Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Suppression of the TNF‐alpha level is mediated by Gan‐Lu‐Yin (traditional Chinese medicine) in human oral cancer cells through the NF‐kappa B, AKT, and ERK‐dependent pathways

Oral cancer is one of the major causes of deaths in the male population of Taiwan. Gan‐Lu‐Yin (GLY) is used for an adjuvant treatment of Traditional Chinese Medicine in clinical patients. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms in oral cancer cell lines after exposure to GLY. The cytometric bead‐based array (CBA) method was used for the examining and analyzing of tumor necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α) secretion level. TNF‐α mRNA expression was determined by real‐time PCR analysis. Nuclear factor kappa B (NF‐κB) activity and other relative proteins were determined by NF‐κB promoter assay, Western blotting, electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), and immuno‐staining analyses. GLY decreased the secretion of TNF–α from the oral cancer CAL 27 cells. Furthermore, 2000 μg/mL of GLY significantly suppressed TNF‐α mRNA expression of CAL 27 cells in a time‐dependent manner. GLY reduced the levels of proteins, including nuclear NF‐κB (p65 and p50), p‐IKK (ser176), p‐IκB, p‐AKT, p‐ERK, and nuclear Egr‐1 in a time and dose‐dependent manner. GLY also suppressed the NF‐κB activity and translocation in CAL 27 cells. We suggest that GLY might promote the cure of oral cancer through decreasing the level of TNF‐α cytokine, and these actions were mediated partially through the NF‐κB, AKT, and ERK‐dependent pathways in vitro. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 31: 1196–1205, 2016.
Mechanical signals and IGF‐I gene splicing in vitro in relation to development of skeletal muscle

It has been shown that the insulin‐like growth factor (IGF‐I) gene is spliced in response to mechanical signals producing forms of IGF‐I which have different actions. In order to study how mechanical signals influence this gene splicing in developing muscle, C2C12 cells were grown in three‐dimensional (3D) culture and subjected to different regimens of mechanical strain. IGF‐IEa which initiates the fusion of myoblasts to form myotubes was found to be constitutively expressed in myoblasts and myotubes (held under endogenous tension) and its expression upregulated by a single ramp stretch of 1‐h duration but reduced by repeated cyclical stretch. In contrast, mechano growth factor (MGF), which is involved in the proliferation of mononucleated myoblasts that are required for secondary myotube formation and to establish the muscle satellite (stem) cell pool, showed no significant constitutive expression in static cultures, but was upregulated by a single ramp stretch and by cycling loading. The latter types of force simulate those generated in myoblasts by the first contractions of myotubes. These data indicate the importance of seeking to understand the physiological signals that determine the ratios of splice variants of some growth factor/tissue factor genes in the early stages of development of skeletal muscle. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Wavelet Decomposition and Applied Portfolio Management

In this paper, we decompose financial return series into their time and frequency domains in order to separate short-term noise from long-term trends. First, we investigate the dependence between US stocks at different time scales before and after the outbreak of financial crisis. Second, we set up a novel analysis and introduce the application of decomposed return series to a portfolio management setup. We then model portfolios that minimize the volatility of each particular time scale. As a result, portfolio compositions that minimize the short-run volatility of the first scales represent a promising choice, since they slightly outperform portfolio compositions that minimize the variance of the unfiltered return series.
Expression of protein C inhibitor (PCI) in benign and malignant prostatic tissues

Protein C inhibitor (PCI) occurs at high concentration in seminal plasma, and inhibits human glandular kallikrein‐2 and, less readily, prostate‐specific antigen. Previous studies have localized PCI in the male genital tract. Here we have performed a detailed investigation of PCI expression in the prostatic tissues, metastases, and cell lines.
A Comparative Evaluation of Dietary Indicators Used in Food Consumption Assessments of at-Risk Populations

