Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of metabolic syndrome and its components with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the elderly

Abstract There is increasing evidence regarding the relationship between metabolic syndrome and mortality. However, previous research examining metabolic syndrome and mortality in older populations has produced mixed results. In addition, there is a clear need to identify and manage individual components of metabolic syndrome to decrease cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. In this meta-analysis, we searched the MEDLINE databases using PubMed, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE databases. Based on 20 prospective cohort studies, metabolic syndrome was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality [relative risk (RR), 1.23; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.15–1.32; I2 = 55.9%] and CVD mortality (RR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.11–1.39; I2 = 58.1%). The risk estimates of all-cause mortality for single components of metabolic syndrome were significant for higher values of waist circumference or body mass index (RR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.88–1.00), higher values of blood glucose (RR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.05–1.34), and lower values of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (RR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.02–1.21). In the elderly population, metabolic syndrome was associated with an increased risk of all-cause and CVD mortality. Among the individual components of metabolic syndrome, increased blood glucose and HDL cholesterol levels were significantly associated with increased mortality. However, older obese or overweight individuals may have a decreased mortality risk. Thus, the findings of the current meta-analysis raise questions about the utility of the definition of metabolic syndrome in predicting all-cause mortality and CVD mortality in the elderly population.
Basal-level expression of the yeast HSP82 gene requires a heat shock regulatory element

Previous studies have shown that heat shock factor is constitutively bound to heat shock elements in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We demonstrate that mutation of the heat shock element closest to the TATA box of the yeast HSP82 promoter abolishes basal-level transcription without markedly affecting inducibility. The mutated heat shock element no longer bound putative heat shock factor, either in vitro or in vivo, but still resided within a nuclease-hypersensitive site in the chromatin. Thus, constitutive binding of heat shock factor to heat shock elements in S. cerevisiae appears to functionally direct basal-level transcription.
Dynamic Changes in the Distribution of Minerals in Relation to Phytic Acid Accumulation during Rice Seed Development1[W]

Phytic acid (inositol hexakisphosphate [InsP6]) is the storage compound of phosphorus in seeds. As phytic acid binds strongly to metallic cations, it also acts as a storage compound of metals. To understand the mechanisms underlying metal accumulation and localization in relation to phytic acid storage, we applied synchrotron-based x-ray microfluorescence imaging analysis to characterize the simultaneous subcellular distribution of some mineral elements (phosphorus, calcium, potassium, iron, zinc, and copper) in immature and mature rice (Oryza sativa) seeds. This fine-imaging method can reveal whether these elements colocalize. We also determined their accumulation patterns and the changes in phosphate and InsP6 contents during seed development. While the InsP6 content in the outer parts of seeds rapidly increased during seed development, the phosphate contents of both the outer and inner parts of seeds remained low. Phosphorus, calcium, potassium, and iron were most abundant in the aleurone layer, and they colocalized throughout seed development. Zinc was broadly distributed from the aleurone layer to the inner endosperm. Copper localized outside the aleurone layer and did not colocalize with phosphorus. From these results, we suggest that phosphorus translocated from source organs was immediately converted to InsP6 and accumulated in aleurone layer cells and that calcium, potassium, and iron accumulated as phytic acid salt (phytate) in the aleurone layer, whereas zinc bound loosely to InsP6 and accumulated not only in phytate but also in another storage form. Copper accumulated in the endosperm and may exhibit a storage form other than phytate.
Impaired Epidermal Permeability Barrier in Mice Lacking Elovl1, the Gene Responsible for Very-Long-Chain Fatty Acid Production

