Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship of Trichothecene Structure to Cox-2 Induction in the Macrophage: Selective Action of Type B (8-Keto) Trichothecenes

The trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin), when at partially cytotoxic concentrations, induces cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression by promoting transcriptional activity and mRNA stability via mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that trichothecenes differentially affect COX-2 gene expression and that these effects were related to MAPK activation. Representative members of the three major trichothecene families (A, B, and D) were compared for their capacity to induce COX-2 in the RAW 264.7 murine macrophage cell line. When cells were treated with concentrations that inhibited the 3-(4,5-di-methylthizol-2-yl)-2,5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) viability response by 20% (IC20), Type B trichothecenes including DON, 15-acetyl-DON, 3-acetyl-DON, and fusarenon-X were found to be effective inducers of COX-2 mRNA expression, whereas equitoxic Type A and Type D trichothecenes had markedly less effects. To compare effects of COX-2 gene transactivation and mRNA stabilization, luciferase reporter vectors containing 5'-promoter or 3'-untranslated regions of the gene, respectively, were transfected into RAW 264.7 cells and the effects of various trichothecenes on luciferase activities were measured. Type B but not Type A or D toxins at concentrations up to the MTT IC50 enhanced luciferase activities, indicating preferential COX-2 transcriptional activation and mRNA stabilization by this trichothecene subset. At their respective IC20s, Type B trichothecenes also significantly activated the three major MAPK families, whereas Type A and D did not. Blocking ERK and p38 with chemical inhibitors significantly suppressed Type B-induced COX-2 expression. Although JNK reportedly contributes to COX-2 expression in the other signaling models, transfection with the dominant negative JNK vector did not diminish the COX-2 expression. Taken together, Type B trichothecenes selectively enhanced transcription and stabilization of the COX-2 gene, and this was mediated by the ERK 1/2 and p38 signaling pathways. Selective action on COX-2 might contribute to unique pathologic manifestations associated with Type B trichothecene-mediated immunotoxicity.
Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Visual Features of Undiagnosed Glaucoma: The Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Diseases Study.

IMPORTANCE Glaucoma can remain asymptomatic until a severe stage, resulting in a high prevalence of undiagnosed glaucoma worldwide. Asia accounts for 60% of the world's total glaucoma cases. To our knowledge, no epidemiological studies have assessed ethnic differences in undiagnosed glaucoma among various Asian subgroups. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of, risk factors for, and visual features of undiagnosed primary glaucoma in a multiethnic Asian population. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS The Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Diseases Study is a population-based trial in which 3353 Chinese (2009-2011), 3280 Malays (2004-2006), and 3400 Indians (2007-2009) aged 40 to 80 years were invited for an eye examination, including visual field assessment, to establish glaucoma diagnosis. Participants with undiagnosed glaucoma (ie, answering no to whether they previously had been told by a physician that they had glaucoma, not using glaucoma medication, or not having undergone glaucoma surgery) were identified. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Prevalence of, risk factors for, and visual features of undiagnosed glaucoma. RESULTS Of 272 participants with primary glaucoma, 196 (72.1%) were previously undiagnosed. The overall prevalence of undiagnosed primary glaucoma was highest among Malays (2.65%; 95% CI, 2.10%-3.31%), followed by Chinese (1.51%; 95% CI, 1.13%-2.01%) and Indians (0.97%; 95% CI, 0.64%-1.43%). In multivariable analysis, variables associated with higher risk of undiagnosed glaucoma were younger age (odds ratio [OR], 1.04; 95% CI, 1.00-1.09; P = .04), Malay ethnicity (OR, 3.65; 95% CI, 1.31-10.13; P = .01), presence of primary open-angle glaucoma (OR, 3.82; 95% CI, 1.60-9.14; P = .003), absence of yearly eyeglass checks (OR, 9.29; 95% CI, 3.43-25.21; P < .001), and lack of cataract surgery (OR, 4.19; 95% CI, 1.68-10.48; P < .001). No patients were blind in both eyes. A mean (SD) of 4.1% (2.8%) (n = 8) of the newly diagnosed patients were blind in 1 eye, and a mean (SD) of 56.0% (7.2%) (n = 102) had noteworthy visual field damage (mean deviation worse than -6 dB) in at least 1 eye. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The prevalence of undiagnosed primary glaucoma varied among ethnic populations in whom a mean (SD) of 49.0% (14.0%) (n = 24) of affected individuals 50 to 59 years old already had clinically significant visual field loss. Such data may assist policymakers in implementing cost-effective public health interventions to reduce the effect of blindness associated with undiagnosed glaucoma.
[The establishment and application of genomic DNA extraction from peripheral blood].