Background Easy-to-collect dietary indicators have been used increasingly for planning and evaluation of food security interventions. Various indicators have been employed, but rarely has a full set of indicators been compared using a common framework. Objective This paper evaluates the performance of five dietary indicators for the assessment of household energy consumption using a common framework and recent data from Mozambique. Methods Data were analyzed from a 2004 household survey, Current Vulnerability Analysis in Seven Provinces of Mozambique. Households (n = 4,358) were sampled from 42 rural districts using a two-stage design, and a quantitative 24-hour dietary recall was employed. Household energy intake ratios were calculated as the food energy consumed by household members divided by the sum of the members' recommended intakes. Five proxy indicators of household consumption in the previous day were developed: the number of meals, the number of food groups, the number of food items, a score based on a simple weighting of food groups consumed, and a predicted energy intake ratio based on weighting of food groups consumed with previously estimated regression coefficients. The performance of these indicators was assessed using correlations with energy intake, receiver operator characteristic analysis, efficiency of predictions, and prevalence estimate comparisons. Results Although the predicted energy intake ratio performed best on all these performance criteria, and the simple food-group-weighted score performed second best, differences among the indicators on many of the criteria were relatively small. Conclusions New assessment systems could take full advantage of easy-to-collect information by using one of these best-scoring indicators, although established systems could continue to use some of the other indicators explored here, such as the food item count, without much loss in accuracy.
Localization of cytochromes to the outer membrane of anaerobically grown Shewanella putrefaciens MR-1

In gram-negative bacteria, numerous cell functions, including respiration-linked electron transport, have been ascribed to the cytoplasmic membrane. Gram-negative bacteria which use solid substrates (e.g., oxidized manganese or iron) as terminal electron acceptors for anaerobic respiration are presented with a unique problem: they must somehow establish an electron transport link across the outer membrane between large particulate metal oxides and the electron transport chain in the cytoplasmic membrane. When the metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella putrefaciens MR-1 is grown under anaerobic conditions and membrane fractions are purified from cells lysed by an EDTA-lysozyme-polyoxyethylene cetyl ether (Brij 58) protocol, approximately 80% of its membrane-bound cytochromes are localized in its outer membrane. These outer membrane cytochromes could not be dislodged by treatment with chaotropic agents or by increased concentrations of the nonionic detergent Brij 58, suggesting that they are integral membrane proteins. Cytochrome distribution in cells lysed by a French press protocol confirm the localization of cytochromes to the outer membrane of anaerobically grown cells. This novel cytochrome distribution could play a key role in the anaerobic respiratory capabilities of this bacterium, especially in its ability to mediate manganese and iron reduction.
Tensile strained Ge membranes

Germanium membranes of 50-1000 nm thickness have been fabricated by a combination of epitaxial growth on a Si substrate and simple etching processes. The biaxial tensile strain in these membranes has been measured by high-resolution X-ray diffraction and by ultrasonic vibrational spectroscopy. The later technique also shows that membranes have a Q-factor of ~3000 at low temperature. The stain in these membranes is extremely isotropic and the surface is observed to be very smooth, with an rms roughness of below 2 nm. The process of membrane fabrication also serves to remove the misfit dislocation network that originally forms at the Si/Ge interface, with benefits for the mechanical, optical and electrical properties of the crystalline membranes.
Tissue distribution of cells derived from the area opaca in heterospecific quail‐chick blastodermal chimeras

