Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of telomerase subunits in normal and neoplastic prostate epithelial cells isolated by laser capture microdissection

Vertebrates have special structures at the ends of their chromosomes, known as telomeres, which may provide the chromosomes with stability and protect them from exonucleolytic degradation. The shortening of telomeric DNA with each cell division may lead to cell cycle arrest and/or apoptosis of a normal human somatic cell. Telomerase, an RNA‐dependent DNA polymerase, elongates the 3'‐ends of telomeric DNA. Thus, the presence of telomerase activity may reflect a cell's potential immortal state. The telomerase complex is comprised of several subunits. In the current study, the authors describe the use of laser capture microdissection (LCM) to procure pure matched tumor and normal cell populations from histologic sections and to determine the expression of telomerase subunits in these purified samples.
Development of a short form of the Quality from the Patient's Perspective (QPP) questionnaire.

Patients' views on the quality of care are important and it is desirable that these can be assessed using short, yet valid and reliable instruments. The aim of the work reported here was to develop and test a short version of an established questionnaire: Quality from the Patient's Perspective (QPP). Patients (n=162, 79% response rate) receiving care at medical and surgical departments in two Swedish hospitals responded to the original QPP as well as to a newly developed short version. An ethical research committee approved the study. Pearson correlations were computed between the long and short forms and differences between means were analysed with t-tests. Reliability was estimated by computing Cronbach alpha coefficients. Correlations of acceptable size were found between the short form and the original QPP. The short form also had acceptable reliability coefficients. The strengths of the work are that the items in the short version are derived from a patient perspective and are formulated in words used by patients; the items still have a theoretical foundation, which makes the interpretation of results more meaningful; global formulations such as "What do you think about your care? " have been avoided; the short format should make the questionnaire more attractive for many patients to respond to. Limitations are that results indicate that the short form does not fully measure what the long form does. Therefore, when the short form is used in practice, a two-step procedure is suggested, where a follow-up is done with a selection of items from the original long form. This selection could be restricted to areas where problems may be suspected, based on the results from the short form.
Análisis psicométrico de la PANAS en Brasil

La Escala de Afectos Positivos y Afectos Negativos (PANAS) es hoy uno de los instrumentos más utilizados en la investigación de estados afectivos, tanto en adultos como en niños. El presente estudio fue realizado con el objetivo de evaluar, desde el punto de vista psicométrico, una versión brasileña de esa escala en una muestra nacional. Además de las propiedades psicométricas, se evaluó la validez convergente del instrumento. En total, participaron de esta investigación 2648 estudiantes universitarios, matriculados en los cursos de Psicología e Ingeniería de una universidad privada, en 15 ciudades brasileñas respondiendo al cuestionario electrónico disponible en Internet. Los participantes respondieron a la Escala Analógica Visual de Bienestar Psicológico (FACES), la Escala de Felicidad Subjetiva (SHS) y la Escala Índice de Salud Mental (MHI-5). Los resultados de los análisis indican que el PANAS presenta propiedades psicométricas satisfactorias que autorizan su utilización en Brasil.
Changes in Diet and Physical Activity Following BRCA1/2 Testing

ABSTRACT The present study prospectively examined change in diet and physical activity behaviors in 115 women undergoing BRCA1/2 gene testing (46 mutation positive, 46 uninformative and 23 definitive negative). Participants completed measures of diet and physical activity at three time points: prior to genetic testing and 1-and 6-months after receipt of genetic test results. Repeated measures analyses examined between-and within-group differences among participants who received BRCA1/2 positive, uninformative, or definitive negative results. There were no within-group differences across time points or between-group differences at any time point for diet or physical activity. Most participants, overall and within each group, did not meet recommended guidelines for fruit and vegetable and dietary fat consumption. These findings suggest that women do not make spontaneous changes in diet and physical activity following the genetic testing and counseling process. A brief intervention may be necessary for patients who are interested in making changes in modifiable risk factors to complement more definitive risk-reduction strategies.
Population Pressure and the Food Supply System in the Developing World

