Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polymorphism of regulatory region of GHRL gene (‐2531C>T) as a promising predictive factor for radiotherapy‐induced oral mucositis in patients with head neck cancer

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP; rs1629816) in the regulatory region (c.‐2531C>T) of the ghrelin (GHRL) gene and the occurrence and severity of oral mucositis caused by radiotherapy (RT) in patients with head and neck cancer.
Nanofibrous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate) scaffolds provide a functional microenvironment for cartilage repair

Articular cartilage defects, when repaired ineffectively, often lead to further deterioration of the tissue, secondary osteoarthritis and, ultimately, joint replacement. Unfortunately, current surgical procedures are unable to restore normal cartilage function. Tissue engineering of cartilage provides promising strategies for the regeneration of damaged articular cartilage. As yet, there are still significant challenges that need to be overcome to match the long-term mechanical stability and durability of native cartilage. Using electrospinning of different blends of biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate), we produced polymer scaffolds and optimised their structure, stiffness, degradation rates and biocompatibility. Scaffolds with a poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate) ratio of 1:0.25 exhibit randomly oriented fibres that closely mimic the collagen fibrillar meshwork of native cartilage and match the stiffness of native articular cartilage. Degradation of the scaffolds into products that could be easily removed from the body was indicated by changes in fibre structure, loss of molecular weight and a decrease in scaffold stiffness after one and four months. Histological and immunohistochemical analysis after three weeks of culture with human articular chondrocytes revealed a hyaline-like cartilage matrix. The ability to fine tune the ultrastructure and mechanical properties using different blends of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate) allows to produce a cartilage repair kit for clinical use to reduce the risk of developing secondary osteoarthritis. We further suggest the development of a toolbox with tailor-made scaffolds for the repair of other tissues that require a ‘guiding’ structure to support the body’s self-healing process.
Synthesis and characterization of wollastonite glass-ceramics from eggshell and waste glass

Abundance of waste products disposed by communities has huge environmental impacts which lead to serious problems. Some waste products such as eggshells (ES) and soda lime silica (SLS) glass waste can be used as CaO and SiO2 resources to bring on new potentially CaSiO3, wollastonite glass ceramics (WGC) materials. Three samples labelled as S1, S2 and S3 with different compositions, each with of ES (15, 20, 25 weight%) and SLS glass (85, 80, 75 weight%) respectively, were prepared via solid state reaction method. All the samples were sintered at 800°C, 900°C and 1000°C. The elemental analysis of the raw materials and the WGC samples has been determined using the X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) system where the experimental results show that the samples were mainly contained of CaO and SiO2. The density of the WGC samples increase linearly with the sintering temperatures. The XRD results reveal that the optimum crystalline phase of the WGC samples was at around 900°C.
Direct Metal casting through 3D printing: A critical analysis of the mould characteristics

The use of Rapid Prototyping technologies for the production of sacrificial sand molds for the foundry industry has been previously researched, but with Selective Laser Sintering as the main technology, and with different methods of processing, and materials, as critical variables. With the proliferation of 3D printers and the relatively easy and economical production of moulds with special sands supplied by Z-Corporation, it is time that direct metal casting through 3D printing is scientifically investigated. Knowledge of the influence of various process parameters on the quality of moulds and subsequent castings is essential in effectively employing direct metal casting in real-world applications. This paper presents results of experimental investigations carried out to establish the influences of critical factors, such as curing times and temperatures, on mechanical characteristics, such as strength and permeability, of sand moulds produced by 3D printing. Statistically designed experiments are employed for the systematic analysis of the individual roles of critical curing parameters, as well as their combined effects.
Identifying accurate classifier models for a text-based MERS-CoV dataset

Data mining is an active research area that has attracted significant attention due to the rapidly growing quantities of data and the imminent need to transform these amounts of data into useful information and knowledge. An example of data that still rapidly growing is the dataset of medical information from patients suffering from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV); MERS-CoV is a viral respiratory disease spreading worldwide. Since the need for an accurate diagnosis system that predicts MERS-CoV infections has increased, exploiting the classifier model performance of different classification types can greatly help to improve the prediction accuracy of MERS-CoV infection. In this paper, we examine classifier model performance for three classification types: 1) binary; 2) multi-class; and 3) multi-label, on a text-based MERS-CoV dataset using a cross-validation model to measure the accuracy of ¿-nearest neighbor, decision tree, and naïve Bayes algorithms. Our empirical study concluded that the decision tree classifier performed best for binary classification, with an accuracy of 90%. In contrast, for multi-class classification, the ¿-nearest neighbor algorithm had a comparatively good accuracy measurement, 51.60%, but did not reach a satisfactory accuracy level. For multi-label classification, the naïve Bayes classifier was the most accurate, at 77%. This work is conducted as a part of a larger project dedicated to producing a MERS-CoV prediction system.
A single nucleotide incorporation step limits human telomerase repeat addition activity