The objective of the current study was to determine the tissue distribution of cells derived from the area opaca in heterospecific quail‐chick blastodermal chimeras. Quail‐chick chimeras were constructed by transferring dissociated cells from the area opaca of the stage X–XII (EG&K) quail embryo into the subgerminal cavity of the unincubated chick blastoderm. The distribution of quail cells in embryonic as well as extra‐embryonic tissues of the recipient embryo were examined using the QCPN monoclonal antibody after 6 days of incubation in serial sections taken at 100‐μm intervals. Data gathered in the present study demonstrated that, when introduced into the subgerminal cavity of a recipient embryo, cells of the area opaca are able to populate not only extra‐embryonic structures such as the amnion and the yolk sac, but also various embryonic tissues derived from the ectoderm and less frequently the mesoderm. Ectodermal chimerism was confined mainly to the head region and was observed in tissues derived from the neural ectoderm and the surface ectoderm, including the optic cup, diencephalon and lens. Although the possibility of random incorporation of transplanted cells into these embryonic structures cannot be excluded, these results would suggest that area opaca, a peripheral ring of cells in the avian embryo destined to form the extra‐embryonic ectoderm and endoderm of the yolk sac, might harbor cells that have the potential to give rise to various cell types in the recipient chick embryo, including those derived from the surface ectoderm and neural ectoderm.
The influence of energy crop substrates on the mass-flow analysis and the residual methane potential at a rural anaerobic digestion plant.

In a full scale anaerobic digestion plant exclusively operating on solid energy crops the mass-flows were analysed for two different substrate compositions over 583 d. The mono-fermentation of maize whole crop silage was compared to a mixture of maize and grass + clover silage. The two stage system required the input of dilution liquid guarantee digestion and agitation in the high loaded first stage (OLR: 5.50 kg VS.m(-3). d(-1)). Grass + clover demanded the double mass of process dilution liquid, which reduced SRT from 65 d to 34 d for each stage and leaded to an increased generation of Solid Digestion Residues by separation. Experiments showed that 70% of the Residual Methane Potential are caused by the 7% mass fraction of SDR. For maize and maize + grass + clover RMPs of 6.34% and 11.80% were observed, respectively. RMP can also be expressed as additional substrate input required for full granted operation. Thus, the mass stream analysis is used to determine mitigation strategies for RMP.
The effect of different implant neck configurations on soft and hard tissue healing: a randomized-controlled clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE to compare the soft and hard tissue healing and remodeling around tissue-level implants with different neck configurations after at least 1 year of functional loading. MATERIAL AND METHODS eighteen patients with multiple missing teeth in the posterior area received two implants inserted in the same sextant. One test (T) implant with a 1.8 mm turned neck and one control (C) implant with a 2.8 mm turned neck were randomly assigned. All implants were placed transmucosally to the same sink depth of approximately 1.8 mm. Peri-apical radiographs were obtained using the paralleling technique and digitized. Two investigators blinded to the implant type-evaluated soft and hard tissue conditions at baseline, 6 months and 1 year after loading. RESULTS the mean crestal bone levels and soft tissue parameters were not significantly different between T and C implants at all time points. However, T implants displayed significantly less crestal bone loss than C implants after 1 year. Moreover, a frequency analysis revealed a higher percentage (50%) of T implants with crestal bone levels 1-2 mm below the implant shoulder compared with C implants (5.6%) 1 year after loading. CONCLUSION implants with a reduced height turned neck of 1.8 mm may, indeed, lower the crestal bone resorption and hence, may maintain higher crestal bone levels than do implants with a 2.8 mm turned neck, when sunk to the same depth. Moreover, several factors other than the vertical positioning of the moderately rough SLA surface may influence crestal bone levels after 1 year of function.
Choice of antiretroviral drugs for postexposure prophylaxis for children: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND This systematic review aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of antiretroviral options for postexposure prophylaxis (PEP). Recognizing the limited data on the safety and efficacy of antiretroviral drugs for PEP in children, this review was extended to include consideration of data on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treatment of infants and children living with human immunodeficiency virus. METHODS The PEP literature was assessed to identify studies reporting safety and completion rates for children given PEP, and this information was complemented by safety and efficacy data for drugs used in antiretroviral therapy. The proportion of patients experiencing each outcome was calculated and data were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis. RESULTS Three prospective cohort studies reported outcomes of children given zidovudine (ZDV) plus lamivudine (3TC) as a 2-drug PEP regimen. The proportion of children completing the full 28-day course of PEP was 64.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 41.2%-86.8%), whereas the proportion discontinuing due to adverse events was 4.5% (95% CI, .4%-8.6%). One randomized trial compared abacavir (ABC) plus lamivudine (3TC) and ZDV+3TC as part of a dual or triple first-line antiretroviral therapy regimen; this study showed better efficacy in the ABC-containing combinations and no difference in the time to first serious adverse event. Three randomized trials compared lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) to nevirapine (NVP) for antiretroviral therapy and showed a lower risk of treatment discontinuations associated with LPV/r vs NVP (hazard ratio, 0.56 [95% CI, .41-.75]) but no difference in drug-related adverse events. The overall quality of the evidence was rated as very low. CONCLUSIONS This review supports ZDV+3TC+LPV/r as the preferred 3-drug regimen for PEP in children.
Potential serum biomarkers from a metabolomics study of autism.

