Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maintaining retinal astrocytes normalizes revascularization and prevents vascular pathology associated with oxygen‐induced retinopathy

Astrocytes are well known modulators of normal developmental retinal vascularization. However, relatively little is known about the role of glial cells during pathological retinal neovascularization (NV), a leading contributor to vision loss in industrialized nations. We demonstrate that the loss of astrocytes and microglia directly correlates with the development of pathological NV in a mouse model of oxygen‐induced retinopathy (OIR). These two distinct glial cell populations were found to have cooperative survival effects in vitro and in vivo. The intravitreal injection of myeloid progenitor cells, astrocytes, or astrocyte‐conditioned media rescued endogenous astrocytes from degeneration that normally occurs within the hypoxic, vaso‐obliterated retina following return to normoxia. Protection of the retinal astrocytes and microglia was directly correlated with accelerated revascularization of the normal retinal plexuses and reduction of pathological intravitreal NV normally associated with OIR. Using astrocyte‐conditioned media, several factors were identified that may contribute to the observed astrocytic protection and subsequent normalization of the retinal vasculature, including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Injection of VEGF or bFGF at specific doses rescued the retinas from developing OIR‐associated pathology, an effect that was also preceded by protection of endogenous glia from hypoxia‐induced degeneration. Together, these data suggest that vascular‐associated glia are also required for normalized revascularization of the hypoxic retina. Methods developed to target and protect glial cells may provide a novel strategy by which normalized revascularization can be promoted and the consequences of abnormal NV in retinal vascular diseases can be prevented. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Monolingual and Multilingual Question Answering on European Legislation

This paper documents the participation of the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence to the CLEF 2010 ResPubliQA lab. We answered questions in Romanian and English from Romanian documents of Acquis Communautaire and the European Parliament Proceedings. We extend the report from the previous ResPubliQA participation by introducing multi-factored paragraph relevance score training onto English-Romanian QA. We also investigate how our monolingual parametric QA system developed for the last year’s ResPubliQA track scales up to current challenges.
Observation of Interfacial Damage in a Silk‐Epoxy Composite, Using a Simple Mechanoresponsive Fluorescent Probe

Polymer composites are found throughout the world both natural and artificial in origin. In the vast majority of applications, composites serve as structural support or reinforcement roles. Demand for lightweight tough composites is growing in multiple application spaces such as areospace, biomaterials, and infrastructure with physical properties as diverse as the applications. The unifying component in all composites is the presence of an interphase. Many measurement techniques and measurement tools have been developed for the study of this crucial region in composite materials. Many of these methods are great for the measurment and study of bulk properties or model systems. However, development of methods that permit the direct observation of interactions at the interphase during applied stress are needed. Here we employ fluorescence lifetime imaging and hyperspectral imaging to observe activation of a fluorogenic dye at the composite interface as a result of applied stress. The advantages of this sytem include commercial availability of the dye precursor, and simple one‐pot functionalization. The attachment of the dye at the interface is easily monitored through emission wavelength shifts and fluorescence lifetime variations. Interfacial mechano‐responsive dyes have potential for both fundamental studies as well as industrial use as a structural health monitoring tool.
Laboratory and Astronomical Detection of New Carbon Chains and Rings

Discoveries of large new organic molecules in space help provide a foundation for understanding the role of the chemical bond and organic chemistry on a cosmic scale, and by extension, an opportunity to begin to address the interesting but far more complicated questions of chemical and biological origins and the issues that relate to them. Most of the organic molecules so far detected in the interstellar gas and circum-stellar shells by radio telescopes are highly unsaturated carbon chains, a configuration of linear carbon which is unstable at high density, and therefore unfamiliar on Earth. For this reason laboratory detection until quite recently has lagged behind astronomical discovery of many new carbon molecules. The application of Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy to supersonic molecular beams has now largely overcome this obstacle, yielding in just over three years the laboratory detection of forty-four new carbon chains and eight new carbon ring-chains and rings, including two rhomboidal isomers of SiC 3. The set consists of 14 polyynes, 20 carbon chain radicals, and 18 free carbenes. For four other triplet chains HC 7H, HCgH, HCIlH, and HC 13H, which by symmetry are non-polar, strong electronic spectra have been measured in the gas-phase by cavity ringdown absorption spectroscopy. Almost all of these molecules are good candidates for detection in space, and six in fact have now been detected in at least one astronomical source with large radio telescopes during the past two years. The laboratory astrophysics of the entire set is complete for the time being, in the sense that nearly all the rotational transitions of interest to radio astronomy can be calculated to a small fraction of 1 km sec-1 in equivalent radial velocity. With powerful new radio facilities planned or under construction it would be surprising if many more could not eventually be found. For each of the four new symmetric chains detected in the visible, the wavelength of the origin band has been measured to high accuracy, permitting deliberate searches for these molecules in diffuse and translucent molecular clouds.
Prediction-based learning for continuous emotion recognition in speech

