Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products Plays a More Important Role in Cellular Survival than in Neurite Outgrowth during Retinoic Acid-induced Differentiation of Neuroblastoma Cells*

The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE), a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily, is known to interact with amphoterin. This interaction has been proposed to play a role in neurite outgrowth and process elongation during neurodifferentiation. However, there is as yet no direct evidence of the relevance of this pathway to neurodifferentiation under physiological conditions. In this study we have investigated a possible role of RAGE and amphoterin in the retinoic acid-induced differentiation of neuroblastoma cells. The functional inactivation of RAGE by dominant negative and antisense strategies showed that RAGE is not required for process outgrowth or differentiation, although overexpression of RAGE accelerates the elongation of neuritic processes. Using the antisense strategy, amphoterin was shown to be essential for process outgrowth and differentiation, suggesting that amphoterin may interact with other molecules to exert its effect in this context. Interestingly, the survival of the neuroblastoma cells treated with retinoic acid was partly dependent on the expression of RAGE, and inhibition of RAGE function partially blocked the increase in anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 following retinoic acid treatment. Based on these results we propose that a combination therapy using RAGE blockers and retinoic acid may prove as a useful approach for chemotherapy for the treatment of neuroblastoma.
Tight bounds on one- and two-pass MapReduce algorithms for matrix multiplication

We study one- and two-pass mapReduce algorithms for multiplying two matrices. First, consider one-pass algorithms. In the literature, there is a tight bound for the tradeoff between communication cost and parallelism. It measures communication cost using the replication rate r, and measures parallelism by reducer size q. It gives a tight bound on qr for multiplying dense square matrices. We extend it in two different ways: First, to sparse rectangular matrices; second, to a different measure of parallelism, namely, reducer workload w. We present tight bounds on qr and wr2, for multiplying sparse rectangular matrices. We also show that the lower bound on qr follows from the lower bound on wr2; so, the lower bound on wr2 is stronger. Next, consider two-pass algorithms. It has been shown that, for a given reducer size, the two-pass algorithm has less communication cost than the one-pass algorithm. We present tight bounds on qfrfrs and wfr2frs, for multiplying dense rectangular matrices; the subscripts f and s correspond to the first and second pass, respectively. Also, using our bound on qfrfrs, we present a tight bound on the total communication cost as a function of qf. Our lower bounds hold for the class of two-pass algorithms that perform all the real number multiplications in the first pass.
Three-dimensional packing with complex orbit coils for the endovascular treatment of intracranial aneurysms.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Endovascular treatment of intracranial aneurysms is too often associated with aneurysm recurrence due to coil compaction. High packing of coils prevents compaction. To increase the packing attenuation, we sought to evaluate the results of selective embolization of aneurysms with complex-shaped coils alone. METHODS Twenty consecutive patients with an intracranial aneurysm were treated by selective embolization. There were 12 women and eight men, with a mean age of 48 years. Fourteen patients presented with subarachnoid hemorrhage, whereas six were asymptomatic. Mean size of aneurysms was 5 mm (range, 3-11 mm). In all cases, we tried to pack the aneurysm with complex coils only (Orbit, Cordis, Miami Lakes, FL), delivered in a concentric fashion. Remodeling technique was used in two cases of wide-neck aneurysms. Clinical and anatomic outcome were assessed by using the modified Glasgow outcome scale and 6-month MR angiography (MRA). RESULTS From two to five complex coils were delivered within the aneurysms. Occlusion by using complex coils alone was successful in 16 patients, and resulted in 14 complete occlusions and two neck remnants. In four patients, additional helical Orbit coils or Guglielmi detachable coils were required to complete aneurysm obliteration. No technical complication occurred, and clinical outcome was excellent in 14 cases and good in two. Follow-up MRAs were obtained in all patients and showed only one slight recanalization. CONCLUSIONS Intracranial aneurysms may be treated by selective embolization with complex coils only. Imaging follow-up at 6 months shows a low rate of coil compaction.
Partial bit delay correlative modulation used to improve the dispersion tolerance of an optical duobinary system.