BACKGROUND Early detection and diagnosis are very important for autism. Current diagnosis of autism relies mainly on some observational questionnaires and interview tools that may involve a great variability. We performed a metabolomics analysis of serum to identify potential biomarkers for the early diagnosis and clinical evaluation of autism. METHODS We analyzed a discovery cohort of patients with autism and participants without autism in the Chinese Han population using ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF MS/MS) to detect metabolic changes in serum associated with autism. The potential metabolite candidates for biomarkers were individually validated in an additional independent cohort of cases and controls. We built a multiple logistic regression model to evaluate the validated biomarkers. RESULTS We included 73 patients and 63 controls in the discovery cohort and 100 cases and 100 controls in the validation cohort. Metabolomic analysis of serum in the discovery stage identified 17 metabolites, 11 of which were validated in an independent cohort. A multiple logistic regression model built on the 11 validated metabolites fit well in both cohorts. The model consistently showed that autism was associated with 2 particular metabolites: sphingosine 1-phosphate and docosahexaenoic acid. LIMITATIONS While autism is diagnosed predominantly in boys, we were unable to perform the analysis by sex owing to difficulty recruiting enough female patients. Other limitations include the need to perform test-retest assessment within the same individual and the relatively small sample size. CONCLUSION Two metabolites have potential as biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis and evaluation of autism.
Functional identification of protein phosphatase 1-binding consensus residues in NBCe1-B

Protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) is involved in various signal transduction mechanisms as an extensive regulator. The PP1 catalytic subunit (PP1c) recognizes and binds to PP1-binding consensus residues (FxxR/KxR/K) in NBCe1-B. Consequently, we focused on identifying the function of the PP1-binding consensus residue, 922FMDRLK927, in NBCe1-B. Using site-directed mutagenesis and co-immunoprecipitation assays, we revealed that in cases where the residues were substituted (F922A, R925A, and K927A) or deleted (deletion of amino acids 922–927), NBCe1-B mutants inhibited PP1 binding to NBCe1-B. Additionally, by recording the intracellular pH, we found that PP1-binding consensus residues in NBCe1-B were not only critical for NBCe1-B activity, but also relevant to its surface expression level. Therefore, we reported that NBCe1-B, as a substrate of PP1, contains these residues in the C-terminal region and that the direct interaction between NBCe1-B and PP1 is functionally critical in controlling the regulation of the HCO3− transport. These results suggested that like IRBIT, PP1 was another novel regulator of HCO3− secretion in several types of epithelia.
A Model-Based Approach for Dual-Burst Processing of Laser Profile Velocimetry Signals

In order to characterize turbulent flows, correlation measurements are a common procedure. Laser Doppler sensors are often applied for this task, but in the case of high seeding concentrations, the so-called dual-burst signals occur. These are caused by multiple particles passing the measurement volume at the same time. In this paper, a model-based signal processing approach is presented which is able to evaluate such distorted signals. In order to assess the performance of dual-burst algorithms, the Cramér-Rao lower bound is calculated for the first time. A comparison of this new technique with conventional dual-burst algorithms reveals a systematic error which is at least seven times lower and even makes an evaluation of the complete signal in some cases possible in the first place. As a result, the total frequency estimation uncertainty of dual-burst signals, which is directly linked to the velocity uncertainty, is improved by a factor of five and more. Hence, this new technique enables the precise evaluation of correlation functions and instantaneous velocity gradients of complex flows.
Gestational weight gain in obese pregnancy: impact on maternal and foetal metabolic parameters and birthweight

