Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vivo Bioluminescence Visualization of Antitumor Effects by Human MUC1 Vaccination

Recently, the use of a cancer deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vaccine encoding tumor-associated antigens has emerged as an immunotherapeutic strategy. In this study, we monitored tumor growth inhibition by pcDNA3-hMUC1 immunization in mice using optical imaging. To determine the anti-hMUC1-associated immune response generated by pcDNA3.1 or pcDNA3-hMUC1, we determined the concentration of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) protein and CD8+IFN-γ cell numbers among lymphocytes from the draining lymph nodes of mice immunized with pcDNA3.1 or pcDNA3-hMUC1. After subcutaneously injecting CT26/hMUC1-Fluc into mice immunized with pcDNA3-hMUC1, we monitored in vivo tumor growth inhibition using an optical imaging method. The concentration of IFN-γ protein in pcDNA3-hMUC1 was higher than that of the pcDNA3.1 group (2.7 ⩽ 0.08 ng/mL and 1.6 ± 0.07 ng/mL, respectively, p < .001. The number of hMUC1-associated CD8+IFN-γ cells in pcDNA3-hMUC1-immunized animals was 30-fold higher than in the pcDNA3.1 group. Bioluminescent images showed tumor growth inhibition in pcDNA3-hMUC1 immunized animals up to 25 days after immunization. A good correlation (r2 = .9076: pcDNA3/hMUC1 group; r2 = .7428: pcDNA3.1 group) was observed between bioluminescence signals and tumor weights in two mice in each group. We conclude that optical bioluminescent imaging offers a useful means of monitoring the antitumor effects of cancer DNA immunization in living animals.
Measuring global water security towards sustainable development goals

Water plays an important role in underpinning equitable, stable and productive societies and ecosystems. Hence, United Nations recognized ensuring water security as one (Goal 6) of the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs). Many international river basins are likely to experience ‘low water security’ over the coming decades. Water security is rooted not only in the physical availability of freshwater resources relative to water demand, but also on social and economic factors (e.g. sound water planning and management approaches, institutional capacity to provide water services, sustainable economic policies). Until recently, advanced tools and methods are available for the assessment of water scarcity. However, quantitative and integrated—physical and socio-economic—approaches for spatial analysis of water security at global level are not available yet. In this study, we present a spatial multi-criteria analysis framework to provide a global assessment of water security. The selected indicators are based on Goal 6 of SDGs. The term ‘security’ is conceptualized as a function of ‘availability’, ‘accessibility to services’, ‘safety and quality’, and ‘management’. The proposed global water security index (GWSI) is calculated by aggregating indicator values on a pixel-by-pixel basis, using the ordered weighted average method, which allows for the exploration of the sensitivity of final maps to different attitudes of hypothetical policy makers. Our assessment suggests that countries of Africa, South Asia and Middle East experience very low water security. Other areas of high water scarcity, such as some parts of United States, Australia and Southern Europe, show better GWSI values, due to good performance of management, safety and quality, and accessibility. The GWSI maps show the areas of the world in which integrated strategies are needed to achieve water related targets of the SDGs particularly in the African and Asian continents.
Age and Gender Group Differences in Employment Responses to Monetary Policy Shock in a Small Open Economy: The Case of Korea

A Factor Augmented Vector Autoregressive model is constructed in a way that it resolves the price puzzle problem and separately identifies domestic and foreign monetary policy shocks by imposing a small-open economy structure. An analysis on the employment data grouped by age and gender reveals that only the young male worker group exhibits an inverse relationship between employment and domestic policy rates. In the case of the foreign (the United States) policy rate rise, however, the negative response of employment could be observed for all of the worker groups.
Corruption in Committees: An Experimental Study of Information Aggregation through Voting: Corruption in Committees