WHETHER FOOD PRODUCnON can keep pace with the demand for improved diets for a rapidly growing world population is a question that has been debated vigorously since it was raised by Malthus two centuries ago (Malthus 1959 [1798]). Although much of mankind has experienced improvements in diets over the past century, expert views about prospects for the coming decades differ as sharply as ever. ' Pessimists point to the many signs of environmental stress and the increasing difficulties encountered in expanding agricultural land, water supply, and crop yields, and in controlling pests (Brown and Kane 1994; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990; Ehrlich, Ehrlich, and Daily 1993). In their view a large expansion of agricultural output is not feasible, and they even doubt whether current levels of crop production can be sustained in a number of countries. In contrast, optimists note the relatively low crop yields, inefficiencies throughout the food production and consumption chain, and the ample reserves of potential arable land in many developing countries (Heilig 1994; Johnson 1984; Simon 1981; Smil 1987, 1994). Sounder government policies, wider application of green revolution technology, reduced inefficiencies, upgraded rural infrastructure, and greater investments in human resources and research will make much larger harvests possible, they claim, and no insurmountable environmental constraints are foreseen. Despite this disagreement about the difficulties ahead, there is little dispute about trends in the demand for food over the coming decades. The United Nations (1995) projects a world population of 9.8 billion in 2050, up from 5.8 billion today. For improvements in diets in much of the developing world also to occur, as is expected, an enormous expansion of agricultural output will be needed in the next few decades. Meeting this de-
Self-Nanoemulsifying Drug Delivery System of Glimepiride: Design, Development, and Optimization

The objective of the present investigation was to develop and characterize the self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery system (SNEDDS) of glimepiride, a poorly soluble drug. Solubility of glimepiride in various vehicles was determined, and ternary phase diagrams were constructed using a suitable oil, surfactant, and cosurfactant system to find out the efficient self-emulsification system. A three factor, three level Box-Behnken statistical design was employed to explore the main and interaction effect of independent variables, namely X1 (amount of Capmul MCM), X2 (amount of Acrysol K 140), and X3 (amount of Transcutol P). Percent transmittance value (Y1), droplet diameter (Y2), and percent drug released at 5 min (Y3) were the dependent variables. Formulation optimization was carried out to optimize the droplet diameter and percent drug dissolved at 5 min. The batch prepared according to the optimized formulation showed a close agreement between observed and predicted values. Box-Behnken statistical design allowed us to understand the effect of formulation variables on the rapid dissolution of drug from SNEDDS and to optimize the formulation to obtain a rapid drug dissolution at 5 min. LAY ABSTRACT: A self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery system of glimepiride has been design, developed, and optimized. A three factor, three level Box-Behnken statistical design was employed to explore the main and interaction effect of independent variables, namely X1 (amount of Capmul MCM), X2 (amount of Acrysol K 140), and X3 (amount of Transcutol P). Percent transmittance value (Y1), droplet diameter (Y2), and percent drug released at 5 min (Y3) were the dependent variables. The Capmul MCM–Akcrysol K 140–Transcutol system was found to be the suitable ternary system that was able to release almost 80% of drug within the first 5 min. The improved dissolution of glimepiride might improve patient compliance.
Dynamic tracking control of heavy oil supply temperature for sufficient combustion

The accurate control of heavy oil supply temperature is a nonlinear dynamic tracking control problem. In practice, the heavy oil supply temperature accurate dynamic tracking control is very difficult by traditional PID controller. It induced that it is very difficult to ejected atomization and combine with air for heavy oil. So part of heavy oil had not get sufficient combustion. It always leads to waste of heavy oil and environmental pollution. These problems are solved by Fuzzy predictive functional control (F-PFC) for particle swarm optimization algorithm. These results of simulation and experiment show that the F-PFC has higher precision than the method of PID. It is proved that this method is effective in the oil supply temperature accurate dynamic tracking control for anode baking.
Integrin Activation in the Heart: A Link Between Electrical and Contractile Dysfunction?

