Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Slug transcription factor in human mesenchymal stem cells

The pathways that control mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) differentiation are not well understood, and although some of the involved transcription factors (TFs) have been characterized, the role of others remains unclear. We used human MSCs from tibial plateau (TP) trabecular bone, iliac crest (IC) bone marrow and Wharton’s jelly (WJ) umbilical cord demonstrating a variability in their mineral matrix deposition, and in the expression levels of TFs including Runx2, Sox9, Sox5, Sox6, STAT1 and Slug, all involved in the control of osteochondroprogenitors differentiation program. Because we reasoned that the basal expression level of some TFs with crucial role in the control of MSC fate may be correlated with osteogenic potential, we considered the possibility to affect the hMSCs behaviour by using gene silencing approach without exposing cells to induction media. In this study we found that Slug‐silenced cells changed in morphology, decreased in their migration ability, increased Sox9 and Sox5 and decreased Sox6 and STAT1 expression. On the contrary, the effect of Slug depletion on Runx2 was influenced by cell type. Interestingly, we demonstrated a direct in vivo regulatory action of Slug by chromatin immunoprecipitation, showing a specific recruitment of this TF in the promoter of Runx2 and Sox9 genes. As a whole, our findings have important potential implication on bone tissue engineering applications, reinforcing the concept that manipulation of specific TF expression levels may elucidate MSC biology and the molecular mechanisms, which promote osteogenic differentiation.
Immunogenicity and Efficacy of Live L. tarentolae Expressing KMP11-NTGP96-GFP Fusion as a Vaccine Candidate against Experimental Visceral Leishmaniasis Caused by L. infantum

Background: The aim of present study was to evaluate the protective efficacy of live recombinant L. tarentolae expressing KMP11-NTGP96-GFP fusion as candidates for live engineered recombinant vaccine against visceral leishmaniasis in BALB/c mice. Methods: KMP-11 and NT-GP96 genes cloned into the pJET1.2/blunt cloning vector and then into pEGFP-N1 expression vector. The KMP-11, NT-GP96 and GFP fused in pEGFP-N1 and subcloned into Leishmanian pLEXSY-neo vector. Finally this construct was transferred to L. tarentolae by electroporation. Tranfection was confirmed by SDS-PAGE, WESTERN blot, flowcytometry and RT-PCR. Protective efficacy of this construct was evaluated as a vaccine candidate against visceral leishmaniasis. Parasite burden, humoral and cellular immune responses were assessed before and at 4 weeks after challenge. Results: KMP- NT-Gp96-GFP Fusion was cloned successfully into pLEXSY -neo vector and this construct successfully transferred to L. tarentolae. Finding indicated that immunization with L. tarentolae tarentolae-KMP11-NTGP96-GFP provides significant protection against visceral leishmaniasis and was able to induce an increased expression of IFN-γ and IgG2a. Following challenge, a reduced parasite load in the spleen of the KMP11-NTGP96-GFP immunized group was detected. Conclusion: The present study is the first to use a combination of a Leishmania antigen with an immunologic antigen in live recombinant L. tarentolae and results suggest that L. tarentolae-KMP11-NTGP96-GFP could be considered as a potential tool in vaccination against visceral leishmaniasis and this vaccination strategy could provide a potent rout for future vaccine development.
Analysis on the Interaction Domain of VirG and Apyrase by Pull-Down Assay

VirG is outer membrane protein of Shigella and affects the spread of Shigella. Recently it has been reported that apyrase influences the location of VirG, although the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. The site of interaction between apyrase and VirG is the focus of our research. First we constructed recombinant plasmid pHIS-phoN2 and pS-(v1–1102, v53–758, v759–1102, v53–319, v320–507, v507–758) by denaturation-renaturation, the phoN2:kan mutant of Shigella flexneri 5a M90T by a modified version of the lambda red recombination protocol originally described by Datsenko and Wanner and the complemented strain M90TΔphoN2/pET24a(PhisphoN2). Second, the recombinant plasmid pHIS-phoN2 and the pS-(v1–1102, v53–758, v759–1102, v53–319, v320–507, v507–758) were transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3) and induced to express the fusion proteins. Third, the fusion proteins were purified and the interaction of VirG and apyrase was identified by pull-down. Fourth, VirG was divided and the interaction site of apyrase and VirG was determined. Finally, how apyrase affects the function of VirG was analyzed by immunofluorescence. Accordingly, the results provided the data supporting the fact that apyrase combines with the α-domain of VirG to influence the function of VirG.
Change impact analysis with a goal‐driven traceability‐based approach