We also have benefitted from the comments of Antonio Nicolo and other participants at the Workshop on Governance and Political Economy hosted at the Myra School of Business in December, 2012. We thank the Austrian Science Foundation for financial support under project number FWF S10307-G16. Abstract We investigate experimentally the effects of corrupt experts on information aggregation in committees. We find that nonexperts are significantly less likely to delegate through abstention when there is a probability that experts are corrupt. Such decreased abstention, when the probability of corrupt experts is low, actually increases information efficiency in committee decision-making. However, if the probability of corrupt experts is large, the effect is not sufficient to offset the mechanical effect of decreased information efficiency due to corrupt experts. Our results demonstrate that the norm of " letting the expert decide " in committee voting is influenced by the probability of corrupt experts, and that influence can have, to a limited extent, a positive effect on information efficiency.
Nutritional Assessment for Primary School Children in Tehran: An Evaluation of Dietary Pattern with Emphasis on Snacks and Meals Consumption

Background: In order to provide better advice for prevention of obesity and eating disorders among children, there is a need to have more knowledge of their dietary patterns. This study examined meal and snacking patterns of primary school children in Tehran. Methods: A total of 761 male and female primary school children from all educational areas in Tehran were recruited in a cross-sectional survey. The data was collected by interviewing the students and their mothers or caregivers. Information on food consumption patterns was collected by one 24-h-recall and one snack-oriented food frequency questionnaire which covered a period of 1 month. Means, standard deviations, frequencies, percentages, energy and nutrient analyzes and nutrient densities were reported. Results: All of the students snacked at least once on the day of the survey. Snacks provided 38% of total energy intake by the students. Fruits and sweet snacks were consumed by almost all of the students during a week. Energy and most nutrient intakes from meals were greater than those consumed from snacks. Snacks had a higher density of fiber, carbohydrate, calcium, iron, vitamin C, riboflavin and thiamin and had a lower density of protein, fat and niacin, compared with main meals. Salty snacks such as extruded cheese curls (Cheetos) and chips were not consumed so often. Conclusions: Results provide detailed information about dietary patterns, which in turn enable development of targeted messages and/or interventions to improve nutritional status of school children.
germ cell-less is required only during the establishment of the germ cell lineage of Drosophila and has activities which are dependent and independent of its localization to the nuclear envelope.

The germ cell precursors of Drosophila (pole cells) are specified by maternally supplied germ plasm localized to the posterior pole of the egg. One component of the germ plasm, germ cell-less (gcl) mRNA, encodes a novel protein which specifically localizes to the nuclear envelope of the pole cell nuclei. In addition to its maternal expression, gcl is zygotically expressed through embryonic development. In this report, we have characterized a null allele of germ cell-less to determine its absolute requirement during development. We have found that gcl activity is required only for the establishment of the germ cell lineage. Most embryos lacking maternal gcl activity fail to establish a germline. No other developmental defects were detected. Examination of germline development in these mutant embryos revealed that gcl activity is required for proper pole bud formation, pole cell formation, and pole cell survival. Using this null mutant we have also assayed the activity of forms of Gcl protein with altered subcellular distribution and found that localization to the nuclear envelope is crucial for promoting pole cell formation, but not necessary to initiate and form proper pole buds. These results indicate that gcl acts in at least two different ways during the establishment of the germ cell lineage.
Photochemical reflectance index (PRI) and remote sensing of plant CO₂ uptake.

2011. Where is the unseen fungal diversity hidden? A study of Mortierella reveals a large contribution of reference collections to the identification of fungal environmental sequences. New Phytologist 191: 789–794. O’Brien HE, Parrent JL, Jackson JA, Moncalvo JM, Vilgalys R. 2005. Fungal community analysis by large-scale sequencing of environmental samples. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 71: 5544–5550. Porter T, Schadt C, Rizvi L, Martin A, Schmidt S, Scottdenton L, Vilgalys R, Moncalvo J. 2008. Widespread occurrence and phylogenetic placement of a soil clone group adds a prominent new branch to the fungal tree of life. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46: 635–644. Schmit JP, Mueller GM. 2007. An estimate of the lower limit of global fungal diversity. Biodiversity and Conservation 16: 99–111.
Roles of Fission Yeast Grc3 Protein in Ribosomal RNA Processing and Heterochromatic Gene Silencing*