Integrins mechanically link the cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix in cardiac myocytes and are thereby involved in mechanotransduction. Integrins appear to be necessary for cardiac myocyte hypertrophy. To determine the effect of increased integrin ligation and signaling on adult cardiac function, a heart-specific truncated α5 integrin (gain of function) was conditionally expressed in mice. Four days later, we observed an 80% reduction in amplitude of the QRS complex, profound systolic dysfunction, decreased connexin43, loss of gap junctions, and abnormal intercalated discs. Surprisingly, isolated left ventricular myocytes contracted normally and exhibited normal Ca2+ transients. This suggested that cell/cell electrical and/or mechanical coupling was disrupted. To distinguish electrical from mechanical coupling deficits, we compared the papillary muscle force generated by electrically stimulated versus rapid cooling contractions in which intracellular Ca2+ is released without electrical depolarization. Both were decreased in the transgenic muscle. However, electrically stimulated contractions were more significantly reduced than rapid cooling contractures. This suggests a component of cell/cell electrical uncoupling. Optical mapping revealed a loss of the normal elliptical isochronal activation pattern implying a loss of preferential conduction through gap junctions. For the first time, we have shown that integrins can regulate both mechanical and electrical coupling in the adult heart, even in the absence of primary hemodynamic alterations. Furthermore, we demonstrated that unregulated integrin activation leads to both contractile dysfunction and arrhythmias.
Task Usefulness Affects Perception of Rivalrous Images

In bistable perception, several interpretations of the same physical stimulus are perceived in alternation. If one interpretation appears to help the observer to be successful in an auxiliary task, will that interpretation be seen more often than the other? We addressed this question using rivalrous stimuli. One of the elicited percepts presented an advantage for a separate visual search task that was run in close temporal proximity to the rivalry task. We found that the percept that was useful for the search task became dominant over the alternate percept. Observers were not aware of the manipulation that made one percept more useful, which suggests that usefulness was learned implicitly. The learning influenced only the first percept of each rivalrous presentation, but the bias persisted even when the useful percept was no longer useful. The long-lasting aspect of the effect distinguishes it from other documented attentional effects on bistable perception. Therefore, using implicit learning, we demonstrated that task usefulness can durably change the appearance of a stimulus.
An Enhanced Control Algorithm for Improving the Light-Load Efficiency of Noninverting Synchronous Buck–Boost Converters

A loss reduction algorithm at light loads is needed to increase the overall efficiency of noninverting synchronous buck-boost dc-dc converters. Inductor current ripple generates most of the total loss at light loads. Thus, a ripple current reduction algorithm is an effective method of increasing light-load efficiency. This letter proposes a control algorithm for increasing the light-load efficiency by controlling the inductor current ripple. To achieve the optimal control of the inductor current, a maximum efficiency tracking scheme is implemented. Experimental results verify that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the light-load efficiency; at a 10% load condition, the efficiency is approximately 3.19% higher than that of the conventional algorithm.
Inferring Implicit Event Locations from Context with Distributional Similarities

Automatic event location extraction from text plays a crucial role in many applications such as infectious disease surveillance and natural disaster monitoring. The fundamental limitation of previous work such as SpaceEval is the limited scope of extraction, targeting only at locations that are explicitly stated in a syntactic structure. This leads to missing a lot of implicit information inferable from context in a document, which amounts to nearly 40% of the entire location information. To overcome this limitation for the first time, we present a system that infers the implicit event locations from a given document. Our system exploits distributional semantics, based on the hypothesis that if two events are described by similar expressions, it is likely that they occur in the same location. For example, if “A bomb exploded causing 30 victims” and “many people died from terrorist attack in Boston” are reported in the same document, it is highly likely that the bomb exploded in Boston. Our system shows good performance of a 0.58 F1-score, where state-of-the-art classifiers for intra-sentential spatiotemporal relations achieve around 0.60 F1-scores.
Rate Adaptive Reliable Multicast MAC Protocol for WLANs