Recently, the growing popularity of requirements engineering attracts an increasing attention on requirements traceability and change impact analysis, which also imposes a great demand for a systematic approach in developing software systems to handling traceability relations and requirements changes in an automatic manner. In this work, a goal‐driven requirements traceability approach is proposed to develop and manage requirements changes along three dimensions: (1) to develop software and manage requirements based on the goal‐driven use case (GDUC) approach, (2) to establish and maintain the traceability relation with a design structure matrix (DSM) to derive the traceability tree, and (3) to analyze requirements change impacts through the partitioning of DSM into blocks to serve as a basis for calculating use case points. The proposed approach is illustrated by a benchmark problem domain of a meeting scheduler system. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Can the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Reduce Short-Term Migration: Evidence from West Bengal, India

Using survey data from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, the paper documents the impact of the rural employment guarantee scheme in reducing rural out-migration. Using regression framework and case studies, it finds no significant impact of household participation in the programme on migration decision. However, extent of participation in terms of number of days of work and earnings has a significant negative impact on short-term migration but not on longer duration ones. The findings lay emphasis on effective implementation in terms of asset creation, reduction in rationing of works and tackling delayed payments to enjoy its potential benefits.
Acute Glucagon Induces Postprandial Peripheral Insulin Resistance

Glucagon levels are often moderately elevated in diabetes. It is known that glucagon leads to a decrease in hepatic glutathione (GSH) synthesis that in turn is associated with decreased postprandial insulin sensitivity. Given that cAMP pathway controls GSH levels we tested whether insulin sensitivity decreases after intraportal (ipv) administration of a cAMP analog (DBcAMP), and investigated whether glucagon promotes insulin resistance through decreasing hepatic GSH levels.Insulin sensitivity was determined in fed male Sprague-Dawley rats using a modified euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp in the postprandial state upon ipv administration of DBcAMP as well as glucagon infusion. Glucagon effects on insulin sensitivity was assessed in the presence or absence of postprandial insulin sensitivity inhibition by administration of L-NMMA. Hepatic GSH and NO content and plasma levels of NO were measured after acute ipv glucagon infusion. Insulin sensitivity was assessed in the fed state and after ipv glucagon infusion in the presence of GSH-E. We founf that DBcAMP and glucagon produce a decrease of insulin sensitivity, in a dose-dependent manner. Glucagon-induced decrease of postprandial insulin sensitivity correlated with decreased hepatic GSH content and was restored by administration of GSH-E. Furthermore, inhibition of postprandial decrease of insulin sensitivity L-NMMA was not overcome by glucagon, but glucagon did not affect hepatic and plasma levels of NO. These results show that glucagon decreases postprandial insulin sensitivity through reducing hepatic GSH levels, an effect that is mimicked by increasing cAMP hepatic levels and requires physiological NO levels. These observations support the hypothesis that glucagon acts via adenylate cyclase to decrease hepatic GSH levels and induce insulin resistance. We suggest that the glucagon-cAMP-GSH axis is a potential therapeutic target to address insulin resistance in pathological conditions.
Rotational motion estimaiton of high-resoluiton ISAR imaigng for manuvering targets

In this paper, a novel algorithm of rotational parameter estimation is proposed for high-resolution inverse synthetic aperture (ISAR) imaging of maneuvering targets. For a non-uniform rotation target, the signal model is formulated. Then, an entropy minimization approach is used to estimate the rotational parameters, which is solved by using a coordinate descent algorithm based on quasi-Newton method. The estimated parameters are used to rescale the reconstructed ISAR image to extract the target geometry. Finally, experimental analysis is performed to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
An outlier mining algorithm based on characteristic attribute subspace

The traditional outlier mining methods are affected by man-made factors and mined outliers can not be analyzed further. In this paper, an outlier mining algorithm based on characteristic attribute subspace is presented. Firstly, the concept of attribute entropy is introduced to calculate corresponding attribute abnormal degree, characteristic attribute subspace and attribute weight. Secondly, subspace outlier factor is computed, and then outliers are found. The method does not depend on beforehand parameters or thresholds and can explain the meaning of the outliers clearly. In the end, experimental results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm by utilizing UCI and high-dimensional star spectrum data.
Between Hope and History: Meeting America's Challenges for the 21st Century

Between Hope and History is the President's articulation of his political philosophy - a philosophy that underpins all his policies and programs as America enters the twenty-first century.The book is also a concise statement of the fundamental principles and values that have guided his administration since its inception in 1993. It continues, as he writes, "the conversation I have had with the American people about our destiny as a nation. "In Between Hope and History, President Clinton sees America poised on the edge of "the age of possibility. " He declares that "the era of big government is over, " and asserts his belief that the global economy will place a premium on education. The President also discusses the roles that individuals, families, businesses, and government must play as America prepares for the twenty-first century.
Prey-Mediated Effects of Drought on the Consumption Rates of Coccinellid Predators of Elatobium abietinum