Grc3 is an evolutionarily conserved protein. Genome-wide budding yeast studies suggest that Grc3 is involved in rRNA processing. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Grc3 was identified as a factor exhibiting distinct nuclear dot localization, yet its exact physiological function remains unknown. Here, we show that S. pombe Grc3 is required for both rRNA processing and heterochromatic gene silencing. Cytological analysis revealed that Grc3 nuclear dots correspond to heterochromatic regions and that some Grc3 is also present in the nucleolar peripheral region. Depleting the heterochromatic proteins Swi6 or Clr4 abolished heterochromatic localization of Grc3 and resulted in its preferential accumulation in the perinucleolar region, suggesting its dynamic association with these nuclear compartments. Cells expressing mutant grc3 showed defects in 25 S rRNA maturation and in heterochromatic gene silencing. Protein analysis of Grc3-containing complexes led to the identification of Las1 and components of the IPI complex (Rix1, Ipi1, and Crb3). All of these Grc3-interacting proteins showed a dynamic nuclear localization similar to that observed for Grc3, and those conditional mutants showed defects in both rRNA processing and silencing of centromeric transcripts. Our data suggest that Grc3 functions cooperatively with Las1 and the IPI complex in both ribosome biogenesis and heterochromatin assembly.
The Negative Relationship between Reasoning and Religiosity Is Underpinned by a Bias for Intuitive Responses Specifically When Intuition and Logic Are in Conflict

It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence. A prominent hypothesis states that this correlation reflects behavioral biases toward intuitive problem solving, which causes errors when intuition conflicts with reasoning. We tested predictions of this hypothesis by analyzing data from two large-scale Internet-cohort studies (combined N = 63,235). We report that atheists surpass religious individuals in terms of reasoning but not working-memory performance. The religiosity effect is robust across sociodemographic factors including age, education and country of origin. It varies significantly across religions and this co-occurs with substantial cross-group differences in religious dogmatism. Critically, the religiosity effect is strongest for tasks that explicitly manipulate conflict; more specifically, atheists outperform the most dogmatic religious group by a substantial margin (0.6 standard deviations) during a color-word conflict task but not during a challenging matrix-reasoning task. These results support the hypothesis that behavioral biases rather than impaired general intelligence underlie the religiosity effect.
Adjacent Segment Disease After Interbody Fusion and Pedicle Screw Fixations for Isolated L4–L5 Spondylolisthesis: A Minimum Five-Year Follow-up

Study Design. A retrospective study. Objective. The purpose of this study are (1) to analyze prevalence of clinical and radiologic adjacent segment diseases (ASD), (2) to find precipitating factor of clinical ASD in each isthmic and degenerative spondylolisthesis groups, and (3) to compare clinical and radiologic change in isthmic and degenerative spondylolisthesis. Summary of Background Data. There is no clinical report regarding the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for evaluating ASD in patient who underwent 360° fusion with single-level spondylolisthesis with healthy adjacent segment. Methods. A total of 69 patients who underwent instrumented single-level interbody fusion at the L4–L5 level and showed no definitive degenerated disc in adjacent segments on preoperative MRI and plain radiographs were evaluated at more than 5 years after surgery. The patients were divided into 2 groups: group I was isthmic spondylolisthesis patients and group II was degenerative spondylolisthesis patients. The radiologic ASD was diagnosed by plain radiographs and MRI. Clinical ASD is defined as symptomatic spinal stenosis, intractable back pain, and subsequent sagittal or coronal imbalance with accompanying radiographic changes. Symptomatic spinal stenosis was defined as stenosis diagnosed by MRI and combined with neurologic claudication. Results. The prevalence of radiologic ASD on group I and group II was 72.7% and 84.0%, respectively. About 7 (15.9%) patients showed clinical ASD in group I and 6 (24.0%) patients showed clinical ASD in group II. MRI showed significant reliability for diagnosis of clinical ASD. Compared with patients with asymptomatic ASD, patients with clinical ASD showed significantly less postoperative lordotic angle at the L4–L5 level (i.e., less than 20°) in both groups. Conclusion. Maintaining postoperative L4–L5 segmental lordotic angle at about 20° or more is important for prevention of clinical ASD in single-level 360° fusion operation. MRI is reliable method for diagnosing clinical ASD.
U-face of applied research in the face recognition