Abstract The aim of this prospective, observational study was to investigate the impact of gestational weight gain (GWG) among euglycaemic obese pregnant women on maternal and foetal metabolic parameters and neonatal outcome. Total GWG was recorded for 101 obese, non-diabetic women with a singleton pregnancy. At 28 weeks of gestation, fasting maternal blood samples were analysed for glucose, insulin, c-peptide and lipids. Cord bloods were collected at delivery for analysis of glucose, c-peptide and lipids. GWG (mean ± SD =10.9 ± 5.5 kg) was greatest among those of younger age and lower body mass index and 58% of women exceeded the Institute of Medicine GWG recommendations of 5–9 kg for obese pregnancy. GWG was significantly positively associated with increased risk of birthweight >4 kg, cord c-peptide levels and inversely associated with cord total cholesterol. This study identified that higher GWG in obese pregnancy may increase the risk of macrosomia and neonatal hyperinsulinaemia, within a euglycaemic maternal cohort. Impact statement Excess gestational weight gain (GWG) and maternal obesity frequently co-occur with adverse consequences for maternal and neonatal health; however, little is known of the underlying biological pathways which may be affected to contribute to adverse outcomes. Greater understanding of the biological mechanisms involved may help guide future studies to develop targeted interventions for more effective clinical outcomes. This study identified that higher GWG among obese pregnant women resulted in foetal hyperinsulinaemia even in the absence of maternal hyperglycaemia, potentially representing a biological pathway for larger birthweight babies. These results may highlight the need for more intensive dietary and lifestyle interventions among obese women who would not normally receive additional counselling beyond standard antenatal care if not diagnosed with glucose intolerance in pregnancy.
Nucleotide sequence of avian sarcoma virus UR2 and comparison of its transforming gene with other members of the tyrosine protein kinase oncogene family

The genome of avian sarcoma virus UR2 was completely sequenced and found to have a size of 3,165 nucleotides. The UR2-specific transforming sequence, ros, with a length of 1,273 nucleotides, is inserted between the truncated gag gene coding for p19 and the env gene coding for gp37 of the UR2AV helper virus. The deduced amino acid sequence for the UR2 transforming protein P68 gives a molecular weight of 61,113 and shows that it is closely related to the oncogene family coding for tyrosine protein kinases. P68 contains two distinctive hydrophobic regions that are absent in other tyrosine kinases, and it has unique amino acid changes and insertions within the conserved domain of the kinases. These characteristics may modulate the activity and target specificity of P68.
Effect of Cross-Cultural Competences on Adaptive Performance among United Nations Peacebuilding Practitioners

Given the complexity and challenging nature of environments in which peacebuilding practitioners operate, their Cross-Cultural Competences (CCCs) are very crucial for them to effectively adapt and function in foreign countries. The ability to effectively maintain positive interactions with local people is so vital that the overall success of a peacebuilding mission is every so often considerably affected by it. Therefore, in order to gain an understanding on how peacebuilding practitioners successfully navigate in local culture and achieve successful performance in competitive environments, adaptability is an essential measure of their performance to be analyzed. Despite heightened interest by both scholars and practitioners in studying and better understanding the importance of expatriate adjustment, limited research has so far been conducted on adaptive performance in United Nations peacebuilding context. A review of the literature in this regard revealed a research gap that culminated in the following research question: What is the influence of Cross-Cultural Competence (CCC) on Adaptive Performance (AP) in United Nations missions? Hence, an empirical study of 100 staff members of the Integrated Peacebuilding Mission in Guinea-Bissau was designed to answer this research question.