Climate change in the UK is predicted to cause an increase in summer drought events. Elatobium abietinum is an important pest of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), causing defoliation of trees, and is predicted to become more abundant in response to climatic change, reducing spruce productivity. Populations are also moderated by invertebrate predators, though the extent to which this might be modified under a changing climate is unclear. Elatobium abietinum is preyed upon by the coccinellid species Aphidecta obliterata (a spruce specialist) and Adalia bipunctata (a generalist), populations of which naturally occur in spruce plantations. This study sought to investigate the effect of different intensities and frequencies of drought on the consumption rate of the aphids by the two coccinellids. In Petri dish trials, severe drought stress increased the consumption rates of 3rd instar aphids by both adult and larval coccinellids. Moderate intermittent stress tended to result in a reduced consumption rate for larval coccinellids only, suggesting an age-dependent response. The findings of this study suggest that, under drought conditions, a prey-mediated effect on predator consumption, and, therefore, biocontrol efficacy, is likely, with drought intensity and frequency playing an important role in determining the nature of the response.
Binary codes in the block-fading channel

We study coding for the non-ergodic block-fading channel. In particular, we analyze the error probability of full-diversity binary codes, and we elaborate on how to approach the outage probability limit. In so doing, we introduce the concept outage boundary region, which is a graphical way to illustrate failures in the decoding process. We show that outage achieving codes have a frame error probability which is independent of the block length. Conversely, we show that codes that do not approach the outage probability have an error probability that grows logarithmically with the block length
Syntactic annotation in the Reference Corpus for the Processing of Basque (EPEC): Theoretical and practical issues

Abstract In this paper, we will describe some theoretical and practical issues raised during the construction of the Basque Dependency Treebank (BDT): the syntactic annotation of EPEC (Reference Corpus for the Processing of Basque). EPEC is a 300,000 word corpus of standard written Basque whose purpose is to be a training corpus for the development and improvement of several NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools for Basque. BDT will be the first corpus for the Basque language tagged at syntactic level. We will also present the dependency-based annotation hierarchy that we have established for the syntactic tagging. Decisions made during design of the annotation hierarchy are based on the description of Basque grammar made by Euskaltzaindia (Academy for the Basque Language). When describing dependency relations, we consider lexical units as syntactic heads. This will open up a way for us to work with semantics.
Immigration and Integration Policy in Europe: Why Politics - and the Centre-Right - Matter

The role of political parties in immigration control and integration policy in Europe is underestimated, and parties on the centre-right are particularly important and interesting in this respect. They make up many European governments and therefore help determine state and EU policy. Moreover, even before the rise of the populist radical right, immigration and integration were matters of genuine ideological and practical concern for Europe’s market liberal, conservative and Christian Democratic parties. Exploiting such issues for electoral gain may make superficial sense, but too hard a line risks alienating their supporters in business and in civil society, as well as undermining party unity. It is a difficult balance, but one that makes a big difference both to the parties involved and the public policies they help produce. This volume brings together experts on both migration and political parties – fields that have not always interacted as much as they could or should have done – in order to study the impacts, dilemmas and trade-offs involved.
Mismatch in the Spanish Labor Market: Overeducation?

The objective of this article is to explain the job match, which is assessed by comparing attained education and job-required education as reported by workers. We frame our empirical work according to the occupational mobility theory. Using a cross-section of workers from a representative survey of the Spanish labor force, we consider overeducated workers to be those who report that the level of education their jobs require is below the level of education they have attained. Our results indicate that overeducated workers have less experience, decreased on-the-job training and higher turnover than other comparable workers. We also observe an improvement in the job match over age and mobility.
Optimal Multiunit Exchange Design with Single-Dimensionality

We investigate allocation problems that generalize auction and bargaining, namely multiunit exchanges, where both a central planner and participants bring homogeneous commodities to sell altogether, and there exist restrictions on feasible allocations. We characterize the optimal mechanism in terms of revenue-maximization under dominant strategy incentive compatibility and ex-post individual rationality. We introduce modified virtual valuation, and show that, irrespective of the restrictions, the optimization can be replaced with the maximization of the sum of modified virtual valuations. We apply this result to an important class of allocation problems for heterogeneous items with single-item demands based on Mussa and Rosen (1978).
An Improved TV Model for Image Restoration

A new total variance of image restoration method is proposed. To overcome blocky effect produced by anisotropic diffusion of TV model, high-order term is added to TV model. The new model has the characteristics of anisotropic diffusion. The experimental results show that the proposed model compare with other models, the PSNR is improved, and the restoration of image look more nature in non-boundary region. Keywords-total variance; fourth-order PDE; anisotropic diffusion; restoration of color image
What Do the Ultraviolet Spectra of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies Tell Us about Their Broad-Line Regions?

