Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of stretch on growth and collagen synthesis in cultured rat and lamb pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells

There are no studies of the effect of stretch in cultured pulmonary vascular smooth muscle, and some data suggest that a stretch‐mediated increase in connective tissue synthesis in pulmonary arteries is mediated by the endothelium. To investigate whether stretch can serve as a growth stimulus in this smooth muscle, we studied two types of cultured pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (a multiply passaged clonal line of rat cells [PAC1], and early passage lamb cells [EPTC]). Cells were grown on a collagen‐coated silicone surface and subjected to repetitive stretch (0.33–0.5 Hz; 10–20% strain). The relative rates of total RNA, DNA, protein, and soluble collagen synthesis were determined using 3H precursors, and c‐fos and collagen mRNAs by Northern blot analysis. Stretch caused no significant change in the rate of RNA synthesis in either PAC1 cells (+9%) or EPTC (—3%). The relative rate of total protein synthesis was decreased by stretch (6% in PAC1 cells and 36% in EPTC [both NS]) as was the rate of collagen synthesis (−24% in EPTC [NS]). In EPTC, the percentage of 3H‐thymidine labeled cells was modestly increased with 24 h stretch (17 ± 5.7%; P ≤.001), but trichloroacetic acid (TCA) precipitated 3H‐thymidine was unaltered by stretch, and the number of cells not significantly changed with stretch. c‐fos mRNA expression was only inconsistently induced by stretch x30 min in EPTC, and not at all in PAC1 cells. Expression of mRNA for α1 (I) and α1 (III) collagen was not changed significantly by 24 h or 48 h of stretch. We conclude that stretch does not serve as a significant growth stimulus in cultured pulmonary vascular smooth muscle cells in this system. These findings do not rule out the possibility that stretch is a growth stimulus for these cells under different conditions, but do suggest that other models will be needed to determine if and how mechanical stimuli affect growth of pulmonary vascular smooth muscle. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Yorkie Facilitates Organ Growth and Metamorphosis in Bombyx

The Hippo pathway, which was identified from genetic screens in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has a major size-control function in animals. All key components of the Hippo pathway, including the transcriptional coactivator Yorkie that is the most critical substrate and downstream effector of the Hippo kinase cassette, are found in the silkworm, Bombyx mori. As revealed by microarray and quantitative real-time PCR, expression of Hippo pathway genes is particularly enriched in several mitotic tissues, including the ovary, testis, and wing disc. Developmental profiles of Hippo pathway genes are generally similar (with the exception of Yorkie) within each organ, but vary greatly in different tissues showing nearly opposing expression patterns in the wing disc and the posterior silk gland (PSG) on day 2 of the prepupal stage. Importantly, the reduction of Yorkie expression by RNAi downregulated Yorkie target genes in the ovary, decreased egg number, and delayed larval-pupal-adult metamorphosis. In contrast, baculovirus-mediated YorkieCA overexpression upregulated Yorkie target genes in the PSG, increased PSG size, and accelerated larval-pupal metamorphosis. Together the results show that Yorkie potentially facilitates organ growth and metamorphosis, and suggest that the evolutionarily conserved Hippo pathway is critical for size control, particularly for PSG growth, in the silkworm.
Systemic pressures and domestic ideas: a neoclassical realist model of grand strategy formation

Abstract Scholars in international relations have long known that ideas matter in matters of international politics, yet theories of the discipline have failed to capture their impact either in the making of foreign policy or the nature of the international system. Recent reengagement with the insights of classical realists has pointed to the possibility of a neoclassical realist approach that can take into account the impact of ideas. This article will suggest that the study of grand strategy can enlighten the intervening ideational variables between the distribution of power in the international system and the foreign policy behaviour of states, and thus constitute the key element in a neoclassical realist research agenda.
The Functional Role of the ELR Motif in CXC Chemokine-mediated Angiogenesis (*)