Phase effect of the optical duobinary (ODB) modulation on the chromatic dispersion (CD) tolerance is more important than the ODB modulation-induced bandwidth effect. To show this, we evaluate, respectively, the filter bandwidth effect and the phase effect of the partial bit delay correlative modulation (PBDCM) on the CD tolerance. Due to the cancellation between the CD-induced and the PBDCM-induced phase effects, the PBDCM method can increase the CD-limited transmission to 2 ? 3 times of that using standard 1-bit delay modulation, while the optimized filter bandwidth method can increase the transmission by 50% or less, depending on the input signal format. The PBDCM can be physically realized by adjusting the delay time of the delay-and-add circuit in the conventional duobinary transmitter (without lower-pass filter). These conclusions are also valid for systems having non-negligible polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization dependent loss (PDL).
Simultaneous High‐Performance Liquid Chromatography‐Electrochemical Detection Determination of Imipramine, Desipramine, Their 2‐Hydroxylated Metabolites, and Imipramine N‐Oxide in Human Plasma and Urine: Preliminary Application to Oxidation Pharmacogenetics

This assay method allows a simultaneous determination of imipramine, desipramine, their 2-hydroxylated metabolites, and imipramine-N-oxide in 0.5 ml of plasma or 0.1 ml of urine within 35 min by an ion-paired, reversed phase (C18) high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with electrochemical detection. The analytes are extracted from alkalinized plasma or urine with 5 ml of a 90/10 mixture (by vol) of diethyl ether/2-propanol, back-extracted into 0.5 ml of 0.1 mol/L phosphoric acid. Urine samples are enzymatically treated with β-glucuronidase/arylsulfatase before extraction. The electrochemical detection is performed with a glassy carbon electrode set at +0.85 V against the Ag/AgCl reference electrode. Recoveries for the analytes and the internal standard (propericiazine) from plasma or urine ranged from 66.4 to 105.7% with coefficients of variation (CVs) of <6.8%. The intra- and interassay CVs for the analytes were <17.4% in plasma and <14.2% in urine. The limits of determination (a signal-to-noise ratio of 3) for imipramine, desipramine, 2-hydroxyimipramine, 2-hydroxydesipramine, and imipramine,-N-oxide were 0.5, 0.3, 0.02, 0.02, and 1.0 μg/L, respectively. Only four of the 23 psychotropic drugs, which might be coadministered with imipramine or desipramine, were considered to be the possible sources to interfere with the assay. We evaluated clinical applicability of this method by determining plasma concentration- and urinary excretion-time courses of the respective analytes in an extensive and a poor metabolizer of the debrisoquine/sparteine-type oxidation after a single oral dose of imipramine HCI (25 mg). The present method appears to be suitable not only for the therapeutic drug monitoring of imipramine and its active metabolites but also for studying the pharmacogenetically related metabolism of imipramine or desipramine.
Describing body-pose feature - poselet - activity relationship using Pachinko Allocation Model

Understanding video-based activities have remained the challenge regardless of efforts from the image processing and artificial intelligence community. However, the rapid developing of computer vision in 3D area has brought an opportunity for the human pose estimation and so far for the activity recognition. In this research, the authors suggest an impressive approach for understanding daily life activities in the indoor using the skeleton information collected from the Microsoft Kinect device. The approach comprises two significant components as the contribution: the pose-based feature extraction under the spatio-temporal relation and the topic model based learning. For extracting feature, the distance between two articulated points and the angle between horizontal axis and joint vector are measured and normalized on each detected body. A codebook is then constructed using the K-means algorithm to encode the merged set of distance and angle. For modeling activities from sparse features, a hierarchical model developed on the Pachinko Allocation Model is proposed to describe the flexible relationship between features - poselets - activities in the temporal dimension. Finally, the activities are classified by using three different state-of-the-art machine learning techniques: Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbor, and Random Forest. In the experiment, the proposed approach is benchmarked and compared with existing methods in the overall classification accuracy.
Quality of life improvement is maintained up to two years after transcatheter aortic valve implantation in high-risk surgical candidates.