We study the UV spectra of narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies and compare them with "normal" active galactic nuclei. Similar to their optical lines, the NLSy1s show narrower UV lines. They are also characterized by weaker C IV λ1549 and C III] λ1909 and stronger Al III λ1857 emission. These UV-line properties add to the optical and X-ray properties known to be part of the Boroson & Green eigenvector 1. We show that the steep soft X-rays, which characterize the NLSy1s SEDs, change the equilibrium of the two-phase cloud-intercloud medium, resulting in somewhat higher broad-line region cloud densities, lower ionization parameter, and larger broad-line region radii. These modified conditions can explain the unusual emission-line properties we find in NLSy1. Using a specific model of an accretion disk with corona presented by Witt, Czerny, & Życki, we also show that the steep soft and hard X-ray continua can be explained if the L/LEdd ratios are larger than in "normal" Sy1s/QSOs, strengthening earlier suggestions that the L/LEdd is the physical parameter driving this eigenvector.
Emergence of Diverse HelicobacterSpecies in the Pathogenesis of Gastric and Enterohepatic Diseases

SUMMARY Since Helicobacter pylori was first cultivated from human gastric biopsy specimens in 1982, it has become apparent that many related species can often be found colonizing the mucosal surfaces of humans and other animals. These other Helicobacter species can be broadly grouped according to whether they colonize the gastric or enterohepatic niche. Gastric Helicobacter species are widely distributed in mammalian hosts and are often nearly universally prevalent. In many cases they cause an inflammatory response resembling that seen with H. pylori in humans. Although usually not pathogenic in their natural host, these organisms serve as models of human disease. Enterohepatic Helicobacter species are an equally diverse group of organisms that have been identified in the intestinal tract and the liver of humans, other mammals, and birds. In many cases they have been linked with inflammation or malignant transformation in immunocompetent hosts and with more severe clinical disease in immunocompromised humans and animals. The purpose of this review is to describe these other Helicobacter species, characterize their role in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal and enterohepatic disease, and discuss their implications for our understanding of H. pylori infection in humans.
Improvement of satellite image classification: Approach based on Hadoop/MapReduce

The revolution of technologies (social networks, smartphones, GPS and Remote Sensing Image) increase the volume of informations wich makes humanity in new need “Storage of huge volume of data”. the traditional strategy to store data become problem for humanity and then this need build new art to resolve this problems the “Spatial Big Data (SBD)” SBD store proncipally three types of data:vector data, raster data and network data. The complexity and nature of spatial databases make them ideal for applying parallel processing. This also emphasizes the need for developing new efficient geospatial analytic for analyzing spatial big data. So, we review the most used spatial data algorithms attracting human interests especially when the amount of satellite images continues to grow as more information becomes available. In this context, we propose a system based on Hadoop an open source system that implements the MapReduce programming model and that can improve the classification of large scale remote sensing image and benefit the power of spatial big data concept.
A Distributed Instant Messaging Architecture based on the Pastry Peer-To-Peer Routing Substrate

Current Instant Messaging systems rely on architectures that include central, or only partly distributed, server(s). Although some systems can exchange messages peer-to-peer, the user registration and lookup are still based on a centralized solution. We have implemented a fully distributed instant messaging system by utilizing the Pastry peer-to-peer routing substrate. We use the Pastry object insertion functionality to insert user information when a user joins the network and a novel search engine to eﬀectively perform distributed user lookup. Currently, our system runs in the FreePastry simulator and supports joining/leaving the network, searching for users and message exchange.
Human Face Recognition Using Generalized Kernel Fisher Discriminant and Wavelet Transform

In this paper the generalized kernel Fisher discriminant (GKFD) method is used to do pattern feature extraction for human face image. First, we extend the KFD originally used in pattern classification problems to the generalized KFD (GKFD), which will be used in feature extraction problems. Compared to several commonly used feature extraction methods, the GKFD can not only reduce the dimension of input pattern, but also provide the useful information for pattern classification. Further, this GKFD also performs well for linearly nonseparable pattern classification problems for it possesses a nonlinear transformation capability. To reduce the computation complexity, the original face images are pre-processed by wavelet transform. Finally, the experimental results on human face recognition problems demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.