In this study, we demonstrate that the CXC family of chemokines displays disparate angiogenic activity depending upon the presence or absence of the ELR motif. CXC chemokines containing the ELR motif (ELR-CXC chemokines) were found to be potent angiogenic factors, inducing both in vitro endothelial chemotaxis and in vivo corneal neovascularization. In contrast, the CXC chemokines lacking the ELR motif, platelet factor 4, interferon -inducible protein 10, and monokine induced by -interferon, not only failed to induce significant in vitro endothelial cell chemotaxis or in vivo corneal neovacularization but were found to be potent angiostatic factors in the presence of either ELR-CXC chemokines or the unrelated angiogenic factor, basic fibroblast growth factor. Additionally, mutant interleukin-8 proteins lacking the ELR motif demonstrated potent angiostatic effects in the presence of either ELR-CXC chemokines or basic fibroblast growth factor. In contrast, a mutant of monokine induced by -interferon containing the ELR motif was found to induce in vivo angiogenic activity. These findings suggest a functional role of the ELR motif in determining the angiogenic or angiostatic potential of CXC chemokines, supporting the hypothesis that the net biological balance between angiogenic and angiostatic CXC chemokines may play an important role in regulating overall angiogenesis.
Prevalence and incidence of hypertension in the global HIV-infected population: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Introduction Hypertension, representing one of the most frequent cardiovascular risk factors, is thought to increase in individuals living with HIV as well as in general population, but summarised global data on the topic are scarce. We conduct this systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the prevalence/incidence of hypertension in the global HIV-infected population. Methods and analysis This review will include observational studies conducted among HIV-infected people, which reported prevalence/incidence of hypertension or enough data for its appraisal. We will consider published and unpublished studies from 1 January 2007 to 31 May 2017. Relevant records will be searched using PubMed/Medline, Global Index Medicus, Web of Science and EMBASE. Reference lists of eligible papers and relevant review articles will be screened. Two investigators will independently screen, select studies and extract data, with discrepancies resolved by consensus or by arbitration of a third investigator. Methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed using the scale developed by Hoy and colleagues. Funnel plots and Egger’s test will be used to determine publication bias. The study-specific estimates will be pooled through a random-effects meta-analysis model to obtain an overall summary estimate. To keep the effect of studies with extremely small or extremely large estimates on the overall estimate to a minimum, the variance of the study-specific prevalence/incidence will be stabilised with the Freeman-Tukey single arcsine transformation. The heterogeneity will be evaluated by the χ² test on Cochrane’s Q statistic. Results will be presented by geographic region, income and antiretroviral therapy status. Ethics and dissemination This study is based on published data; therefore, ethical approval is not a requirement. The final report of this study in the form of a scientific paper will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number CRD42016051684.
A Novel Dehalobacter Species Is Involved in Extensive 4,5,6,7-Tetrachlorophthalide Dechlorination

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was the enrichment and phylogenetic identification of bacteria that dechlorinate 4,5,6,7-tetrachlorophthalide (commercially designated “fthalide”), an effective fungicide for rice blast disease. Sequential transfer culture of a paddy soil with lactate and fthalide produced a soil-free enrichment culture (designated the “KFL culture”) that dechlorinated fthalide by using hydrogen, which is produced from lactate. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA genes revealed the dominance of two novel phylotypes of the genus Dehalobacter (FTH1 and FTH2) in the KFL culture. FTH1 and FTH2 disappeared during culture transfer in medium without fthalide and increased in abundance with the dechlorination of fthalide, indicating their growth dependence on the dechlorination of fthalide. Dehalobacter restrictus TEA is their closest relative, with 97.5% and 97.3% 16S rRNA gene similarities to FTH1 and FTH2, respectively.
Bifurcation structure of a chemostat model for an age-structured predator and its prey

We model a chemostat containing an age-structured predator and its prey using a linear function for the uptake of substrate by the prey and two different functional responses (linear and Monod) for the consumption of prey by the predator. Limit cycles (LCs) caused by the predator's age structure arise at Hopf bifurcations at low values of the chemostat dilution rate for both model cases. In addition, LCs caused by the predator–prey interaction arise for the case with the Monod functional response. At low dilution rates in the Monod case, the age structure causes cycling at lower values of the inflowing resource concentration and conversely prevents cycling at higher values of the inflowing resource concentration. The results shed light on a similar model by Fussmann et al. [G. Fussmann, S. Ellner, K. Shertzer, and N. Hairston, Crossing the Hopf bifurcation in a live predator–prey system, Science 290 (2000), pp. 1358–1360. ], which correctly predicted conditions for the onset of cycling in a chemostat containing an age-structured rotifer population feeding on algal prey.
Sparse models and sparse recovery for ultra-wideband SAR applications

This paper presents a simple yet very effective time-domain sparse representation and associated sparse recovery techniques that can robustly process raw data-intensive ultra-wideband (UWB) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) records in challenging noisy and bandwidth management environments. Unlike most previous approaches in compressed sensing for radar in general and SAR in particular, we take advantage of the sparsity of the scene and the correlation between the transmitted and received signal directly in the raw time domain even before attempting image formation. Our framework can be viewed as a collection of practical sparsity-driven preprocessing algorithms for radar applications that restores and denoises raw radar signals at each aperture position independently, leading to a significant reduction in the memory requirement as well as the computational complexity of the sparse recovery process. Recovery results from real-world data collected by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) UWB SAR systems illustrate the robustness and effectiveness of our proposed framework on two critical applications: 1) recovery of missing spectral information in multiple frequency bands and 2) adaptive extraction and/or suppression of radio frequency interference (RFI) signals from SAR data records.
Leading innovation: A matter of style