AIMS The aim of the study was to investigate the changes in quality of life (QoL) following transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) up to two years' follow-up. METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred consecutive patients (46 females, mean age 79.7 ± 6.1 years) with at least two years' follow-up who underwent TAVI in our institution, between November 2007 and September 2009, were enrolled in this study. Peak and mean aortic gradients were 87.8 ± 25.8 mmHg and 53.3 ± 15.4 mmHg, respectively. Mean log EuroSCORE was 27.9 ± 15.9. Patients had multiple comorbidities. All patients underwent a standardised prospective screening pathway, including QoL evaluation with the 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36v2(®)) and the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaires (MLHFQ). The scores obtained preoperatively were compared with those obtained at two years' follow-up. An Edwards SAPIEN valve (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, CA, USA) was implanted in 67 patients (55 transfemoral and 12 transapical) and a CoreValve (Medtronic, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA) was implanted in 33 patients (26 transfemoral and seven transaxillary). Thirty-day mortality was 4%. Actuarial survival was 80.6 ± 4.1%, 72.6 ± 4.7% and 63.2 ± 6.3% at one, two and three years, respectively. Mean SF36-physical improved from 31.9 ± 8.8 to 51.5 ± 9.5 (p<0.0001) and SF36-mental improved from 44.7 ± 11.6 to 49.5 ± 8.6 (p=0.0002). Mean MLHFQ decreased from 41.5 ± 14.5 to 15.9 ± 13.7 (p<0.0001). QoL score changes were not influenced by age or comorbidities. CONCLUSIONS TAVI in high-risk surgical candidates is associated with favourable short and long-term survival and with improvement of QoL up to two years after the procedure.
A discourse on cancer cell chemotaxis: Where to from here?

The study of cancer cell chemotaxis on two‐dimensional surfaces in vitro has relevance to the diverse migratory behaviours exhibited in vivo that involve a directed path. These may include translocation along collagen fibres, invasion into the basement membrane and across stroma, intravasation and extravasation to arrive at a secondary destination designated for cancer cell colonization. Chemotaxis invariably denotes the ability of cells to sense gradients, polarize, adhere and deadhere to substrate, and translocate in the right direction. Amongst these, the sensing function is perhaps the unifying aspect of different migration styles, permitting the cells to resolve its orientation and path. This review examines the decision‐making processes that take place during chemotaxis and illustrates that a universal mechanism is involved. In various cell types from Dictyostelium to neutrophils, there are some unifying principles that dictate sensing and how the putative leading edge and trailing end of cells are determined. Some of these principles have recently been applied in the study of cancer cell chemotaxis albeit different pathways are substituted. In amoeboid‐like cancer cells, local excitation of the EGFR/PLCγ/cofilin pathway and parallel, global inhibition of cofilin by LIMK occur to promote the asymmetric distribution and amplification of these internal signals in response to an external EGF gradient. IUBMB Life, 59: 60‐67, 2007
Activity and Intracellular Localization of Lysosomal Acid Phosphatase in Lymphocytes from Patients with Hodgkin's Disease, Plasma Cell Myeloma and Primary Polycythemia

Using the cytochemical method after Barka and Anderson, activity and localization of lysosomal acid phosphatase (AP) was determined in peripheral-blood lymphocytes from 20 healthy subjects, 10 patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD), 10 patients with plasma cell myeloma (PCM), and 10 patients with primary polycythemia (PP). Total count of AP-positive lymphocytes was lowest in the patients with HD. Moreover, they showed a significant decrease of the absolute count of lymphocytes with well formed and more numerous AP-positive lysosomal granules. Analogous alterations in lymphocytes from patiens with PCM and those with PP were much less significant. The authors discuss the importance of the above-mentioned observations for evaluation on a cellular basis of lowered immunity of patients with lympho-proliferative and myelo-proliferative disorders, with special regard to AP as a T-cell marker.
Loop sensitive context switching between partitions in a co-design virtual machine

