Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of Histone Deacetylase-induced Myocardial Repair Is Mediated by c-kit in Infarcted Hearts*

Background: Histone deacetylases (HDACs) mediate cardiac development and diseases. Results: HDAC inhibition promoted cardiac repairs and neovascularization, which were absent in KitW/KitW-v mice. Preconditioning of c-kit+ cardiac stem cells via HDAC inhibition increased myocardial regeneration. Conclusion: HDAC inhibition promotes myocardial repair through c-kit signaling. Significance: The study advances our knowledge of myocardial repair and development of a novel therapeutic strategy for heart diseases. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) play a critical role in the regulation of gene transcription, cardiac development, and diseases. The aim of this study was to test whether inhibition of HDACs induces myocardial repair and cardiac function restoration through c-kit signaling in mouse myocardial infarction models. Myocardial infarction in wild type Kit+/+ and KitW/KitW-v mice was created following thoracotomy by applying permanent ligation to the left anterior descending artery. The HDAC inhibitor, trichostatin A (TSA, 0.1 mg/kg), was intraperitoneally injected daily for a consecutive 8 weeks after myocardial infarction. 5-Bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU, 50 mg/kg) was intraperitoneally delivered every other day to pulse-chase label in vivo endogenous cardiac replication. Eight weeks later, inhibition of HDACs in vivo resulted in an improvement in ventricular functional recovery and the prevention of myocardial remodeling in Kit+/+mice, which was eliminated in KitW/KitW-v mice. HDAC inhibition promoted cardiac repairs and neovascularization in the infarcted myocardium, which were absent in KitW/KitW-v mice. Re-introduction of TSA-treated wild type c-kit+ CSCs into KitW/KitW-v myocardial infarction heart restored myocardial functional improvement and cardiac repair. To further validate that HDAC inhibition stimulates c-kit+ cardiac stem cells (CSCs) to facilitate myocardial repair, GFP+ c-kit+ CSCs were preconditioned with TSA (50 nmol/liter) for 24 h and re-introduced into infarcted hearts for 2 weeks. Preconditioning of c-kit+ CSCs via HDAC inhibition with trichostatin A significantly increased c-kit+ CSC-derived myocytes and microvessels and enhanced functional recovery in myocardial infarction hearts in vivo. Our results provide evidence that HDAC inhibition promotes myocardial repair and prevents cardiac remodeling, which is dependent upon c-kit signaling.
Oxidative Stress Correlates with Wolbachia-Mediated Antiviral Protection in Wolbachia-Drosophila Associations

ABSTRACT Wolbachia mediates antiviral protection in insect hosts and is being developed as a potential biocontrol agent to reduce the spread of insect-vectored viruses. Definition of the molecular mechanism that generates protection is important for understanding the tripartite interaction between host insect, Wolbachia, and virus. Elevated oxidative stress was previously reported for a mosquito line experimentally infected with Wolbachia, suggesting that oxidative stress is important for Wolbachia-mediated antiviral protection. However, Wolbachia experimentally introduced into mosquitoes impacts a range of host fitness traits, some of which are unrelated to antiviral protection. To explore whether elevated oxidative stress is associated with antiviral protection in Wolbachia-infected insects, we analyzed oxidative stress of five Wolbachia-infected Drosophila lines. In flies infected with protective Wolbachia strains, hydrogen peroxide concentrations were 1.25- to 2-fold higher than those in paired fly lines cured of Wolbachia infection. In contrast, there was no difference in the hydrogen peroxide concentrations in flies infected with nonprotective Wolbachia strains compared to flies cured of Wolbachia infection. Using a Drosophila mutant that produces increased levels of hydrogen peroxide, we investigated whether flies with high levels of endogenous reactive oxygen species had altered responses to virus infection and found that flies with high levels of endogenous hydrogen peroxide were less susceptible to virus-induced mortality. Taken together, these results suggest that elevated oxidative stress correlates with Wolbachia-mediated antiviral protection in natural Drosophila hosts.
An efficient lossy link localization approach for wireless sensor networks

Network fault management is crucial for a wireless sensor network (WSN) to maintain a normal running state because faults (e.g., link failures) often occur. The existing lossy link localization (LLL) approach usually infers the most probable failed link set first, and then gives the fault hypothesis set. However, the inferred failed link set contains many possible failures that do not actually occur. That quantity of redundant information in the inferred set can pose a high computational burden on fault hy-pothesis inference, and consequently decreases the evaluation accuracy and increases the failure localization time. To address the issue, we propose the conditional information entropy based redundancy elimination (CIERE), a redundant lossy link elimination approach, which can eliminate most redundant information while reserving the important information. Specifically, we develop a probabilistically correlated failure model that can accurately reflect the correlation between link failures and model the nonde-terministic fault propagation. Through several rounds of mathematical derivations, the LLL problem is transformed to a set-covering problem. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to deduce the failure hypothesis set. We compare the performance of the proposed approach with those of existing LLL methods in simulation and on a real WSN, and validate the efficiency and effec-tiveness of the proposed approach.
Identification and Characterization of Propionylation at Histone H3 Lysine 23 in Mammalian Cells*