Human telomerase synthesizes telomeric DNA repeats (GGTTAG)n onto chromosome ends using a short template from its integral telomerase RNA (hTR). However, telomerase is markedly slow for processive DNA synthesis among DNA polymerases. We report here that the unique template‐embedded pause signal restricts the first nucleotide incorporation for each repeat synthesized, imparting a significantly greater KM. This slow nucleotide incorporation step drastically limits repeat addition processivity and rate under physiological conditions, which is alleviated with augmented concentrations of dGTP or dGDP, and not with dGMP nor other nucleotides. The activity stimulation by dGDP is due to nucleoside diphosphates functioning as substrates for telomerase. Converting the first nucleotide of the repeat synthesized from dG to dA through the telomerase template mutation, hTR‐51U, correspondingly shifts telomerase repeat addition activity stimulation to dATP‐dependent. In accordance, telomerase without the pause signal synthesizes DNA repeats with extremely high efficiency under low dGTP concentrations and lacks dGTP stimulation. Thus, the first nucleotide incorporation step of the telomerase catalytic cycle is a potential target for therapeutic enhancement of telomerase activity.
Towards Sustainable Evolution for the TLS Public-Key Infrastructure

Motivated by the weaknesses of today's TLS public-key infrastructure (PKI), recent studies have proposed numerous enhancements to fortify the PKI ecosystem. Deploying one particular enhancement is no panacea, since each one solves only a subset of the problems. At the same time, the high deployment barrier makes the benefit-cost ratio tilt in the wrong direction, leading to disappointing adoption rates for most proposals. As a way to escape from this conundrum, we propose a framework that supports the deployment of multiple PKI enhancements, with the ability to accommodate new, yet unforeseen, enhancements in the future. To enable mass adoption, we enlist the cloud as a "centralized" location where multiple enhancements can be accessed with high availability. Our approach is compatible with existing protocols and networking practices, with the ambition that a few changes will enable sustainable evolution for PKI enhancements. We provide extensive evaluation to show that the approach is scalable, cost-effective, and does not degrade communication performance. As a use case, we implement and evaluate two PKI enhancements.
Dynamic equilibrium capacity across multiple regions in NFV environment

Recently, most emerging challenges associated with the Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) are related to the automated, large and scalable deployment of virtualised network functions (VNFs), their availability as well as reliability. In this manner, VNF applications are vastly distributed to allow high accessibility to users all over the world. Therefore, a VNF application that has a distributed deployment over multiple datacenters located at the different regions, can perfectly fit needs and requirements of provider. In order to efficiently resolve the most emerging challenges to meet requirements of service provider (SP), efficient and optimal resource capacity management across multiple regions of NFV services is critical aspect. This paper proposed a dynamic equilibrium capacity method for automatically managing virtualized resources assigned to each project that is spread over different regions. This brings significant benefits to users to manage capacity more accurately and maximize the acceptance ratio of requests in a long run while minimizing the usage of resource efficiently, which leads to use a minimum deployment cost responding to user demands.
Isolation and molecular characterization of ERF 1 , an ethylene response factor gene from durum wheat ( Triticum turgidum L .

As food crop, wheat is of prime importance for human society. Nevertheless, our understanding of the genetic and molecular mechanisms controlling wheat productivity conditions has been, so far, hampered by the lack of sufficient genomic resources. The present work describes the isolation and characterization of TdERF1, an ERF gene from durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum). The structural features of TdERF1 supported the hypothesis that it is a novel member of the ERF family in durum wheat and, considering its close similarity to TaERF1 of Triticum aestivum, it probably plays a similar role in mediating responses to environmental stresses. TdERF1 displayed an expression pattern that discriminated between two durum wheat genotypes contrasted with regard to salt-stress tolerance. The high number of cis-regulatory elements related to stress responses present in the TdERF1 promoter and the ability of TdERF1 to regulate the transcription of ethylene and drought-responsive promoters clearly indicated its potential role in mediating plant responses to a wide variety of environmental constrains. TdERF1 was also regulated by abscisic acid, ethylene, auxin, and salicylic acid, suggesting that it may be at the crossroads of multiple hormone signalling pathways. Four TdERF1 allelic variants have been identified in durum wheat genome, all shown to be transcriptionally active. Interestingly, the expression of one allelic form is specific to the tolerant genotype, further supporting the hypothesis that this gene is probably associated with the susceptibility/tolerance mechanism to salt stress. In this regard, the TdERF1 gene may provide a discriminating marker between tolerant and sensitive wheat
Wolbachia-mediated virus blocking in mosquito cells is dependent on XRN1-mediated viral RNA degradation and influenced by viral replication rate