Context switching between partitions in a hardware/software co-design virtual machine must be performed efficiently to minimize its impact on overall execution time. Loop sensitive context switching is sensitive to the non-sequential flow of execution due to branch instructions in an application. This approach differs from earlier work as the algorithm only identifies branch instructions that cause loops to be fanned. The algorithm is expected to identify blocks of instructions for hardware execution that is executed multiple times with minimum, context switching. The algorithm is analyzed by measuring both percentage of execution in hardware and the number of context switches between partitions. This paper presents the performance of this algorithm versus previous solutions for identification of suitable code blocks for hardware execution. The paper further discusses high-level programming heuristics that can be used to increase an application's suitability for execution in a co-design Java virtual machine.
Variational Inference of Correspondence-LDA with Multinomial Generative Process October 16 , 2010

In original Correspondence LDA (Corr-LDA) [1] the image region is generated by a multivariate Gaussian distribution. We replace this Gaussian distribution by a multinomial distribution, which gives a modified algorithm for parameter estimation. 1 Corr-LDA with Multinomial Generative Process To keep the consistence, we denote visual word and auditory word as sensory word. Thus, A document (a captioned image/audio) consists of a bag of sensory words and a bag of textual words. Our modified Corr-LDA gives a generative process as follows: 1. Draw topic proportions θ ∼ Dirichlet(α). 2. For each sensory word vm,m ∈ {1, · · · ,M}: (a) Draw topic assignment zm|θ ∼ Multinomial(θ). (b) Draw sensory word vm|zm ∼ Multinomial(πzm) 3. For each textual word wn, n ∈ {1, · · · , N} (a) Draw discrete indexing variable yn ∼ Uniform(1, · · · ,M) (b) Draw textual word wn ∼ Multinomial(βzyn ) Observe that step 2.b is differed from original Corr-LDA paper [1], where D.Blei used a multivariate Gaussian to describe the generative process of sensory word v. The graphical representation of our modified Corr-LDA is depicted in Figure 1. The notations used in this paper are summarized in Table 1.
Targeting Cdc42 in cancer

Introduction: The Rho GTPases are a family of proteins that control fundamental cellular processes in response to extracellular stimuli and internal programs. Rho GTPases function as molecular switches in which the GTP-bound proteins are active and GDP-bound proteins are inactive. This article will focus on one Rho family member, Cdc42, which is overexpressed in a number of human cancers, and which might provide new therapeutic targets in malignancies. Areas covered: In this article, the key regulators and effectors of Cdc42 and their molecular alterations are described. The complex interactions between the signaling cascades regulated by Cdc42 are also analyzed. Expert opinion: While mutations in Cdc42 have not been reported in human cancer, aberrant expression of Cdc42 has been reported in a variety of tumor types and in some instances has been correlated with poor prognosis. Recently, it has been shown that Cdc42 activation by oncogenic Ras is crucial for Ras-mediated tumorigenesis, suggesting that targeting Cdc42 or its effectors might be useful in tumors harboring activating Ras mutations.
Preoperative arterial embolization of large liver hemangiomas INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY

RESULTS A total of 19 enucleations and six anatomic resections were performed. Operative time, intraoperative bleeding amount, Pringle period, and blood transfusion were comparable between the two groups (P > 0.05, for all). The perioperative serum aspartate transaminase level was not different between groups (P = 1.000). Perioperative total bilirubin levels were significantly increased in the PSIAE group (P = 0.041). Postoperative hospital stay was longer in the PSIAE group. Surgical complications were comparable between groups (P = 0.476).
A High-Frequency Mutation in Bacillus subtilis: Requirements for the Decryptification of the gudB Glutamate Dehydrogenase Gene

ABSTRACT Common laboratory strains of Bacillus subtilis encode two glutamate dehydrogenases: the enzymatically active protein RocG and the cryptic enzyme GudB that is inactive due to a duplication of three amino acids in its active center. The inactivation of the rocG gene results in poor growth of the bacteria on complex media due to the accumulation of toxic intermediates. Therefore, rocG mutants readily acquire suppressor mutations that decryptify the gudB gene. This decryptification occurs by a precise deletion of one part of the 9-bp direct repeat that causes the amino acid duplication. This mutation occurs at the extremely high frequency of 10−4. Mutations affecting the integrity of the direct repeat result in a strong reduction of the mutation frequency; however, the actual sequence of the repeat is not essential. The mutation frequency of gudB was not affected by the position of the gene on the chromosome. When the direct repeat was placed in the completely different context of an artificial promoter, the precise deletion of one part of the repeat was also observed, but the mutation frequency was reduced by 3 orders of magnitude. Thus, transcription of the gudB gene seems to be essential for the high frequency of the appearance of the gudB1 mutation. This idea is supported by the finding that the transcription-repair coupling factor Mfd is required for the decryptification of gudB. The Mfd-mediated coupling of transcription to mutagenesis might be a built-in precaution that facilitates the accumulation of mutations preferentially in transcribed genes.
IoT: Source of test challenges