Propionylation has been identified recently as a new type of protein post-translational modification. Bacterial propionyl-CoA synthetase and human histone H4 are propionylated at specific lysine residues that have been known previously to be acetylated. However, other proteins subject to this modification remain to be identified, and the modifying enzymes involved need to be characterized. In this work, we report the discovery of histone H3 propionylation in mammalian cells. Propionylation at H3 lysine Lys23 was detected in the leukemia cell line U937 by mass spectrometry and Western analysis using a specific antibody. In this cell line, the propionylated form of Lys23 accounted for 7%, a level at least 6-fold higher than in other leukemia cell lines (HL-60 and THP-1) or non-leukemia cell lines (HeLa and IMR-90). The propionylation level in U937 cells decreased remarkably during monocytic differentiation, indicating that this modification is dynamically regulated. Moreover, in vitro assays demonstrated that histone acetyltransferase p300 can catalyze H3 Lys23 propionylation, whereas histone deacetylase Sir2 can remove this modification in the presence of NAD+. These results suggest that histone propionylation might be generated by the same set of enzymes as for histone acetylation and that selection of donor molecules (propionyl-CoA versus acetyl-CoA) may determine the difference of modifications. Because like acetyl-CoA, propionyl-CoA is an important intermediate in biosynthesis and energy production, histone H3 Lys23 propionylation may provide a novel epigenetic regulatory mark for cell metabolism.
Error-Tolerant Searchable Encryption

In this paper, we describe a new primitive for Error-Tolerant Searchable Encryption and a security model for it. This generic scheme permits to make searches on encrypted data with only an approximation of some keyword. It enables to efficiently query secure databases in order to get the exact data with a close estimation of it. An application to biometric identification arises from this construction. This is the first construction both for Error-Tolerant Searchable Encryption and for a biometric identification protocol over encrypted personal data.
Documenting Variation in Teacher Contract Provisions Across New York School Districts

Acknowledgments: We appreciate comments from Hampton Lankford of the University of Albany and several participants in the EFRC Symposium, October 31, 2008. We also want to thank the Education Finance Research Consortium for providing funding for this project. Finally, we would like to especially thank Craig Connelly, Christopher Duncombe, and David Duncombe, who carefully coded most of the contracts used in this study. All views in the paper and any errors and omissions are solely the responsibility of the authors. Executive Summary Introduction Teacher collective bargaining agreements (teacher contracts) represent one of the most important contractual obligations that school districts make. Despite their potential impact on district budgets and human resource practices, relatively little research has examined the contents of teacher contracts across a large sample of school districts. The few studies that have examined a broad array of contract provisions have found significant variation in some provisions and not in others. The major objective of our study is to document the contents of teacher contracts for a large and representative sample of New York school districts. Specifically, we develop a classification scheme for coding teacher contracts, which is used to evaluate contract provisions. The teacher contract database allows us to document the similarities and differences in the content of contracts across school districts and to examine which factors seem to be related to variation in contract content. While the purpose of this study is primarily descriptive, the contract database could help facilitate future research on how contract provisions affect school district budgets and teacher labor market decisions. Methodology Teacher contracts are complex legal documents which can cover a number of subjects. Contract provisions selected for inclusion in this study are generally those which could potentially have a significant impact on a school district's operating budget or human resource practices, are likely to vary significantly across school districts, and are not heavily regulated by state law. Contracts were coded by several people and steps were taken to assure inter-coder reliability. We acknowledge in the study several potential limitations with the database, including potential coding errors or omissions and lack of information on health insurance plans, other agreements or plans, which have been negotiated between the teachers' union and the school district, and past contract provisions, which still may be in effect. Contracts analyzed for this study were provided by the State of New York Public Employee Relations Board (PERB). Our …
Effects of Rubidium and Cesium on Central Catecholamines and Locomotor Behavior in Rats