Wolbachia is currently being developed as a novel tool to block the transmission of dengue viruses (DENV) by Aedes aegypti. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the DENV-blocking phenotype in mosquitoes, including competition for fatty acids like cholesterol, manipulation of host miRNAs and upregulation of innate immune pathways in the mosquito. We examined the various stages in the DENV infection process to better understand the mechanism of Wolbachia-mediated virus blocking (WMVB). Our results suggest that infection with Wolbachia does not inhibit DENV binding or cell entry, but reduces virus replication. In contrast to a previous report, we also observed a similar reduction in replication of West Nile virus (WNV). This reduced replication is associated with rapid viral RNA degradation in the cytoplasm. We didn’t find a role for host miRNAs in WMVB. Further analysis showed that the 3’ end of the virus subgenomic RNA was protected and accumulated over time suggesting that the degradation is XRN1-mediated. We also found that sub genomic flavivirus RNA accumulation inactivated XRN1 in mosquito cells in the absence of Wolbachia and led to enhancement of RNA degradation in its presence. Depletion of XRN1 decreased WMVB which was associated with a significant increase in DENV RNA. We also observed that WMVB is influenced by virus MOI and rate of virus replication. A comparatively elevated blocking was observed for slowly replicating DENV, compared to WNV. Similar results were obtained while analysing different DENV serotypes.
High-Temperature Off-Axis Fatigue Behavior of Unidirectional Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Composites with Different Resin Matrices.

Off-axis fatigue behavior of unidirectional continuous carbon fiber-reinforced composites has been studied for T800H/epoxy. AS4/PEEK, and T800H/Polyimide systems, with a particular emphasis on the effect of matrix and matrix/interface properties at elevated temperature. Tensiontension fatigue tests were performed at 100°C for various kinds of plain coupon specimens with different fiber orientation angles. It was observed for these composite systems that the fatigue strengths decreased with increasing off-axis angles. Regarding the epoxy- and PEEK-based laminae, almost linear off-axis S-N relationships were obtained over the whole range of fatigue loading up to 106 cycles. The off-axis fatigue strength of the polyimide-based laminae significantly dropped near the fatigue cycle of 104 which was ascribed to the initial defect of non-uniform fiber distribution. Normalizing the fatigue stress with the static strength at test temperature, the off-axis fatigue data eventually fell on a single S-N relationship for these composites. This characteristic was described well by a non-dimensional effective stress defined on the basis of the classical static failure theories. It was also demonstrated that the off-axis fatigue behavior of these unidirectional fiber composites was described by the classical composite fatigue failure models.
Comparison and evaluation of mathematical lactation curve functions of Iranian primiparous Holsteins

Describing lactation in mammals using a lactation curve aims to provide a concise summary of the pattern of milk yield and valuable information about the biological and economic efficiency of the animal or herd under consideration. A total of 106 581 monthly test-day milk records collected from 12 677 Tehran Province primiparous Holstein cows from 151 herds, were used in this study. Using the General Linear Model procedure in SAS, the effect of herd, calving year, age at calving, season of production, age and days in milk were found to be significant on daily milk yield. The suitability of seven mathematical models (with three, four and five parameters) for describing the 305-day milk yield lactation curve of Holstein cows, were examined in this study. Comparisons of the models were made based on the coefficient of determination, root mean square error, Durbin Watson coefficient and sum of daily deviations, by using nonlinear (NLIN), regression (REG) and autoregression (AUTOREG) procedures in SAS. The best three, four and five parameter functions with respect to these criteria were the Incomplete Gama, Dijkstra and Grossman functions. With regards to the Wilmink model, the best results obtained were from models with the constant of 0.05 and 0.065. The Wood function was selected as the best model for prediction of daily milk yield, due to parameters in the function and less computational limitation.
Augmenting in vitro osteogenesis of a glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic-conjugated oxidized alginate–gelatin–biphasic calcium phosphate hydrogel composite and in vivo bone biogenesis through stem cell delivery