U-face concept was first proposed to improve the rate of face recognition. U-face is a face recognition normalization model. U-face removes background, hair, and other factors that are not conducive to face recognition; retain only the focus of the face region. In the case of necessary human face images were rotated and histogram normalized. And then describes the Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA) face recognition method. Using KPCA and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) face recognition methods on U-face simulation, simulation results show that the U-face improves the recognition rate.
Finite-time stabilization for a class of stochastic nonlinear systems with Markovian switching

The finite-time stabilization for a class of stochastic nonlinear systems with Markovian switching and uncertain transition probabilities is studied in this paper. Different from existing results for stochastic systems with Markovian switching which are all about strong solutions, the results in this paper are about weak solutions. Firstly, we develop Lyapunov theorems for the existence of a global weak solution and finite-time stability in sense of weak solutions respectively for stochastic nonlinear systems with Markovian switching in this paper. Secondly, a common finite-time controller via state-feedback is constructively designed by the common coordinate transformation of all subsystems and the method of adding a power integrator for a class of stochastic nonlinear systems with Markovian switching and uncertain transition probabilities. It is shown that the closed-loop system has a global weak solution and the zero solution is finite-time stable globally in probability by the developed finitetime stability theorem. At last, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.
Behavioural Postures and the Rate of Body Temperature Change in Wild Freshwater Crocodiles, Crocodylus johnstoni

I recorded body temperature and behaviour of eight Crocodylus johnstoni in the wild over a 2‐yr period in order to quantify the effect of posturing on body temperature and to provide a mechanistic explanation of how behaviour affects body temperature. Behaviour was categorised according to the proportion of a crocodile's surface area exposed from the water (0% exposed [=diving] to 100% exposed [=basking]). Crocodiles did not simply shuttle between the extremes of 100% exposed and diving but showed an array of intermediate postures. Rates of body temperature change were negative for exposures less than 40% and positive for 60%–100% exposed. This was due to the difference between operative temperature and body temperature, which was negative during diving but increased with the percentage of exposure, up to 25°–30°C during basking. For any particular posture, the rate of body temperature change decreased with increasing mass. Thermal time constants were shortest during diving and longest during basking. A heat‐transfer equation predicted the rate of body temperature change well, except that it underestimated the rate of body temperature change during 80% and 100% exposed. Exposing only a small part of their body when in water (20%) slowed heat loss considerably, allowing crocodiles to spend more time in the water while maintaining body temperature within their preferred body temperature range.
Emerging drugs for the treatment of sepsis

Introduction: Despite improvement in medical care, severe sepsis and septic shock remain an unmet medical need. Their incidence is steadily increasing and the worldwide mortality ranges between 30% and 50%. This generates the need for agents that modulate the immune function of the host. Areas covered: Available agents can be divided into three categories according to their mechanism of action: i) agents that block bacterial products and inflammatory mediators. Hemoperfusion with polymyxin B embedded fiber device that blocks bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) has given promising clinical results. Blockade of TNF-α with afelimomab and CytoFab appears promising; ii) modulators of immune function. Hydrocortisone stress replacement, intravenous infusion of clarithromycin and immunonutrition with omega-3 (ω-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have all yielded positive clinical results. Recombinant thrombomodulin for patients with disseminated intravascular coagulation appears a promising alternative; and iii) immunostimulation. Meta-analysis of conducted trials disclosed the decrease of mortality in septic shock after administration of immunoglobulin preparations enriched with IgM. Expert opinion: The underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms in septic patients are highly individualized. As such, specific tools should be developed in the near future to define these differences and tailor therapeutic strategies accordingly.
Living With Incurable Cancer at the End of Life-Patients' Perceptions on Quality of Life