OBJECTIVE To establish the method of genomic DNA extraction. METHODS Genomic DNA was directly extracted from peripheral blood with the use of potassium iodide. RESULTS The genomic DNA extracted with potassium iodide was of large molecular weight. A(260)/A(280) and A(260)/ A(230) were 1.85 and 2.2 respectively. The extraction efficiency was greater than 90%. The result of PCR for the DNA was good. CONCLUSION The method is simple, quick, economical and could be used for studying numbers of clinical samples.
N Isotope Fractionation in Tree Tissues During N Reabsorption and Remobilization in Fagus crenata Blume

Background and Motivation: Nitrogen content in tissues of Fagus crenata Blume is key for flowering and seed production. However, there is a lack of information on seasonal intra-plant nitrogen partitioning in this representative tree species typical of heavy snowfall regions in Japan. Therefore, the objective of this study was to elucidate Fagus crenata intra-plant nitrogen movement by means of nitrogen content, nitrogen isotope analysis, and amino acids temporal variability. Materials and Methods: Nitrogen content, isotope ratio, and free amino acids content were measured in coarse roots, sapwood, leaves, and litter in four phenological stages in nine adult Fagus crenata trees and upscaled to the whole-tree level.
Merging Flows and Optimizing Aircraft Scheduling in Terminal Maneuvering Area Based on GA

Runway capacity problem have been emerging in current overloaded congestion airports. This paper focuses on improving the runway capacity and resolution of conflicts of aircraft in terminal maneuvering area and proposes its method which can find the feasible solution using detour structure. In detail, our proposed method use alternative routes or sub-route as detour to avoid conflict and to change the position of arrival sequence. Through the intensive simulation on Paris Charles De-Gaulle airport, we revealed that our proposed method can find the efficient arrival sequence without conflict and detours contribute to optimize the landing sequence.
Vascular Damage in Resistant Hypertension: TNF-Alpha Inhibition Effects on Endothelial Cells

Inflammatory cytokines have been associated with the pathophysiology of hypertension and target organ damage (TOD). Resistant hypertensive patients (RHTN) are characterized by poor blood pressure control and higher prevalence of TOD. This study evaluated the relationship between plasma levels of TNF-α and arterial stiffness (pulse wave velocity—PWV) in 32 RHTN and 19 normotensive subjects. Moreover, we investigated the effect of TNF-α inhibition on human endothelial cells (HUVECs) incubated with serum from RHTN and normotensive subjects. HUVECs containing serum obtained from normotensive (n = 8) and hypertensive (n = 8) individuals were treated with TNF-α inhibitor (infliximab). Cell suspensions were used for measurement of DNA fragmentation and reactive oxygen species (ROS) content. RHTN patients showed higher levels of TNF-α compared to normotensive subjects, as well as higher PWV. Positive correlation was found between TNF-α levels and PWV measures in the whole group. HUVECs incubated with serum from RHTN showed increased cell apoptosis and higher ROS content compared to normotensive subjects. Infliximab attenuated the apoptosis of HUVECs incubated with serum from RHTN, but no effect in ROS production was observed. Our findings suggest that TNF-α might mediate, at least in part, vascular damage in resistant hypertension.
A Quality-of-Content-Based Joint Source and Channel Coding for Human Detections in a Mobile Surveillance Cloud