ABSTRACT The sphingolipid backbone ceramide (Cer) is a major component of lipid lamellae in the stratum corneum of epidermis and has a pivotal role in epidermal barrier formation. Unlike Cers in other tissues, Cers in epidermis contain extremely long fatty acids (FAs). Decreases in epidermal Cer levels, as well as changes in their FA chain lengths, cause several cutaneous disorders. However, the molecular mechanisms that produce such extremely long Cers and determine their chain lengths are poorly understood. We generated mice deficient in the Elovl1 gene, which encodes the FA elongase responsible for producing C20 to C28 FAs. Elovl1 knockout mice died shortly after birth due to epidermal barrier defects. The lipid lamellae in the stratum corneum were largely diminished in these mice. In the epidermis of the Elovl1-null mice, the levels of Cers with ≥C26 FAs were decreased, while those of Cers with ≤C24 FAs were increased. In contrast, the levels of C24 sphingomyelin were reduced, accompanied by an increase in C20 sphingomyelin levels. Two ceramide synthases, CerS2 and CerS3, expressed in an epidermal layer-specific manner, regulate Elovl1 to produce acyl coenzyme As with different chain lengths. Elovl1 is a key determinant of epidermal Cer chain length and is essential for permeability barrier formation.
Clustering of mutations affecting central pathway enzymes of carbohydrate catabolism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Mutations in carbohydrate-negative mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 individually deficient in glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (zwf), 6-phosphogluconate dehydratase (edd), or pyruvate carboxylase (pyc) were mapped on the chromosome by plasmid R68.45-mediated conjugation and by bacteriophage F116L-mediated transduction. Loci for all three genes were located in the 45- to 55-min region of the chromosome; both zwf-1 and edd-1 were linked by transduction to nalA, whereas pyc-2 was linked by conjugation to argF10. The zwf-1 mutation exhibited cotransduction frequencies of greater than 95% with both edd-1 and the hex-9001 marker, a mutation reported to prevent growth on hexoses. The latter mutation was shown to cause a specific deficiency in 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate aldolase activity and was redesignated eda-9001. These results demonstrate tight clustering of the gene loci for glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase and for both enzymes unique to the Entner-Doudoroff pathway in P. aeruginosa. Our evidence suggests supraoperonic clustering of these and other inducible carbohydrate catabolic genes in the 45- to 55-min region of the chromosome.
Pathways in the activation of human coagulation factor X.

Purified human Factor X (apparent mol.wt. 72000), which consists of two polypeptide chains (mol.wt. 55000 and 19000), was activated by both Russell's-viper venom and the purified physiological activators (Factor VII/tissue factor and Factor IXa/Factor VIII). They all convert Factor X to catalytically active Factor Xa (mol.wt. 54000) by cleaving the heavy chain at a site on the N-terminal region. In the presence of Ca2+ and phospholipid, the Factor Xa formed catalyses (a) the cleavage of a small peptide (mol.wt. 4000) from the C-terminal region of the heavy chain of Factor Xa, resulting in a second active form (mol.wt. 50000), and (b) the cleavage of a peptide containing the active-site serine residue (mol.wt. 13000) from the C-terminal region of the heavy chain of Factor X, resulting in an inactivatable component (mol.wt. 59000). A nomenclature for the various products is proposed.
EM-based surrogate modeling and design exploiting implicit, frequency and output space mappings

We present a significant improvement to the novel implicit space mapping (ISM) concept for EM-based microwave modeling and design. ISM calibrates a suitable coarse (surrogate) model against a fine model (full-wave EM simulation) by relaxing certain coarse model preassigned parameters. Based on an explanation of residual response misalignment, our new approach further fine-tunes the surrogate by exploiting an "output space" mapping (OSM). An accurate design of an HTS filter, easily implemented in Agilent ADS, emerges after only four EM simulations using ISM and OSM with sparse frequency sweeps. For the first time also, frequency space mapping is implemented in an ISM framework.
A model for training the new bioinformationist.

