Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Celecoxib inhibits angiogenesis by inducing endothelial cell apoptosis in human pancreatic tumor xenografts

Previous studies suggest that antagonists of cyclooxygenases 1 and 2 (COX-1, -2) inhibit angiogenesis in tumor xenografts, but the molecular mechanisms involved remain unclear. Here we characterized the effects of non-selective (indomethacin) and selective (NS398, celecoxib) cyclooxygenase inhibitors on parameters of angiogenesis in human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells. COX-1 expression was constitutive in 9/9 pancreatic cancer cell lines, whereas COX-2 and cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2 ) expression were observed in 4/9 cell lines (BxPC3, Capan2, Cfpac1, and L3.6pl). Production of the COX product, prostaglandin E2, correlated with expression of cPLA2 and COX-2 and was blocked by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, indomethacin or NS398). In contrast to the findings of others, neither indomethacin nor NS398 affected tumor cell proliferation or secretion of angiogenic factors (VEGF, bFGF, IL-8) at concentrations that produced maximal inhibition of PGE2 production, and higher concentrations increased angiogenic factor production. We also studied the effects of celecoxib in orthotopic L3.6pl xenografts. Immunofluorescence analyses revealed high-level expression of COX-2 in endothelial cells in L3.6pl xenografts that increased following therapy with celecoxib, whereas the tumor cells expressed uniformly low levels of COX- 2. Celecoxib did not decrease tumor-associated VEGF levels in orthotopic human L3.6pl xenografts, but the drug did decrease tumor microvessel density (MVD) and increase apoptosis in tumor-associated endothelial cells in a dose-dependent fashion. Together, our results demonstrate that the anti-angiogeneic effects of NSAIDs in human pancreatic cancer cells are exerted via direct effects on endothelial cells.
The actuation characterization of cantilevered unimorph beams with single crystal piezoelectric materials

An experimental and theoretical electromechanical characterization of beam-like, uniform cross-section, unimorph structures employing single crystal piezoelectrics is presented. The purpose of the research is to understand and compare the actuation capabilities of several piezoelectric materials and substrate configurations so that optimal design choices can be employed in lightweight, low power aerodynamic applications. Monolithic devices made from three kinds of piezoelectrics—single crystal PMN–PZT (lead magnesium niobate–lead zirconate titanate) and the polycrystalline PZT-5A and PZT-5H types—are compared in a unimorph cantilevered beam configuration. A total of 24 unimorph specimens are fabricated and the validity of existing models is examined through experimentation. The tip velocity response to harmonic voltage excitation is measured and compared to the analytical prediction with the perfect bonding assumption. Summarizing, it was confirmed that the substrate-to-piezoelectric thickness ratio and substrate modulus are the important design parameters in determining the measured output of the unimorphs and the accuracy of the model prediction. The single crystal piezoelectrics demonstrated actuation authority two to four times higher (measured in terms of peak displacement per applied voltage) when compared to the polycrystalline piezoceramics for the same substrate material and geometry choice. In contrast to the higher actuation output, practical implementation issues are noted for the single crystal devices. The lack of grain boundaries (as in the polycrystalline material) makes the single crystals very ‘brittle’ and susceptible to stress concentrations. Another important limitation is the low transition temperature, which limits the use of conventional solder materials in creating electrical connections.
Bacterial CpG‐DNA and lipopolysaccharides activate Toll‐like receptors at distinct cellular compartments

Recognition by innate immune cells of the pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMP) lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram‐negative bacteria and bacterial CpG‐DNA depends on Toll‐like receptor4 (TLR4) and TLR9, respectively. To define differences in the response to these distinct PAMP we compared a key intracellular event, namely recruitment of myeloid differentiation marker 88 (MyD88) to the respective PAMP‐initiated TLR signaling. Using MyD88‐GFP fusion protein expressing macrophages we demonstrate that LPS and CpG‐DNA trigger signaling from two different cellular locations: theformer at the cell membrane and the latter at the lysosomal compartment. While LPS does not require endocytosis to functionally associate with the membrane expressed TLR4/MD2 complex, internalization and endosomal maturation is conditional for CpG‐DNA to activate TLR9. In support of these data TLR9 is not localized at the cell surface, but intracellularily. These data stress the need to characterize individual TLR at the very beginning of signal initiation in order to understand their diverse biological functions.
Emotional face processing and flat affect in schizophrenia: functional and structural neural correlates