More than 70% of consumer mobile Internet traffic will be mobile video transmissions by 2019. The development of wireless video transmission technologies has been boosted by the rapidly increasing demand of video streaming applications. Although more and more videos are delivered for video analysis (e.g., object detection/tracking and action recognition), most existing wireless video transmission schemes are developed to optimize human perception quality and are suboptimal for video analysis. In mobile surveillance networks, a cloud server collects videos from multiple moving cameras and detects suspicious persons in all camera views. Camera mobility in smartphones or dash cameras implies that video is to be uploaded through bandwidth-limited and error-prone wireless networks, which may cause quality degradation of the decoded videos and jeopardize the performance of video analyses. In this paper, we propose an effective rate-allocation scheme for multiple moving cameras in order to improve human detection (content) performance. Therefore, the optimization criterion of the proposed rate-allocation scheme is driven by quality of content (QoC). Both video source coding and application layer forward error correction coding rates are jointly optimized. Moreover, the proposed rate-allocation problem is formulated as a convex optimization problem and can be efficiently solved by standard solvers. Many simulations using High Efficiency Video Coding standard compression of video sequences and the deformable part model object detector are carried, and results demonstrate the effectiveness and favorable performance of our proposed QoC-driven scheme under different pedestrian densities and wireless conditions.
In vivo mutagenesis of bacteriophage Mu transposase

We devised a method for isolating mutations in the bacteriophage Mu A gene which encodes the phage transposase. Nine new conditional defective A mutations were isolated. These, as well as eight previously isolated mutations, were mapped with a set of defined deletions which divided the gene into 13 100- to 200-base-pair segments. Phages carrying these mutations were analyzed for their ability to lysogenize and to transpose in nonpermissive hosts. One Aam mutation, Aam7110, known to retain the capacity to support lysogenization of a sup0 host (M. M. Howe, K. J. O'Day, and D. W. Shultz, Virology 93:303-319, 1979) and to map 91 base pairs from the 3' end of the gene (R. M. Harshey and S. D. Cuneo, J. Genet. 65:159-174, 1987) was shown to be able to complement other A mutations for lysogenization, although it was incapable of catalyzing either the replication of Mu DNA or the massive conservative integration required for phage growth. Four Ats mutations which map at different positions in the gene were able to catalyze lysogenization but not phage growth at the nonpermissive temperature. Phages carrying mutations located at different positions in the Mu B gene (which encodes a product necessary for efficient integration and lytic replication) were all able to lysogenize at the same frequency. These results suggest that the ability of Mu to lysogenize is not strictly correlated with its ability to perform massive conservative and replicative transposition.
The emergency department social work intervention for mild traumatic brain injury (SWIFT-Acute): A pilot study

Abstract Objective: To determine acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of Emergency Department (ED) Social Work Intervention for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (SWIFT-Acute) on alcohol use, community functioning, depression, anxiety, post-concussive symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder and service use. Methods: This study enrolled 64 patients who received head CT after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and were discharged <24 hours from a Level 1 trauma centre ED. The cohort study compared outcomes for SWIFT-Acute (n = 32) and Usual Care (n = 32) 3 months post-injury. SWIFT-Acute includes education about symptoms and decreasing alcohol use, coping strategies, reassurance and education about recovery process and follow-up guidelines and resources. Measures: Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ), Patient Health Questionnaire-4, Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire, PTSD Checklist-Civilian, acceptability and service use surveys. Results: Paired t-test revealed SWIFT-Acute group maintained pre-injury community functioning; Usual Care significantly declined in functioning on the CIQ. Both groups reported ‘hazardous’ pre-injury drinking on AUDIT. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed the SWIFT-Acute group significantly reduced alcohol use; the Usual Care group did not. Both groups significantly increased medical service use. No statistically significant differences were found on other measures. Acceptability ratings were extremely high. Conclusions: SWIFT-Acute was acceptable to patients. There is preliminary evidence of effectiveness for reducing alcohol use and preventing functional decline. Future randomized studies are needed.
Knowledge Management in an Organisational Climate of Uncertainty and Change: A Longitudinal Case Study of an Australian University

