable symptoms. Currently, there is no effective method for low-cost population-based glaucoma detection or screening. Recent studies have shown that automated optic nerve head assessment from 2-D retinal fundus images is promising for low-cost glaucoma screening. In this paper, we propose a method for cup to disc ratio (CDR) assessment using 2-D retinal fundus images. Methods: In the proposed method, the optic disc is first segmented and reconstructed using a novel sparse dissimilarity-constrained coding (SDC) approach which considers both the dissimilarity constraint and the sparsity constraint from a set of reference discs with known CDRs. Subsequently, the reconstruction coefficients from the SDC are used to compute the CDR for the testing disc. Results: The proposed method has been tested for CDR assessment in a database of 650 images with CDRs manually measured by trained professionals previously. Experimental results show an average CDR error of 0.064 and correlation coefficient of 0.67 compared with the manual CDRs, better than the state-of-the-art methods. Our proposed method has also been tested for glaucoma screening. The method achieves areas under curve of 0.83 and 0.88 on datasets of 650 and 1676 images, respectively, outperforming other methods. Conclusion: The proposed method achieves good accuracy for glaucoma detection. Significance: The method has a great potential to be used for large-scale population-based glaucoma screening.
Using Cross-Lingual Explicit Semantic Analysis for Improving Ontology Translation

Semantic Web aims to allow machines to make inferences using the explicit conceptualisations contained in ontologies. By pointing to ontologies, Semantic Web-based applications are able to inter-operate and share common information easily. Nevertheless, multilingual semantic applications are still rare, owing to the fact that most online ontologies are monolingual in English. In order to solve this issue, techniques for ontology localisation and translation are needed. However, traditional machine translation is difficult to apply to ontologies, owing to the fact that ontology labels tend to be quite short in length and linguistically different from the free text paradigm. In this paper, we propose an approach to enhance machine translation of ontologies based on exploiting the well-structured concept descriptions contained in the ontology. In particular, our approach leverages the semantics contained in the ontology by using Cross Lingual Explicit Semantic Analysis (CLESA) for context-based disambiguation in phrase-based Statistical Machine Translation (SMT). The presented work is novel in the sense that application of CLESA in SMT has not been performed earlier to the best of our knowledge.
Polymorphonuclear leukocytes promote neurotoxicity through release of matrix metalloproteinases, reactive oxygen species, and TNF‐α

As the first immune cells to infiltrate the nervous system after traumatic PNS and CNS injury, neutrophils (polymorphonuclear leukocytes, PMNs) may promote injury by releasing toxic soluble factors that may affect neuronal survival. Direct neurotoxicity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and cytokines released by PMNs was investigated by culturing dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells with PMN‐conditioned media containing MMP inhibitor (GM6001), ROS scavengers, or tumor necrosis factor αR (TNF‐αR) neutralizing antibody. Although DRGs exposed to PMN‐conditioned media had 53% fewer surviving neurons than controls, neuronal cell loss was prevented by GM6001 (20 μmol/L), catalase (1000 U/mL), or TNF‐αR neutralizing antibody (1.5 μg/mL), elevating survival to 77%, 94%, and 95%, respectively. In accordance with protection by GM6001, conditioned media collected from MMP‐9 null PMNs was less neurotoxic than that collected from wild‐type PMNs. Additionally, MMP inhibition reduced PMN‐derived ROS; removal of ROS reduced PMN‐derived MMP‐9 activity; and TNF‐α inhibition reduced both PMN‐derived MMP‐9 activity and ROS in PMN cultures. Our data provide the first direct evidence that PMN‐driven neurotoxicity is dependent on MMPs, ROS, and TNF‐α, and that these factors may regulate PMN release of these soluble factors or interact with one another to mediate PMN‐driven neurotoxicity.
Multisensory Bayesian Inference Depends on Synapse Maturation during Training: Theoretical Analysis and Neural Modeling Implementation

Recent theoretical and experimental studies suggest that in multisensory conditions, the brain performs a near-optimal Bayesian estimate of external events, giving more weight to the more reliable stimuli. However, the neural mechanisms responsible for this behavior, and its progressive maturation in a multisensory environment, are still insufficiently understood. The aim of this letter is to analyze this problem with a neural network model of audiovisual integration, based on probabilistic population coding—the idea that a population of neurons can encode probability functions to perform Bayesian inference. The model consists of two chains of unisensory neurons (auditory and visual) topologically organized. They receive the corresponding input through a plastic receptive field and reciprocally exchange plastic cross-modal synapses, which encode the spatial co-occurrence of visual-auditory inputs. A third chain of multisensory neurons performs a simple sum of auditory and visual excitations. The work includes a theoretical part and a computer simulation study. We show how a simple rule for synapse learning (consisting of Hebbian reinforcement and a decay term) can be used during training to shrink the receptive fields and encode the unisensory likelihood functions. Hence, after training, each unisensory area realizes a maximum likelihood estimate of stimulus position (auditory or visual). In cross-modal conditions, the same learning rule can encode information on prior probability into the cross-modal synapses. Computer simulations confirm the theoretical results and show that the proposed network can realize a maximum likelihood estimate of auditory (or visual) positions in unimodal conditions and a Bayesian estimate, with moderate deviations from optimality, in cross-modal conditions. Furthermore, the model explains the ventriloquism illusion and, looking at the activity in the multimodal neurons, explains the automatic reweighting of auditory and visual inputs on a trial-by-trial basis, according to the reliability of the individual cues.
B-475 Lagrangian-Conic Relaxations, Part I: A Unified Framework and Its Applications to Quadratic Optimization Problems

In Part I of a series of study on Lagrangian-conic relaxations, we introduce a unified framework for conic and Lagrangian-conic relaxations of quadratic optimization problems (QOPs) and polynomial optimization problems (POPs). The framework is con- structed with a linear conic optimization problem (COP) in a finite dimensional vector space endowed with an inner product, where the cone used is not necessarily convex. By imposing a copositive condition on the COP, we establish fundamental theoretical results for the COP, its conic relaxations, its Lagrangian-conic relaxations, and their duals. A linearly constrained QOP with complementarity constraints and a general POP can be reduced to the COP satisfying the copositivity condition. Then, the conic and Lagrangian-conic relax- ations of such a QOP and POP are discussed in a unified manner. The Lagrangian-conic relaxation takes one of the simplest forms, which is very useful to design efficient numerical methods. As for applications of the framework, we discuss the completely positive pro- gramming relaxation, and a sparse doubly nonnegative relaxation for a linearly constrained QOP with complementarity constraints. The unified framework is applied to general POPs in Part II.