This study describes incurably ill cancer patients' perceptions of the quality of life at the end of life. Purposeful sampling was used to get as comprehensive descriptions as possible about quality of life. Five patients participated in repeated focus groups. Content analysis showed that the patients emphasized what they could perform and enjoy in daily life, not their shortcomings. Five themes were developed: "valuing ordinariness in life," "maintaining a positive life," "alleviated suffering," "significant relations," and "managing life when ill. " The themes describe that the patients could participate in daily and social life despite cancer. Relation with family and palliative team deepened during the progress of illness in such that a resonance developed in communication. Other important findings were that patients' memories helped them to maintain a positive life and that the patients used individual strategies to relive pain by emotional and physical distractions. For the patients, managing life as ill meant taking actions with creative thinking in solving problems as a way to cope and achieve quality of life. These positive findings from the focus groups have led to continued research regarding how patients with incurable cancer perceive quality of life.
Effect of Simultaneous Inhibition of TNF-α Production and Xanthine Oxidase in Experimental Acute Pancreatitis: The Role of Mitogen Activated Protein Kinases

Objective:To assess the effects of inhibiting both tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α production and xanthine oxidase activity on the inflammatory response, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation and mortality in necrotizing acute pancreatitis in rats. Summary Background Data:Pancreatic injury triggers 2 major pathways involved in the systemic effects of severe acute pancreatitis: pro-inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress. Methods:Pancreatitis was induced by intraductal infusion of 3.5% sodium taurocholate. We examined whether treatment with oxypurinol, a specific inhibitor of xanthine oxidase, and/or pentoxifylline, an inhibitor of TNF-α production, affects pancreatic damage, ascites, lung inflammation, and MAPK phosphorylation. Results:Oxypurinol prevented p38 phosphorylation in the pancreas and partially avoided the rise in lung myeloperoxidase activity. Pentoxifylline prevented erk 1/2 and JNK phosphorylation in the pancreas, and it partially reduced ascites and the rise in lung myeloperoxidase activity. Combined treatment with oxypurinol and pentoxifylline almost completely abolished ascites, MAPK phosphorylation in the pancreas, and the increase in lung myeloperoxidase activity. Histology revealed a reduction in pancreatic and lung damage. These changes were associated with a significant improvement of survival. Conclusions:Simultaneous inhibition of TNF-α production and xanthine oxidase activity greatly reduced local and systemic inflammatory response in acute pancreatitis and decreased mortality rate. These effects were associated with blockade of the 3 major MAPKs.
Neural Network Forecasting of Tourism Demand

In times of tourism uncertainty, practitioners need short-term forecasting methods. This study compares the forecasting accuracy of the basic structural method (BSM) and the neural network method to find the best structure for neural network models. Data for arrivals to Singapore are used to test the analysis while the naïve and Holt-Winters methods are used for base comparison of simpler models. The results confirm that the BSM remains a highly accurate method and that correctly structured neural models can outperform BSM and the simpler methods in the short term, and can also use short data series. These findings make neural methods significant candidates for future research.
Hormonal alterations in adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome

Aim: The chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with alterations in the hypothalamus‐pituitary‐adrenal axis and cardiovascular autonomic nervous activity, suggesting a central dysregulation. This study explored differences among adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome patients and healthy controls regarding antidiuretic hormone, the renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone‐system, sex hormones and cardiac peptides.