Universities are in the knowledge business and are expected to be at the forefront of knowledge management (KM). However, KM in a university is complex given the diversity of stakeholder groups. This is exacerbated in the Australian context by the changing climate of rationalisation, corporatisation and marketisation universities faced in the past decade. This paper investigates KM strategies in an Australian university to uncover barriers to knowledge-sharing among academics. Although the organisational infrastructure supports KM, many academics have not actively embraced it. One reason is that they struggle with KM for operational excellence in the increasing administrative aspects of the academic’s role, rendering them time-poor in terms of KM for innovation in research and teaching. As a first step, we propose a self-defined sub-unit level customised view of the explicit knowledge artefacts provided at the organisational level i.e. a wiki for a school-based community of practice for administrative best practices.
Not all that glitters is gold.

Embryo diagnosis also has costs in life and in liberty -- that of the women on whose bodies these experiments are done. While the proven deaths to date from IVF-related treatments are quite small, the long-term risks are not yet in. And the costs of pain, illness, and physical and emotional suffering from these procedures go largely unremarked.IVF and embryo retrieval procedures do not take place on a couple's body -- it is a woman on the table, a woman who bears the costs of this treatment.
Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and the risk of dementia with stroke.

CONTEXT Next to Alzheimer disease, vascular dementia is the second most common form of dementia in the elderly, yet few specific risk factors have been identified. OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship of plasma lipids and lipoproteins to dementia with stroke. DESIGN AND SETTING Prospective longitudinal community-based study over a 7-year period (1991-1998). PARTICIPANTS A total of 1111 nondemented participants (mean [SD] age, 75.0 [5.9] years) were followed up for an average of 2.1 years (range, 1-7.8 years). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incident dementia with stroke according to standardized criteria, by baseline levels of total plasma cholesterol and triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, LDL levels corrected for lipoprotein(a), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, lipoprotein(a), and apolipoprotein E genotype. RESULTS Two hundred eighty-six (25.7%) of the 1111 subjects developed dementia during follow-up; 61 (21.3%) were classified as having dementia with stroke and 225 (78.7%) as having probable Alzheimer disease. Levels of LDL cholesterol were significantly associated with an increased risk of dementia with stroke. Compared with the lowest quartile, the highest quartile of LDL cholesterol was associated with an approximately 3-fold increase in risk of dementia with stroke, adjusting for vascular risk factors and demographic variables (relative risk [RR], 3.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5-6.1). Levels of LDL corrected for lipoprotein(a) were an even stronger predictor of dementia with stroke in the adjusted multivariate analysis. Compared with the lowest quartile, the RR of dementia with stroke for the highest quartile of lipoprotein(a)-corrected LDL cholesterol was 4.1 (95% CI, 1.8-9.6) after adjusting for vascular factors and demographic variables. Lipid or lipoprotein levels were not associated with the development of Alzheimer disease in our cohort. CONCLUSIONS Elevated levels of LDL cholesterol were associated with the risk of dementia with stroke in elderly patients. Further study is needed to determine whether treatment of elevated LDL cholesterol levels will reduce the risk of dementia with stroke.
Discrete time stochastic hybrid dynamical games: Verification & controller synthesis