OBJECTIVES The objectives were to examine the effectiveness of a curriculum designed to increase bioinformatics competencies of librarians with diverse backgrounds and to identify demographic factors that may affect the learning process. METHODS Sixteen professional staff participated in a 12-week training course consisting of 5 distinct modules: molecular biology, genetic analysis, biotechnology, research literature, and databases. Participants completed a 120-question pretest and an 88-question posttest designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. RESULTS Training was deemed successful as all participants scored higher on the posttest than the pretest. Data analysis was conducted in relation to participant background. Holding a biology degree did not seem to affect posttest results. Years of experience, however, had an impact on final scores in the databases section, as senior team members had greater difficulty learning the material. DISCUSSION As the need for specialized information in the area of molecular biology and genetics becomes more central for the effectiveness of organizations, it is crucial for libraries to quickly align with those needs by having a clear vision for increasing the skills and competencies of their staff in this subject area. This paper describes an effective model for learning that was developed and tested by the Eskind Biomedical Library.
Chapter 1 : Characterizing Cloud Federation Approaches

Cloud Computing offers on-demand access to computat ional, infrastructure and data resources operated from a remote source. This novel technology has opened new ways of flexible resource provisions f r businesses to manage IT applications and data responding to new demands fro m customers. In this chapter we give a general insight to the formation and inte rop rability issues of Cloud Federations that envisage a distributed, heterogene ous nvironment consisting of various cloud infrastructures by aggregating differ ent IaaS provider capabilities coming from both the commercial and academic area. These multi-cloud infrastructures are also used to avoid provider lock-in issues for users that frequently utilize different clouds. We characterize and class ify recent solutions that arose from both research projects and individual research g oups, and show how they attempt to hide the diversity of multiple clouds and form a unified federation on top of them. Since they still need to cope with several open issues concerning interoperability, we provide guidelines to address relate d topics such as service monitoring, data protection and privacy, data management a nd energy efficiency.
Chairs' summary/proposal for international workshop on human activity sensing corpus and its application (hasca2013)

Recent advancement of technology enables installations of small sized accelerometers or gyroscopes on various kinds of wearable/portable information devices. By using such wearable sensors, these devices can estimate its posture or status. However, most of current devices only utilize these sensors for simple orientation and gesture recognition. More deep understandings and recognition of human activity through these sensors will enable the next-generation human-oriented computing. To enable the real-world application by these kinds of wearable sensors, a large scale human activity sensing corpus might play an important role. Additionally, we have now a lot of high-performance mobile devices in real-world such as smart-phones. It is a great challenge to utilize such an enormous number of wearable sensors to collect a large-scale activity corpus. In recent years, there are several ongoing projects which are collecting human activities. In this workshop, we are planning to share these experiences of current research on the human activity corpus and its applications among the researchers and the practitioners and to have a deep discussion for future of activity sensing.
Triple-based Sharing of Context-Aware Composite Web Applications for Non-programmers

Composite web applications are a promising way to support the long tail of user needs. While most mashup platforms only support single-user scenarios, CRUISE enables the reconfiguration of multi-user mashups during runtime. Thereby, synchronizing different parts of an application based on black-box components from different vendors causes special challenges for the rights management system. Cause we additionally focus on non-programmers as target group, an adequate user interface concept is needed. To overcome these challenges, we present a triple-based rights management concept as well as a corresponding user interface support. It supports fine-grained sharing of whole applications, single components or UI parts of components under configurable permissions. Thereby, users can select semantically compatible components during the collaborative session. The practicability of our concept is validated by a prototypically implementation as well as a user acceptance test.
Ovarian stimulation by exogenous gonadotropin decreases the implantation rate and expression of mouse blastocysts integrins.