A recent Malaysian Innovation Climate Survey (MICS) suggests that whereas organizational leaders play a crucial role in inculcating innovation, they are seen as inhibitors to innovation due to their unwillingness to take risk, risk adversity and lack of clear direction. To lead innovation in their organizations, Malaysian SMEs leaders and entrepreneurs need to understand that their leadership style may influence innovation by creating an organizational environment where innovation thrives. This paper proposes a framework for managers and leaders to identify the appropriate leadership style(s) for championing and influencing innovation in their organizations. (92 words).
Clear Channel Assessment in Ultra-Wideband Sensor Networks

Impulse ultra-wideband (UWB) is an attractive technology for large ad hoc sensor networks due to its precise ranging capacity, multi-path fading robustness and low radiation power. The transient and carrier-less nature of low radiation pulse and harsh multipath channel condition makes it cumbersome to implement carrier sensing. We proposed clear channel assessment (CCA) based on preamble-assisted modulation (PAM) for UWB sensor networks. Preamble symbols are periodically inserted into the frame payload in the time domain to serve as regular feature for reliable CCA. We simulated the CCA performance in the multipath UWB channel model developed by IEEE 802.15. 4a. PAM and CCA configurations were optimized for the distributed carrier sense multiple access protocol. PAM was accepted by 802.15. 4a group as an optional feature. Furthermore, the multiplexed preamble symbols can be exploited for channel estimation to improve communication and ranging.
Production of Recombinant Adeno‐Associated Viral Vectors for In Vitro and In Vivo Use

Adeno‐associated virus is a nonpathogenic human virus that has been developed into a gene‐delivery vector due to its high efficiency of infection in many different cell types and its ability to persist and lead to long‐term gene expression. The vector is also a valuable tool in molecular biology experiments. This unit describes efficient methods to generate high‐titer, research‐grade, adenovirus‐free, recombinant single‐stranded and self‐complementary adeno‐associated virus in various serotypes, along with methods to quantify the viral vectors.
Overview: Engineering Transgenic Constructs and Mice

Cell biology research encompasses everything from single cells to whole animals. Recent discoveries concerning particular gene functions can be applied to the whole animal for understanding genotype‐phenotype relationships underlying disease mechanisms. For this reason, genetically manipulated mouse models are now considered essential to correctly understand disease processes in whole animals. This unit reviews the basic mouse technologies used to generate conventional transgenic mice, which represent a gain‐of‐function approach. First, an overview of transgenic construct design is presented. This unit then explains basic strategies for the identification and establishment of independent transgenic mouse lines, followed by comments on historical and emerging techniques. It then describes typical problems that are encountered when researchers start to generate transgenic mice. Curr. Protoc. Cell Biol. 42:19.10. 1‐19.10. 9. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Synergetic Classification of Long-Wave Infrared Hyperspectral and Visible Images

A decision-level-based synergetic classification method has been proposed to conduct land-cover classification for long-wave infrared (LWIR) and high-resolution visible (VIS) images in this paper. The problem of synergic classification is challenging, since we aim for classification map at the spatial resolution of the VIS image under different imaging modes. The proposed method consists of two stages, i.e., stage of classifications for LWIR hyperspectral (HS) and VIS images separately, and stage of decision-level fusion for both classification results. For LWIR HS image, we have proposed a new semisupervised feature extraction method named as semisupervised local discriminant analysis (SLDA) for SVM classification. In parallel, spatial features which have been extracted from the high-resolution VIS image are used to combine with the spectral features for classification. In the second stage, several common decision-level fusion rules have been employed to integrate both classification results. We also present a context-based opinion pools (CBP) strategy to enhance the classification accuracy. Experiments conducted on the dataset of 2014 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest show the advantage of our proposed SLDA method for HS image, and the effect of spatial-spectral features for high-resolution VIS image. Especially, the presented synergic classification strategy for HS and VIS images has higher overall accuracy and better visual effect than those only using single source image and those compared fusion methods in the experiments.
Episodic temporal generalization: A developmental study

Groups of 5-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults completed either an episodic temporal generalization task, in which no stimuli were repeated, or a repeated standard temporal generalization task, in which there was a fixed standard that was repeated on every trial. Significant developmental improvements were found on both tasks. In both tasks, gradients of performance over two different stimulus ranges superimposed well when plotted on the same relative scale. Performance was similar for the adults and 10-year-olds across tasks, but the 5-year-olds performed better on the repeated standard task. These findings suggest that perceptual processes are a source of scalar variability in timing, and that there are developmental changes in levels of such variability.
Opportunistic Energy Efficient Cooperative Communication