Since the introduction of lithium in the treatment of manic-depressive illness, renewed interest has been generated in the study of the effects of other alkali metal cations on neuronal activity and behavior. The earlier findings that rubidium (Rb) enhanced the turnover of brain norepinephrine (NE) (Stolk et al., 1970) and produced an increase in shock-elicited aggression in rats (Stolk e t al., 1971) provided considerable impetus for the clinical evaluation of Rb as a possible antidepressant agent. In contrast to the prophylactic and therapeutic effects of lithium in affective psychosis, it has been suggested by Fieve and his associates that Rb may be of value in the clinical treatment of patients with depressive illness (Carroll and Sharp, 1971; Fieve et al., 1973; McClure et al., 1979). Although hyperexcitability and aggressiveness have been reported both in humans and in infrahuman species following exposure to R b (Gottesfeld, 1976), the effects of cesium (Ce), another metal cation, on behavior and brain monoamine metabolism have not yet been studied. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of Rb and Cs on the disposition and metabolism of NE and dopamine (DA) in rat brain.
Civil society and the European common security and defence policy

The involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs) is widely regarded by students of the EU's domestic policy fields as enhancing transparency and accountability and, more generally, the democratic quality of political processes. This article explores the contribution of CSOs to the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and assesses whether a democracy-enhancing effect of their involvement can also be demonstrated for this policy field. We analyse the contribution of CSOs based on two common models of democracy: the intergovernmental and the supranational model of democracy. We find that CSOs are indeed quite actively involved in the EU's security policy. With regard to their democracy-enhancing effects, however, our findings are rather mixed. While the engagement of CSOs does provide a remedy for the democratic deficits associated with intergovernmental decision-making, these organizations do not fully meet the demands posed by supranational governance.
Cluster Analysis of Patients Evaluated in Laser Refractive Surgery

Higher Order Aberrations (HOA) is distortions in light that result from physical alterations of the optical pathway. The primary ocular factors that contribute to HOA are the tear film, cornea and lens. Wavefront assessment instruments such as the Hartmann-Shack Sensor provide data from which the aberrations of the human’s eye are estimated. The understanding of HOA as applied to the visual system and the commercialization of devices that measure HOA has greatly expanded the use of these methods in the clinical setting. Zernike polynomials have been commonly used as the standard method for describing the shape of an aberrated wavefront.1
Parallel Asynchronous Computation of the Values of an Assotiative Function

This paper shows an application of a formal approach to parallel program design. The basic model is related to temporal logics. We summarize the concepts of a relational model of parallelism in the introduction. The main part is devoted to the problem of synthesizing a solution for the problem of parallel asynchronous computation of the values of an associative function. The result is a programming theorem, which is wide applicable for different problems. The abstract program is easy to implement effectively on several architectures. The applicability of results is investigated for parallel architectures such as for hypercubes and transputer networks.
Does entrepreneurs' human and relational capital affect early internationalisation? A cross-regional comparison

Using data of young firms from Latin America and Mediterranean Europe, we analyse the influence of human and relational capital on the likelihood of creating an early internationalising firm (EIF). Our results indicate that in the context of Latin American countries entrepreneurs' characteristics as well as their networks of relationships may influence decisively the likelihood of creating an EIF. Particularly, our findings indicate that young as well as senior, well-educated entrepreneurs who built entrepreneurial teams and, at the same time, had access to larger and more professional networks constitutes the typical profile of an EIF founder in Latin America. In contrast, the results for the Mediterranean Europe sample reveal that human and relational capital variables are less relevant. The results of this paper would contribute to the empirical literature analysing evidence from
Cerebral Autoregulation-oriented Therapy at the Bedside: A Comprehensive Review

This comprehensive review summarizes the evidence regarding use of cerebral autoregulation-directed therapy at the bedside and provides an evaluation of its impact on optimizing cerebral perfusion and associated functional outcomes. Multiple studies in adults and several in children have shown the feasibility of individualizing mean arterial blood pressure and cerebral perfusion pressure goals by using cerebral autoregulation monitoring to calculate optimal levels. Nine of these studies examined the association between cerebral perfusion pressure or mean arterial blood pressure being above or below their optimal levels and functional outcomes. Six of these nine studies (66%) showed that patients for whom median cerebral perfusion pressure or mean arterial blood pressure differed significantly from the optimum, defined by cerebral autoregulation monitoring, were more likely to have an unfavorable outcome. The evidence indicates that monitoring of continuous cerebral autoregulation at the bedside is feasible and has the potential to be used to direct blood pressure management in acutely ill patients.
Barriers Over Time to Full Implementation of Health Information Exchange in the United States