BACKGROUND Integrins are heterodimeric glycoprotein receptors that regulate the interaction of cells with extracellular matrix and may have a critical role in implantation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ovulation induction on the expression of α4, αv, β1, and β3 integrins in mouse blastocyst at the time of implantation. METHODS The ovarian stimulated and non-stimulated pregnant mice were sacrificed on the morning of 5th day of pregnancy. The blastocysts were collected, and the expression of αv, α4, β1, and β3 integrins was examined using real-time RT-PCR and immunocytochemical techniques, then their ovarian hormones were analyzed at the same time. The implantation sites in uterine horns of other pregnant mice in both groups were determined under a stereomicroscope on the 7th day of pregnancy. RESULTS The results showed that the expression of αv, β1, and β3 integrins in both mRNA and protein levels was significantly lower in the ovarian stimulated group than the control group, and the maximum ratio of expression was belonged to β1 molecule (P>0.05). CONCLUSION The implantation rate in superovulated mice was significantly lower than control mice. It was suggested that ovulation induction decreased the expression of αv, β1, and β3 integrins of mouse blastocysts.
New Psychotherapies for Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Objective: To discuss psychotherapies for depression and anxiety that have emerged in recent years and to evaluate their current level of empirical support. Method: An electronic and a manual literature search of psychotherapies for mood and anxiety disorders were conducted. Results: Five new therapies for mood disorders and 3 interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder with co-occurring substance abuse met criteria for inclusion in this review. Fewer psychotherapies have been developed for other anxiety disorders. Although research for some of the psychotherapies has demonstrated superiority to usual care, none have firmly established efficacy or specific benefits over other established psychotherapies. Conclusions: A plurality of the new psychotherapies introduced and established in the past 5 years have been different assimilations of previously established cognitive-behavioural, interpersonal, or psychodynamic models. While initial results are promising for some, more rigorous efficacy trials and replications are necessary before conclusions can be drawn regarding their relative benefits.
Mesenchymal progenitor cells in human umbilical cord blood

Haemopoiesis is sustained by two main cellular components, the haematopoietic cells (HSCs) and the mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs). MPCs are multipotent and are the precursors for marrow stroma, bone, cartilage, muscle and connective tissues. Although the presence of HSCs in umbilical cord blood (UCB) is well known, that of MPCs has been not fully evaluated. In this study, we examined the ability of UCB harvests to generate in culture cells with characteristics of MPCs. Results showed that UCB‐derived mononuclear cells, when set in culture, gave rise to adherent cells, which exhibited either an osteoclast‐ or a mesenchymal‐like phenotype. Cells with the osteoclast phenotype were multinucleated, expressed TRAP activity and antigens CD45 and CD51/CD61. In turn, cells with the mesenchymal phenotype displayed a fibroblast‐like morphology and expressed several MPC‐related antigens (SH2, SH3, SH4, ASMA, MAB 1470, CD13, CD29 and CD49e). Our results suggest that preterm, as compared with term, cord blood is richer in mesenchymal progenitors, similar to haematopoietic progenitors.
AGE DISPROPORTIONATELY INCREASES SEPSIS-INDUCED APOPTOSIS IN THE SPLEEN AND GUT EPITHELIUM

Both aging and sepsis independently increase splenic and gut epithelial apoptosis. Sepsis-induced apoptosis in either cell type is also associated with increased mortality in young mice. We sought to determine whether age alters sepsis-induced splenic and gut epithelial cell death. Young (2 months) and aged (22 months) male ND4 mice were subjected to either single-puncture cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) with a 23-gauge needle or sham laparotomy. Apoptosis was assessed 24 hours later in the spleen and gut epithelium by active caspase 3 and hematoxylin and eosin staining. Aged septic mice had increased splenic apoptosis compared with either young septic animals or aged sham animals (15 vs. 7 vs. 5 apoptotic cells/high-powered field, P < 0.05). Similarly, aged septic animals had an elevation in gut epithelial cell death compared with either young septic or aged sham mice (33 vs. 16 vs. 6 apoptotic cells/100 contiguous crypts, P < 0.05). Elevated intestinal cell death was not associated with changes in either gut proliferation or cell division. To verify that the increase in splenic apoptosis seen in septic aged animals was not strain specific, double-puncture CLP with a 25-gauge needle or sham laparotomy was performed on young (4 months) or aged (24 months) C57BL/6 male mice. Similar to results seen in outbred animals, aged septic animals in this inbred strain had increased splenic apoptosis compared with either young septic animals or aged sham animals (23 vs. 7 vs. 4 apoptotic cells/ high powered field, P < 0.05). These results indicate that although infection and aging each independently cause an increase in splenic and gut epithelial apoptosis, their combination leads to a disproportionate increase in cell death in these rapidly dividing cell populations,and potentially plays a role in the marked increase in mortality seen with aging in sepsis.
The Decomposition and Dynamics of Industrial Carbon Dioxide Emissions for 287 Chinese Cities in 1998–2009