Background There is a general consensus in the literature that schizophrenia causes difficulties with facial emotion perception and discrimination. Functional brain imaging studies have observed reduced limbic activity during facial emotion perception but few studies have examined the relation to flat affect severity. Method A total of 26 people with schizophrenia and 26 healthy controls took part in this event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Sad, happy and neutral faces were presented in a pseudo-random order and participants indicated the gender of the face presented. Manual segmentation of the amygdala was performed on a structural T1 image. Results Both the schizophrenia group and the healthy control group rated the emotional valence of facial expressions similarly. Both groups exhibited increased brain activity during the perception of emotional faces relative to neutral ones in multiple brain regions, including multiple prefrontal regions bilaterally, the right amygdala, right cingulate cortex and cuneus. Group comparisons, however, revealed increased activity in the healthy group in the anterior cingulate, right parahippocampal gyrus and multiple visual areas. In schizophrenia, the severity of flat affect correlated significantly with neural activity in several brain areas including the amygdala and parahippocampal region bilaterally. Conclusions These results suggest that many of the brain regions involved in emotional face perception, including the amygdala, are equally recruited in both schizophrenia and controls, but flat affect can also moderate activity in some other brain regions, notably in the left amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus bilaterally. There were no significant group differences in the volume of the amygdala.
Core Topics in Digital Library Education

Modern societies are producing and consuming an enormous amount of information every day. The need for quality organized information has been growing rapidly. Various digital libraries (DLs) have been developed to address this need. However, additional focus on education for people who design and administer digital libraries is needed. We can begin to solve this problem through development of curricular recommendations for digital library education. Several disciplines have an interest in the development of a graduate-level curriculum for digital library education; hence it can be argued that this effort must be interdisciplinary in order to be successful (Kajberg & Lørring, 2005). In particular, computer science and information and library science have been actively developing courses and programs in this area (Ma, Clegg, & O'Brien, 2006). Efforts to date have been locally-based and dependent upon specific institutional needs. The current effort takes a broader view, in order to develop a curriculum framework that will be useful across institutions and across disciplines. This framework is based on analyses of the ACM/IEEE-CS
Transcalcaneal Talonavicular Dislocation

Background: The combination of dorsal dislocation of the navicular from the talus and an associated comminuted fracture of the calcaneus (transcalcaneal talonavicular dislocation) is an unusual and severe injury. Six cases have been described previously. The purposes of this study were to report the prevalence of this injury and the variations in injury pattern and to characterize methods of treatment and patient outcomes. Methods: Eight patients with nine cases of transcalcaneal talonavicular dislocation were treated by the senior author between January 1, 1990, and February 28, 1998. The comminuted fracture of the calcaneus was apparently caused by plantar flexion of the talus through the anterior portion of the calcaneus. There were five open Grade-III injuries and three associated lacerations of the posterior tibial artery. After initial provisional stabilization of the hindfoot and management of the soft tissues, all injuries were treated with delayed open reduction and internal fixation of the calcaneus and fusion of the subtalar joint. At the last follow-up examination, the outcomes were rated with the Maryland foot score, the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hindfoot rating score, and the Creighton-Nebraska score for all patients who had not had an amputation. Results: The duration of follow-up ranged from 1.1 to eight years. Chronic osteomyelitis developed in four patients, and three of them ultimately had an amputation. The Creighton-Nebraska scores for the remaining six feet ranged from 33 to 92 points, with only one having a good or excellent result. Five of the six patients had a limp, difficulty with shoe wear, limitation with regard to walking, and moderate pain. Conclusions: Transcalcaneal talonavicular dislocation is a severe injury that often leads to osteomyelitis and amputation. Patients who do not lose the leg as a result of uncontrolled infection should be counseled to expect severe functional limitations and/or chronic pain.
The BRCA2 variant 8204G>A is a splicing mutation and results in an in frame deletion of the gene

Since the identification of the breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 , a large number of different germline mutations in both genes have been found.1,2 The BRCA1 / 2 germline mutations reported to date comprise a broad spectrum of sequence variants, mainly frameshift and nonsense mutations that result in truncated proteins.3 A minor proportion of the documented sequence variants are the result of mutations in sites relevant for correct splicing of the pre-mRNA. As a participating centre in the German Consortium for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer in Germany, we have screened families with a strong history of breast and/or ovarian cancer for mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 by complete sequencing of both genes.4 Recently, we detected a mutation at an exon-intron boundary in the BRCA2 gene of a young woman (B538/300) who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32. Histological examination of resected breast tissue showed ductal carcinoma (grade I). No other breast or ovarian cancers have been observed in her family. In particular, sequence analysis of this patient showed a G to A transition at position 8204 of exon 17 of BRCA2 …
Optimal Design of Constraint-Following Control for Fuzzy Mechanical Systems

The control problem for a mechanical system to follow a constraint is formulated. The uncertainty is considered in both the system dynamics and constraint. It is bounded, and the knowledge of the bound only lies within a fuzzy set. We propose an adaptive robust control for the mechanical system for approximate constraint-following. Both the mechanical system model and control scheme are deterministic and not if-then heuristic rules-based. An optimal design problem using the fuzzy description of the uncertainty is proposed. We prove that the global solution to the resulting optimization problem always exists and is unique. Under the control, the performance of the mechanical system is both deterministically guaranteed and fuzzily optimized.
A new method for estimating parameters of a dynamic robot model