IEEE 802.11b standard provides 1, 2, 5.5, 11 Mbps data rates. These data rates can be made possible by using different modulation techniques: DBPSK, DQPSK, CCK5.5 and CCK11 respectively. Rate adaptation is the process of dynamically selecting a proper modulation scheme depending on channel conditions in order to improve total throughput. Current rate adaptation protocols deal with unicast links rather than multicast. Channel conditions can be estimated by measuring the received signal strength (RSS) of a feedback message (CTS, ACK). However, IEEE 802.11 standard does not provide feedback messages for MAC layer recovery on multicast frames. This is due to collisions which may occur to simultaneous feedback messages from multicast group members. Therefore, in order to rate adapt multicast, a reliable multicast MAC protocol has to be introduced. In this paper, we propose a protocol which provides multicast reliability to WLANs and enhances its throughput by using rate adaptation. Further, we evaluate our protocol by throughput analysis and computer simulation. Simulation results suggest that our protocol performs better than a related/existing protocol in both throughput as well as reliability performances
Evaluation of porcine mesenchymal stem cells for therapeutic use in human liver cancer.

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplantation is suggested for therapy of end-stage liver disease, due to e.g. liver cancer and metastasis. Liver transplantation is the only therapeutic option so far but donor organs are short. Also, the availability of allogeneic human MSCs for liver regeneration is limited. Therefore, we evaluated the suitability of porcine bone marrow MSCs from semi-adult pigs and found that morphology, surface expression pattern and multilineage differentiation are similar to those of human MSCs. Porcine MSCs differentiated to a hepatocyte-like phenotype and expressed porcine mRNA of typical liver proteins. However, hepatocyte-like MSCs failed to express the corresponding proteins and did not produce glycogen and urea as primary porcine hepatocytes do. Porcine MSCs were immunotolerated, since they did not activate resting human PBMCs, and were not attacked by human activated PBMCs. However, porcine MSCs led to enhanced proliferation of human pre-activated PBMCs suggesting that immunotoleration of porcine MSCs in the human system has limitations. Together, the potential of porcine MSCs for xenogenous use in human liver therapy is promising but needs further evaluation prior to clinical use.
Chapter 1 Market Access and Intermediate Goods Trade

This paper examines a distinctive feature of intermediate goods trade which the traditional gravity equation fails to capture, i.e., intermediate goods trade is positively related not only to the importing country‟s demand for finished goods but also to its neighbors‟ demand for finished goods. We regress a gravity equation for finished goods trade in the first step. Then, introducing the importing country‟s access to the total demand for finished goods which is calculated by using the estimates in the first step, we regress our gravity equation for trade in intermediate goods. Our regression results confirm such a feature of intermediate goods trade. Using the results of the regression, we simulate how the rise of US consumers‟ demand for finished goods affects the total imports and exports of intermediate goods in each country.
Production and characterization of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies that recognize an epitope in domain 2 of Bacillus anthracis protective antigen

Abstract Antibodies against the protective antigen (PA) of Bacillus anthracis play a key role in response to infection by this important pathogen. The aim of this study was to produce and characterize monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) specific for PA and to identify novel neutralizing epitopes. Three murine mAbs with high specificity and nanomolar affinity for B. anthracis recombinant protective antigen (rPA) were produced and characterized. Western immunoblot analysis, coupled with epitope mapping using overlapping synthetic peptides, revealed that these mAbs recognize a linear epitope within domain 2 of rPA. Neutralization assays demonstrate that these mAbs effectively neutralize lethal toxin in vitro.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in the context of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic.