This paper presents a framework for analyzing probabilistic safety and reachability problems for discrete time stochastic hybrid systems in scenarios where system dynamics are affected by rational competing agents. In particular, we consider a zero-sum game formulation of the probabilistic reach-avoid problem, in which the control objective is to maximize the probability of reaching a desired subset of the hybrid state space, while avoiding an unsafe set, subject to the worst-case behavior of a rational adversary. Theoretical results are provided on a dynamic programming algorithm for computing the maximal reach-avoid probability under the worst-case adversary strategy, as well as the existence of a max-min control policy which achieves this probability. The modeling framework and computational algorithm are demonstrated using an example derived from a robust motion planning application.
Generating Spatiotemporal Models from Examples

Recent work on contour tracking has shown the benefits of using learned dynamic models for robust curve tracking. In this paper, we extend this work by using a physically based framework to learn physically plausible, constrained dynamic models of deforming objects. Traditional physically based vibration modes have been shown to provide a useful mechanism for describing non-rigid motions of articulated and deformable objects. The standard approach relies on assumptions being made about the elastic properties of an object to generate a compact set of real, orthogonal shape parameters which can then be used for tracking and data approximation. We present a method for automatically generating an improved physically based model using a training set of examples of the object deforming, tuning the elastic properties of the object to reflect how the object actually deforms. The resulting model provides a low dimensional shape description that allows accurate temporal extrapolation at low computational cost based on the training motions. Results are shown in which the method is applied to an automatically acquired training set of the outline of a walking pedestrian.
MICdb3.0: a comprehensive resource of microsatellite repeats from prokaryotic genomes

The MICdb is a comprehensive relational database of perfect microsatellites extracted from completely sequenced and annotated genomes of bacteria and archaea. The current version MICdb3.0 is an updated and revised version of MICdb2.0. As compared with the previous version MICdb2.0, the current release is significantly improved in terms of much larger coverage of genomes, improved presentation of queried results, user-friendly administration module to manage Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) data such as addition of new genomes, deletion of obsolete data, etc., and also removal of certain features deemed to be redundant. The new web-interface to the database called Microsatellite Analysis Server (MICAS) version 3.0 has been improved by the addition of powerful high-quality visualization tools to view the query results in the form of pie charts and bar graphs. All the query results and graphs can be exported in different formats so that the users can use them for further analysis. MICAS3.0 is also equipped with a unique genome comparison module using which users can do pair-wise comparison of genomes with regard to their microsatellite distribution. The advanced search module can be used to filter the repeats based on certain criteria such as filtering repeats of a particular motif/repeat size, extracting repeats of coding/non-coding regions, sort repeats, etc. The MICdb database has, therefore, been made portable to be administered by a person with the necessary administrative privileges. The MICdb3.0 database and analysis server can be accessed for free from www.cdfd. org.in/micas. Database URL: http://www.cdfd. org.in/micas
An Audio Scene Classification Framework with Embedded Filters and a DCT-based Temporal Module

Deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) has recently improved the performance of acoustic scene classification. However, the input features of the network are usually based on predefined hand-tailored filters, which may not apply to the specific tasks. To overcome this, we propose a hybrid framework that jointly trains the front-end filters and the back-end DCNN. Also, a novel temporal module based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is inserted after the high-level feature map of the network, thus enabling us to utilize time information without a reduction of training samples. Our single system, composed of the fine-tuned wavelet front-end and the DCNN back-end, with the integrated DCT-based temporal module, has achieved an accuracy of 79.20% in the evaluation set in DCASE17, gaining around 3% and 8% accuracy improvement compared with scalogram-DCNN and FBank-DCNN systems, respectively.
An extended actuator cylinder model: Actuator‐in‐actuator cylinder (AC‐squared) model

In this paper, the actuator-in-actuator cylinder (AC-squared) model is presented. This model is an extension of the original actuator cylinder model of Madsen and is capable of modelling the effect of a two concentric actuation surfaces in 2D. The induced velocity at every point in the 2D field is affected by the force field acting on the two actuator cylinders. The equations are derived, and a model verification is performed using analytical solutions of flows, proof of flow equivalence, and using OpenFOAM calculations. Finally, the model is applied to different case studies, and the results are compared with a time-dependent free wake vortex method.