A functionally modified peptide-conjugated hydrogel system was fabricated with oxidized alginate/gelatin loaded with biphasic calcium phosphate to improve its biocompatibility and functionality. Sodium alginate was treated by controlled oxidation to transform the cis-diol group into an aldehyde group in a controlled manner, which was then conjugated to the amine terminus of glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic. Oxidized alginate glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic was then combined with gelatin-loaded biphasic calcium phosphate to form a hydrogel of composite oxidized alginate/gelatin/biphasic calcium phosphate that displayed enhanced human adipose stem cell adhesion, spreading and differentiation. 1H nuclear magnetic resonance and electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis confirmed that the glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic was successfully grafted to the oxidized alginate. Co-delivery of glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic and human adipose stem cell in a hydrogel matrix was studied with the results indicating that hydrogel incorporated modified with glycine–arginine–glycine–aspartic and seeded with human adipose stem cell enhanced osteogenesis in vitro and bone formation in vivo.
Pitting potential modelling of EN 1.4404 stainless steel

The development of a reliable tool to know the behaviour of stainless steel on localized corrosion is necessary to achieve a proper selection of the material in the structures design. In order to know the behavioural pattern of stainless steel on localized corrosion, a total of 60 samples of austenitic stainless steel were subjected to polarization tests. Based on experimental results, support vector machines are proposed to estimate pitting potential values analysing different environmental factors: chloride ion concentration, pH and temperature. The influence of parameters selection in the presented model is analysed in order to get the optimal structure of the pitting potential estimator. Correlation coefficient and root mean squared error are proposed as performance criteria to measure the deviation between experimental and predicted values. Results show that the presented model provides a great estimation capability, becoming a useful tool to compare the corrosion resistance of this material depending on the environmental conditions.
Real-Time Event Localization and Detection Over Social Networks Using Apache Intelligence

Today, the event detection activity is becoming increasingly more complex with the emergence of the Big Data phenomenon. More specifically, different social networks and microblogging services are leading to the massive explosion of data describing the real world. Multiple conducted works highlight the role of textual data as the simplest form to report actualities and to describe real-time events. But, the variety of the proposed solutions with high complexity degrees reveals big challenges that are hidden behind the nature of those data. A concentrated study around some established works for event detection over textual data published on social networks allows us to meet limits of proposed solutions. These limits are the main areas of research leading to the proposal of a new approach for a real-time localization and detection of events over textual data posted on social networks. This approach takes benefit from a set of Apache platforms for efficient treatment of the huge streams of data.
Estimating Aspects in Online Reviews Using Topic Model with 2-Level Learning

In this paper, we propose a method for estimating latent aspects in online review documents. Review aspects represent features of items or services evaluated by users. We can expect to acquire useful features for users by discovering their review aspects. We apply topic models to this problem. Existing work proposed methods for estimating the topics of the whole document or sets of sentences with various window sizes. In this paper, we propose two-level learning approach that connects adjacent sentences when their topics are similar, and re-estimates topics once again using the determined processing units. In the experiments of precision using perplexity, we confirm our proposed method improves on the existing method.
Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein-C Plays No Regulatory Role in Skeletal Muscle Structure and Function

Myosin binding protein-C (MyBP-C) exists in three major isoforms: slow skeletal, fast skeletal, and cardiac. While cardiac MyBP-C (cMyBP-C) expression is restricted to the heart in the adult, it is transiently expressed in neonatal stages of some skeletal muscles. However, it is unclear whether this expression is necessary for the proper development and function of skeletal muscle. Our aim was to determine whether the absence of cMyBP-C alters the structure, function, or MyBP-C isoform expression in adult skeletal muscle using a cMyBP-C null mouse model (cMyBP-C(t/t)). Slow MyBP-C was expressed in both slow and fast skeletal muscles, whereas fast MyBP-C was mostly restricted to fast skeletal muscles. Expression of these isoforms was unaffected in skeletal muscle from cMyBP-C(t/t) mice. Slow and fast skeletal muscles in cMyBP-C(t/t) mice showed no histological or ultrastructural changes in comparison to the wild-type control. In addition, slow muscle twitch, tetanus tension, and susceptibility to injury were all similar to the wild-type controls. Interestingly, fMyBP-C expression was significantly increased in the cMyBP-C(t/t) hearts undergoing severe dilated cardiomyopathy, though this does not seem to prevent dysfunction. Additionally, expression of both slow and fast isoforms was increased in myopathic skeletal muscles. Our data demonstrate that i) MyBP-C isoforms are differentially regulated in both cardiac and skeletal muscles, ii) cMyBP-C is dispensable for the development of skeletal muscle with no functional or structural consequences in the adult myocyte, and iii) skeletal isoforms can transcomplement in the heart in the absence of cMyBP-C.