Background Although health information exchanges (HIE) have existed since their introduction by President Bush in his 2004 State of the Union Address, and despite monetary incentives earmarked in 2009 by the health information technology for economic and clinical health (HITECH) Act, adoption of HIE has been sparse in the United States. Research has been conducted to explore the concept of HIE and its benefit to patients, but viable business plans for their existence are rare, and so far, no research has been conducted on the dynamic nature of barriers over time. Objective The aim of this study is to map the barriers mentioned in the literature to illustrate the effect, if any, of barriers discussed with respect to the HITECH Act from 2009 to the early months of 2014. Methods We conducted a systematic literature review from CINAHL, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The search criteria primarily focused on studies. Each article was read by at least two of the authors, and a final set was established for evaluation (n=28). Results The 28 articles identified 16 barriers. Cost and efficiency/workflow were identified 15% and 13% of all instances of barriers mentioned in literature, respectively. The years 2010 and 2011 were the most plentiful years when barriers were discussed, with 75% and 69% of all barriers listed, respectively. Conclusions The frequency of barriers mentioned in literature demonstrates the mindfulness of users, developers, and both local and national government. The broad conclusion is that public policy masks the effects of some barriers, while revealing others. However, a deleterious effect can be inferred when the public funds are exhausted. Public policy will need to lever incentives to overcome many of the barriers such as cost and impediments to competition. Process improvement managers need to optimize the efficiency of current practices at the point of care. Developers will need to work with users to ensure tools that use HIE resources work into existing workflows.
Teenage Marriage and Marital Breakdown: A Longitudinal Study

The risk of marriage breakdown for teenage brides is substantially greater than for women who marry later. From the life histories of a British cohort born in 1946, we show that teenage brides frequently come from less advantageous family backgrounds, have received less education and are in occupations of a lower status than those who marry later. Such pre-marital factors did not distinguish between teenage marriages that survived and those that broke down by the time the women were in their early thirties. Antecedent factors associated with higher risk of marital breakdown were marital breakdown in the family of origin and, more importantly, neuroticism score at age 16. Women whose marriages broke down were less stable, even before they married, than those whose marriages remained intact. Conditions after marriage also distinguish broken marriages from surviving marriages. Women with short first birth intervals and greater numbers of children were more frequently found in the group with broken marriages.
In Pursuit of Dirty Money: Identifying Weaknesses in the Global Financial System

Over the last two years a number of initiatives have been brought to the attention of the financial regulators sectors of the global financial system most at risk from money laundering. The Durban Declaration called for the return of wealth plundered by corrupt leaders. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the OECD all identified countries with unregulated or poorly regulated financial systems which encourage money laundering and the US Senate identified problems with correspondent banking. This added attention has encouraged more countries to join the anti‐money laundering movement and there are now 116 member countries in anti‐money laundering groups in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. However, until their legislation is effectively implemented and the remaining countries join the global anti‐money laundering movement there is unlikely to be any significant reduction in the amount of money being laundered.
Sustainability indicators for the food supply chain

Abstract: The chapter provides an overview of sustainability performance evaluations of a supply chain. It introduces a new methodology for sustainability assessment of food supply chains, and demonstrates it by using an example of potato supply chains in the UK. The framework identifies indicators within three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and applies them to stages of agriculture, food processing, wholesale, retail and catering. The framework assigns importance ratings (determined with help from an expert) for sustainability indicators using the Analytic Network Process. The chapter discusses possible applications of the framework and further trends in sustainability benchmarking.
Temporal Trends in Sex Differences With Regard to Stroke Incidence: The Dijon Stroke Registry (1987–2012)

Background and Purpose— We evaluated temporal trends in stroke incidence between men and women to determine whether changes in the distribution of vascular risk factors have influenced sex differences in stroke epidemiology. Methods— Patients with first-ever stroke including ischemic stroke, spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and undetermined stroke between 1987 and 2012 were identified through the population-based registry of Dijon, France. Incidence rates were calculated for age groups, sex, and stroke subtypes. Sex differences and temporal trends (according to 5-year time periods) were evaluated by calculating incidence rate ratios (IRRs) with Poisson regression. Results— Four thousand six hundred and fourteen patients with a first-ever stroke (53.1% women) were recorded. Incidence was lower in women than in men (112 versus 166 per 100 000/y; IRR, 0.68; P<0.001), especially in age group 45 to 84 years, and for both ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage. From 1987 to 2012, the lower incidence of overall stroke in women was stable (IRR ranging between 0.63 and 0.72 according to study periods). When considering stroke subtype, a slight increase in the incidence of ischemic stroke was observed in both men (IRR, 1.011; 95% confidence interval, 1.005–1.016; P=0.001) and women (IRR, 1.013; 95% confidence interval, 1.007–1.018; P=0.001). The sex gap in incidence remained unchanged in ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage. Conversely, the lower subarachnoid hemorrhage incidence in women vanished with time because of an increasing incidence. Conclusions— The sex gap in stroke incidence did not change with time except for subarachnoid hemorrhage. Despite lower rates, more women than men experience an incident stroke each year because of a longer life expectancy.