The need for open model-based robot controllers becomes more and more important with the increasing quality of autonomous joint motion planners and the increasing amount of applications for these. An important item in a model-based controller is a precise dynamical model of the robot. Such a model is designed in terms of various inertial and friction parameters that must be either measured directly or determined experimentally. In this paper, we present a new method for determining parameters of a dynamical robot model based on experiments. We compare the method with existing methods both theoretically and experimentally, and show that we achieved some improvements in the parameter values by using the new method. The experiments were carried out on the two first links of a seven-axis Mitsubishi PA-10 robot.
Long-term culture of the ascites form of a mouse mammary tumor in serum-free media.

The authors successfully cultivated FM3A cell line in two kinds of serum-free media, which was derived from a case of spontaneous mammary carcinoma converted in vivo into ascites form of C3H stock mice and was grown in a serum containing modified Eagle's medium for about seven months. Bovine plasma albumin, bactopeptone, sodium pyruvate and ferric chloride were effective as additives to the serum-free media and their optimum concentrations were 500, 1, 500 and 110mg/l medium, respectively. The animal transplantability of the cultured cells was examined, which were grown in the serum-free medium, and the inoculation of 105 cells or more per mouse induced tumor death but that of a less number of cells did not. The implanted cells in the peritoneal cavities of mice were recovered into the serum-free medium without a distinct lag period. The chromosomal distribution of the cells was investigated which were grown in the serum-free medium. The primary culture of the in vivo transplanted FM3A cells was successfully carried out without a distinct lag period.
Segmenting specific object based on logo detection

This paper proposes a method to segment object with logos. In the method, we firstly locate the logos by SIFT matching. Then, the object boundary is extracted based on the logo location. Finally, we model the object prior based on the boundary, and introduce the prior into Markov random field segmentation method to segment the object. To verify the proposed method, we collect a logo dataset from the web such as Flickr and Google. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Creation of an IEC 62304 compliant software development plan

Organizations engaged in medical device software development are required to demonstrate compliance with a set of medical device standards and regulations before the device can be marketed. One such standard IEC 62304, Medical Device Software—Software Life Cycle Processes, defines the processes that are required in order to develop safe software. Demonstrating compliance with IEC 62304 can be problematic for organizations that are new to or have limited experience in the domain. The standard defines what processes must be carried out but does not state how. In a review of a number of such organizations, it was found that the development of a software development plan proved to be a difficult task. In this work we have created a software development plan template to assist organizations with this arduous task. The software development plan template will be validated with these organizations as part of the future work.
4-[(4-Acetylphenyl)amino]-2-methylidene-4-oxobutanoic acid

In the title compound, C13H13NO4, the N—C(=O) bond length of 1.354 (2) Å is indicative of amide-type resonance. The dihedral angle between the mean planes of the benzene ring and oxoamine group is 36.4 (3)°, while the mean plane of the 2-methylidene group is inclined by 84.2 (01)° from that of the oxoamine group. In the crystal, classical O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds formed by the carboxylic acid groups and weak N—H⋯O weak interactions formed by the amide groups and supported by weak C—H⋯O interactions between the 2-methylidene, phenyl and acetyl groups with the carboxylic acid, oxoamine and acetyl O atoms, together link the molecules into dimeric chains along [010]. The O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form R 2 2(8) graph-set motifs.
A Parallel Genetic Algorithm for the Multilevel Unconstrained Lot-Sizing Problem

Acoarse-grained parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) for the multilevel unconstrained lot-sizing problem (MLULSP) is described and evaluated using 176 benchmark problems from the literature, with problem sizes varying from 5 to 500 products and with simulations ranging from 12 to 52 periods. The parallelization approach consists of concurrently executing several subpopulations (demes) of a genetic algorithm with the occasional migration of individuals between them. The migration is controlled by the migration model of Cantu-Paz [Cantu-Paz, E. 2001. Migration policies, selection pressure, and parallel evolutionary algorithms. J. Heuristics7 311--334]. The genetic algorithm used is based on a new binary coding for the MLULSP. The PGA, which is the first application of a parallel metaheuristic to the MLULSP, is competitive with the best known solution methods. It was possible with the new method to calculate new best solutions for 34 of the benchmark problems. Furthermore, the migration enables a super-linear speedup. The results indicate that parallel genetic algorithms are suitable for solving large-problem instances of the MLULSP with acceptable computing times.
A New Solution for Natural Convection of Darcian Fluid about a Vertical Full Cone Embedded in Porous Media Prescribed Wall Temperature by using a Hybrid Neural Network-Particle Swarm Optimization Method