BACKGROUND Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) incorporates surgical techniques as adjuncts in the management of refractory respiratory dysfunction. For many years, its primary application was for support of neonatal infants in cardiorespiratory failure. As the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic developed, more reports came in of severe respiratory dysfunction and even death that seemed to be occurring preferentially in younger adults. Centers with the capability began to use ECMO to salvage these patients. RESULTS The H1N1 virus is a subtype of influenza A. The hemagglutinin receptor binding is similar to that of the seasonal influenza virus, but 2009 H1N1 also binds to α2,3-linked receptors, which are found in the conjunctivae, distal airways, and alveolar pneumocytes. Influenza viruses elude host immune responses through drift and shift in the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) proteins. The incubation period ranges from 1-7 days. The majority of patients present with fever and cough, but a broad spectrum of clinical syndromes has been reported, and laboratory testing remains the mainstay of diagnosis. Most patients recover within a week without treatment. The H1N1 virus remains largely sensitive to the NA inhibitors but is resistant to the matrix protein-2 inhibitors. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation provides continuous pulmonary (and sometimes cardiac) support and minimizes ventilator-induced lung injury. The potential for life-threatening complications is high. In 2009, in the Conventional Ventilation or ECMO for Severe Adult Respiratory Failure (CESAR) randomized trial of ECMO, the overall survival rate was 63% in the ECMO group compared with 47% in the control group (p = 0.03). Similar studies have been reported from Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and France. CONCLUSIONS Supportive management is continued along with ECMO. Antiviral drugs and antimicrobial agents should be given as appropriate, as should nutritional support. Volume management should be used. Ventilator settings should be reduced as ECMO support allows, with a goal of reducing airway pressures, ventilator rate, and FiO(2). Complications of ECMO are common. Bleeding, the most common, can result in death, especially if it occurs intracranially.
Proteoglycan degradation after injurious compression of bovine and human articular cartilage in vitro: interaction with exogenous cytokines.

OBJECTIVE Traumatic joint injury leads to an increased risk of osteoarthritis (OA), but the progression to OA is not well understood. We undertook this study to measure aspects of proteoglycan (PG) degradation after in vitro injurious mechanical compression, including up-regulation of enzymatic degradative expression and cytokine-stimulated degradation. METHODS Articular cartilage tissue explants were obtained from newborn bovine femoropatellar groove and from adult normal human donor knee and ankle tissue. Following injurious compression of the cartilage, matrix metalloproteinase 3 (MMP-3) and MMP-13 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels were measured by Northern analysis, and PG loss to the medium after cartilage injury was measured in the presence and absence of added exogenous cytokine (interleukin-1alpha [IL-1alpha] or tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNFalpha]). RESULTS During the first 24 hours after injury in bovine cartilage, MMP-3 mRNA levels increased 10-fold over the levels in control cartilage (n = 3 experiments), whereas MMP-13 mRNA levels were unchanged. PG loss was significantly increased after injury, but only by 2% of the total PG content and only for the first 3 days following injury. However, compared with injury alone or cytokine treatment alone, treatment of injured tissue with either 1 ng/ml IL-1alpha or 100 ng/ml TNFalpha caused marked increases in PG loss (35% and 54%, respectively, of the total cartilage PG content). These interactions between cytokine treatment and injury were statistically significant. In human knee cartilage, the interaction was also significant for both IL-1alpha and TNFalpha, although the magnitude of increase in PG loss was lower than that in bovine cartilage. In contrast, in human ankle cartilage, there was no significant interaction between injury and IL-1alpha. CONCLUSION The cytokines IL-1alpha and TNFalpha can cause a synergistic loss of PG from mechanically injured bovine and human cartilage. By attempting to incorporate interactions with other joint tissues that may be sources of cytokines, in vitro models of mechanical cartilage injury may explain aspects of the interactions between mechanical forces and degradative pathways which lead to OA progression.