85% of China's GHG emissions are attributed to urban economic activities, and this share is expected to rise given China's fast urbanization process. This paper provides estimates of city‐level industrial CO emissions and their growth rates for all 287 Chinese prefecture‐level and above cities during the years 1998–2009. We decompose the CO emission changes into scale, composition and technique effects. The decomposition results show that these three effects differ significantly across the three tiers of cities in China. The scale effect contributes to rising CO emissions, while the technique effect leads to declining CO emissions in all cities. The composition effect leads to increasing CO emissions in the third‐tier cities, while it reduces CO emissions in the first and second‐tier cities, due to the relocation of energy‐intensive industries from the latter to the former type of cities. Based on these decomposition results, we identify the separate channels through which the inflow of FDI and the environmental regulations affect city‐level CO emissions. The decomposition framework in our paper can help policy makers and scholars to better understand Chinese cities’ trade‐offs between economic growth and environmental goals.
A Debunking of the Myth of Healthy Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Purpose. To present evidence that the model of healthy Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) stereotype is a myth. Search Method. The authors retrieved literature from the National Library of Medicine's compact disk databases (Cancerlit, CINAHL, Health, and MEDLINE), and examined pertinent federal government publications supplemented by the authors' knowledge of other published materials. Important Findings. This review paper presents three reasons why AAPIs are underserved: (1) the population growth rate has been unusually rapid and recent; (2) data regarding the health status of AAPIs are inadequate; and (3) the myth that AAPIs are model minority populations in terms of their health status was promulgated. Major Conclusions. The conclusions are as follows: (1) AAPIs are heterogenous with respect to demographic factors and health risk factors; (2) because the current databases on the health status of AAPIs include small sample sizes, both the quantity and quality of these data need to be improved with respect to appropriate gender and ethnic group representation; (3) Risk factor and mortality data for AAPIs suggest that the burden of certain preventable diseases, namely, tuberculosis, hepatitis-B, liver cancer, and lung cancer may be higher than those of any other racial and ethnic population. The model healthy AAPI stereotype is a myth.
DICTION and the Study of American Politics

A powerful tool for content analysis, DICTION allows scholars to illuminate the ideas, perspectives, and linguistic tendencies of a wide variety of political actors. At its best, a tool like DICTION allows scholars not just to describe the features of political language, but also to analyze the causes and the consequences those features in ways that advance our understanding political communication more broadly. Effective analysis involves helping academic audiences understand what the measures being used mean, how the results relate to broader theoretical constructs, and the extent to which findings reveal something important about the political world. This involves exploring both the causes and the consequences of linguistic choices, including by attending closely to how those texts are received by their intended audiences. In this chapter, the authors review ways in which DICTION has been used and might be used to better understand the role of political leadership, the meaning of democracy, and the effects of political language on the political behavior of ordinary citizens.
3D visual modeling of hydrothermal chimneys using a rotary laser scanning system

Hydrothermal chimneys are indicators of hydrothermal activity and therefore important in ocean research. Because of the complex terrain and suspended solids in the water around hydrothermal chimneys, it is difficult to measure them with traditional methods. In this paper we propose an innovative method to measure the shape and color of them by a rotary laser scanning (RLS) system. By combining multiple scans taken from different angles and extracting the color information from the surface of hydrothermal chimneys, we can create visual color models of them as described in figure 1. The proposed method was implemented during sea experiments in Kagoshima Bay and we were successful in reconstructing the model of a hydrothermal chimney in post processing.