Fluid flow and heat transfer of vertical full cone embedded in porous media is studied in this paper. Nonlinear differential equation arising from similarity solution of inverted cone (subjected to wall temperature boundary conditions) embedded in porous medium is solved using a hybrid neural networkparticle swarm optimization method. To aim this purpose, a trial solution of the differential equation is defined as sum of two parts. The first part satisfies the initial/ boundary conditions and does contain an adjustable parameter and the second part which is constructed so as not to affect the initial/boundary conditions and involves adjustable parameters (the weights and biases) for a multi-layer perceptron neural network. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is applied to find adjustable parameters of trial solution (in first and second part). The obtained solution in comparison with the numerical ones represents a remarkable accuracy. Keywords—Porous Media, Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Neural Network (NN).
The antenna current Green's function as an alternative method to conventional full-wave analysis solvers: An outline

The paper presents an overview on a general method to compute the response of arbitrary electromagnetic systems to generic illumination field (i.e., not necessarily plane waves or wave port fields) without the need to re-mesh the physical layout for different excitation fields. The basic idea is similar to the transfer function in system theory were a special solution of the problem (the Green's function or the impulse response) is computed only once and then used to predict the electromagnetic behaviour of the device under varying environmental circumstances.
RADIOIMMUNOASSAY OF SERUM FERRITIN IN PATIENTS WITH MALIGNANCY

Ferritin is an iron storage protein with a molecular weight of approximately 450,000,1 and it is apparently composed of a number of subunits arranged in the form of a spherical shell around the iron oxide core. Recently, a tumor-specific component of ferritin with rapid electrophoretic mobility or acidic isoelectric point has been reported in cultured . I and human and rat hepatomas.6. 7 In addition, some carcinofetal proteins in the serum, a,H and B.F. P., were identified H. as belonging to the ferritin class of proteins. For the detection of circulating ferritin that is present in a very small amounts under normal conditions, a sensitive immunoradiometric assay has been recently employed. '" The present investigation was made in an attempt to define the clinical significance of serum ferritin as a means of evaluating malignancy.
Discovery of Novel Human and Animal Cells Infected by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus by Replication-Specific Multiplex Reverse Transcription-PCR

ABSTRACT The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is the causative agent of the recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. VeroE6 cells, fetal rhesus monkey kidney cells, and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells were the only cells known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV. We developed a multiplex reverse transcription-PCR assay to analyze the susceptibility of cells derived from a variety of tissues and species to SARS-CoV. Additionally, productive infection was determined by titration of cellular supernatants. Cells derived from three species of monkey were susceptible to SARS-CoV. However, the levels of SARS-CoV produced differed by 4 log10. Mink lung epithelial cells (Mv1Lu) and R-Mix, a mixed monolayer of human lung-derived cells (A549) and mink lung-derived cells (Mv1Lu), are used by diagnostic laboratories to detect respiratory viruses (e.g., influenza virus); they were also infected with SARS-CoV, indicating that the practices of diagnostic laboratories should be examined to ensure appropriate biosafety precautions. Mv1Lu cells produce little SARS-CoV compared to that produced by VeroE6 cells, which indicates that they are a safer alternative for SARS-CoV diagnostics. Evaluation of cells permissive to other coronaviruses indicated that these cell types are not infected by SARS-CoV, providing additional evidence that SARS-CoV binds an alternative receptor. Analysis of human cells derived from lung, kidney, liver, and intestine led to the discovery that human cell lines were productively infected by SARS-CoV. This study identifies new cell lines that may be used for SARS-CoV diagnostics and/or basic research. Our data and other in vivo studies indicate that SARS-CoV has a wide host range, suggesting that the cellular receptor(s) utilized by SARS-CoV is highly conserved and is expressed by a variety of tissues.
Macro Histone Variants Are Critical for the Differentiation of Human Pluripotent Cells*

Background: Macro histone variant expression is induced during cell differentiation. Results: Human pluripotent cells knocked down for macro histone variants show improper in vitro differentiation. Conclusion: Macro histone variants are critical for the proper silencing of genes during in vitro differentiation. Significance: Proper macro histone deposition is critical for the in vitro generation of good quality differentiated cell types. We have previously shown that macro histone variants (macroH2A) are expressed at low levels in stem cells and are up-regulated during differentiation. Here we show that the knockdown of macro histone variants impaired the in vitro and in vivo differentiation of human pluripotent cells, likely through defects in the silencing of pluripotency-related genes. ChIP experiments showed that during differentiation macro histone variants are recruited to the regulatory regions of pluripotency and developmental genes marked with H3K27me3 contributing to the silencing of these genes.