The semiconductor industry has been driving a major part of its growth through first the PC and more recently the mobile market. Unfortunately, the PC market is in decline and also the end of the growth curve for mobile products is in sight now that virtually everyone on the planet has a smartphone and/or tablet. Hence, the semiconductor industry is putting its bets on `Internet of Things' (IoT) as the next application wave that will allow them to sell a lot of silicon real estate. Although what exactly IoT encompasses is under definition and hence still volatile, the first emerging products depict an image which is quite different from the traditional microprocessors or smartphone SOCs: small but with ubiquitous presence, wirelessly connected, energy harvesting, equipped with smart sensors, secure, and low cost. All these aspects have a profound impact on the challenges, solutions, and associated trade-offs for testing IoT chips and provide rich grounds for research. This paper provides seven views from different angles.
EFFECTS OF SINGLE‐ VS. MULTIPLE‐SET RESISTANCE TRAINING ON MAXIMUM STRENGTH AND BODY COMPOSITION IN TRAINED POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a single- vs. a multiple-set resistance training protocol in well-trained early postmenopausal women. Subjects (N = 71) were randomly assigned to begin either with 12 weeks of the single-set or 12 weeks of the multiple-set protocol. After another 5 weeks of regenerational resistance training, the subgroup performing the single-set protocol during the first 12 weeks crossed over to the 12-week multiple-set protocol and vice versa. Neither exercise type nor exercise intensity, degree of fatigue, rest periods, speed of movement, training sessions per week, compliance and attendance, or periodization strategy differed between exercise protocols. Body mass, body composition, and 1 repetition maximum (1RM) values for leg press, bench press, rowing, and leg adduction were measured at baseline and after each period. Multiple-set training resulted in significant increases (3.5–5.5%) for all 4 strength measurements, whereas single-set training resulted in significant decreases (21.1 to 22.0%). Body mass and body composition did not change during the study. The results show that, in pretrained subjects, multiple-set protocols are superior to single-set protocols in increasing maximum strength.
The significance of oxytocin in canine mammary tumours

Oxytocin is a hormone which plays a crucial role in many reproductive and behavioural functions. It affects many organs and the classical peripheral targets are the mammary glands during lactation and uterus during labour. Oxytocin receptors have recently been described in a variety of normal tissues and primary cell cultures, but also in neoplastic tissues and established neoplastic cell lines, as breast cancer cell lines. The signalling pathways and biological effects of the oxytocin/oxytocin receptor system seem to depend on species, type of tissue, physiological versus neoplastic state and receptor location within the cell membrane. The aim of this project was to find out if the cell proliferation in the canine mammary carcinoma cell line CMT-U27 was affected upon stimulation of oxytocin, and to investigate the presence of oxytocin receptors in these cells. The cell proliferation was examined by using an ELISA-kit, where the absorbance measured is relative to the amount of living cells. Immunocytochemistry was used to detect possible oxytocin receptors. The results showed that there was significant inhibition of the cell proliferation with the addition of oxytocin. In three different assays at least one cell concentration showed significant inhibition of the cell growth. The immunocytochemistry analysis showed the presence of oxytocin receptors and based on the location of the receptors it seemed to be at least two groups within the cell line. Some of the cells show marked staining in the nuclear membrane and some seemed to be unstained or had weak staining in the cell membrane or cytoplasm. Since the location of the oxytocin receptors show that they have been activated, further studies can find out which of the cells that produce oxytocin, and if the possible synthesis leads to paracrine or autocrine stimulation.