Inspired by the green communication trend of next-generation wireless networks, we present an opportunistic energy-efficient cooperative communication method. Different from classical relaying selection schemes, which adopt either end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio or capacity as selection metrics, our opportunistic relaying scheme uses an energy efficiency metric for selecting the best relay or resorting to direct transmission. Simulation results demonstrate the significant energy savings achieved by our scheme when compared with opportunistic decode-and-forward based on capacity. In addition to that, dynamic time allocation and increasing the number of participating relays are shown to have a notable effect on energy efficiency.
Cosegregation of the G7444A mutation in the mitochondrial COI/tRNASer(UCN) genes with the 12S rRNA A1555G mutation in a Chinese family with aminoglycoside‐induced and nonsyndromic hearing loss

We report here on the characterization of a three‐generation Chinese family with aminoglycoside‐induced and nonsyndromic hearing impairment. Ten of 17 matrilineal relatives exhibited bilateral and sensorineural hearing impairment. Of these, nine matrilineal relatives, who had a history of exposure to aminoglycosides, exhibited variable severity and audiometric configuration of hearing loss. The dose and age at the time of drug administration seemed to be correlated with the severity of the hearing loss experienced by affected individuals. Sequence analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome in the pedigree showed the presence of homoplasmic A1555G mutation and 37 variants belonging to haplogroup D4a. Of those variants, the G7444A mutation is of special interest as the mutation at this position results in a read‐through of the stop condon AGA of the COI message, thereby adding three amino acids (Lys–Gln–Lys) to the C‐terminal of the polypeptide. Alternatively, the G7444A mutation is adjacent to the site of 3′ end endonucleolytic processing of L‐strand RNA precursor, spanning tRNASer(UCN) and ND6 mRNA. Thus, the G7444A mutation, similar to the deafness‐associated A7445G mutation, may lead to a defect in the processing of the L‐strand RNA precursor, thus influencing the phenotypic expression of the A1555G mutation. These data also imply that nuclear background plays a role in the aminoglycoside ototoxicity associated with the A1555G mutation in this Chinese pedigree. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Development of M2BPGi: a novel fibrosis serum glyco-biomarker for chronic hepatitis/cirrhosis diagnostics

Many proteins in the living body are glycoproteins, which present glycans linked on their surface. Glycan structures reflect the degree of cell differentiation or canceration and are cell specific. These characteristics are advantageous in the development of various disease biomarkers. Glycoprotein-based biomarkers (glyco-biomarkers) are developed by utilizing the specific changes in the glycan structure on a glycoprotein secreted from the diseased cells of interest. Therefore, quantification of the altered glycan structures is the key to developing a new glyco-biomarker. Glycoscience is a relatively new area of molecular science, and recent advancement of glycotechnologies is remarkable. In the author’s institute, new glycoscience technologies have been designed to be efficiently utilized for the development of new diagnostic agents. This paper introduces a strategy for glyco-biomarker development, which was successfully applied in the development of Wisteria floribunda agglutinin-positive Mac-2 binding protein M2BPGi, a liver fibrosis marker now commercially available for clinical use.
Baseline levels, and changes over time in body mass index and fasting insulin, and their relationship to change in metabolic trait clustering.

BACKGROUND Multiple abnormal metabolic traits are found together or "cluster" within individuals more often than is predicted by chance. The individual and combined role of adiposity and insulin resistance (IR) on metabolic trait clustering is uncertain. We tested the hypothesis that change in trait clustering is a function of both baseline level and change in these measures. METHODS In 2616 nondiabetic Framingham Offspring Study participants, body mass index (BMI) and fasting insulin were related to a within-person 7-year change in a trait score of 0-4 Adult Treatment Panel III metabolic syndrome traits (hypertension, high triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, hyperglycemia). RESULTS At baseline assessment, mean trait score was 1.4 traits, and 7-year mean (SEM) change in trait score was +0.25 (0.02) traits, P<0.0001. In models with BMI predictors only, for every quintile difference in baseline BMI, the 7-year trait score increase was 0.14 traits, and for every quintile increase in BMI during 7-year follow-up, the trait score increased by 0.3 traits. Baseline level and change in fasting insulin were similarly related to trait score change. In models adjusted for age-sex-baseline cluster score, 7-year change in trait score was significantly related to both a 1-quintile difference in baseline BMI (0.07 traits) and fasting insulin (0.18 traits), and to both a 1-quintile 7-year increase in BMI (0.21 traits) and fasting insulin (0.18 traits). CONCLUSIONS Change in metabolic trait clustering was significantly associated with baseline levels and changes in both BMI and fasting insulin, highlighting the importance of both obesity and IR in the clustering of metabolic traits.