In this paper, a prediction-based learning framework is proposed for a continuous prediction task of emotion recognition from speech, which is one of the key components of affective computing in multimedia. The main goal of this framework is to utmost exploit the individual advantages of different regression models cooperatively. To this end, we take two widely used regression models for example, i. e. , support vector regression and bidirectional long short-term memory recurrent neural network. We concatenate the two models in a tandem structure by different ways, forming a united cascaded framework. The outputs predicted by the former model are combined together with the original features as the input of the following model for final predictions. The experimental results on a time- and value-continuous spontaneous emotion database (RECOLA) show that, the prediction-based learning framework significantly outperforms the individual models for both arousal and valence dimensions, and provides significantly better results in comparison to other state-of-the-art methodologies on this corpus.
Inhibition of Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3&bgr; During Heart Failure Is Protective

Glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3, a negative regulator of cardiac hypertrophy, is inactivated in failing hearts. To examine the histopathological and functional consequence of the persistent inhibition of GSK-3&bgr; in the heart in vivo, we generated transgenic mice with cardiac-specific overexpression of dominant negative GSK-3&bgr; (Tg-GSK-3&bgr;-DN) and tetracycline-regulatable wild-type GSK-3&bgr;. GSK-3&bgr;-DN significantly reduced the kinase activity of endogenous GSK-3&bgr;, inhibited phosphorylation of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2Bϵ, and induced accumulation of &bgr;-catenin and myeloid cell leukemia-1, confirming that GSK-3&bgr;-DN acts as a dominant negative in vivo. Tg-GSK-3&bgr;-DN exhibited concentric hypertrophy at baseline, accompanied by upregulation of the &agr;-myosin heavy chain gene and increases in cardiac function, as evidenced by a significantly greater Emax after dobutamine infusion and percentage of contraction in isolated cardiac myocytes, indicating that inhibition of GSK-3&bgr; induces well-compensated hypertrophy. Although transverse aortic constriction induced a similar increase in hypertrophy in both Tg-GSK-3&bgr;-DN and nontransgenic mice, Tg-GSK-3&bgr;-DN exhibited better left ventricular function and less fibrosis and apoptosis than nontransgenic mice. Induction of the GSK-3&bgr; transgene in tetracycline-regulatable wild-type GSK-3&bgr; mice induced left ventricular dysfunction and premature death, accompanied by increases in apoptosis and fibrosis. Overexpression of GSK-3&bgr;-DN in cardiac myocytes inhibited tumor necrosis factor-&agr;–induced apoptosis, and the antiapoptotic effect of GSK-3&bgr;-DN was abrogated in the absence of myeloid cell leukemia-1. These results suggest that persistent inhibition of GSK-3&bgr; induces compensatory hypertrophy, inhibits apoptosis and fibrosis, and increases cardiac contractility and that the antiapoptotic effect of GSK-3&bgr; inhibition is mediated by myeloid cell leukemia-1. Thus, downregulation of GSK-3&bgr; during heart failure could be compensatory.
Designed zinc finger protein interacting with the HIV‐1 integrase recognition sequence at 2‐LTR‐circle junctions

Integration of HIV‐1 cDNA into the host genome is a crucial step for viral propagation. Two nucleotides, cytosine and adenine (CA), conserved at the 3′ end of the viral cDNA genome, are cleaved by the viral integrase (IN) enzyme. As IN plays a crucial role in the early stages of the HIV‐1 life cycle, substrate blockage of IN is an attractive strategy for therapeutic interference. In this study, we used the 2‐LTR‐circle junctions of HIV‐1 DNA as a model to design zinc finger protein (ZFP) targeting at the end terminal portion of HIV‐1 LTR. A six‐contiguous ZFP, namely 2LTRZFP was designed using zinc finger tools. The designed motif was expressed and purified from E. coli to determine its binding properties. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was used to determine the binding affinity of 2LTRZFP to its target DNA. The level of dissociation constant (Kd) was 12.0 nM. The competitive SPR confirmed that 2LTRZFP specifically interacted with its target DNA. The qualitative binding activity was subsequently determined by EMSA and demonstrated the aforementioned correlation. In addition, molecular modeling and binding energy analyses were carried out to provide structural insight into the binding of 2LTRZFP to the specific and nonspecific DNA target. It is suggested that hydrogen‐bonding interactions play a key role in the DNA recognition mechanisms of the designed ZFP. Our study suggested an alternative HIV therapeutic strategy using ZFP interference of the HIV integration process.
Interactions of Macromolecular Crowding Agents and Cosolutes with Small-Molecule Substrates: Effect on Horseradish Peroxidase Activity with Two Different Substrates

The importance of solution composition on enzymatic reactions is increasingly appreciated, particularly with respect to macromolecular cosolutes. Macromolecular crowding and its effect on enzymatic reactions has been studied for several enzymes and is often understood in terms of changes to enzyme conformation. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the chemical properties of small-molecule substrates for enzyme reactions in crowded solution. In this article, we studied the reaction of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) with two small-molecule substrates that differ in their hydrophobicity. Crowding agents and cosolutes had quite different effects on HRP activity when the substrate used was 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB, which is hydrophobic) as compared to o-phenylenediamine (OPD, which is more hydrophilic). Reaction rates with TMB were much more sensitive to the presence of crowding agents and cosolutes than OPD, suggesting that the small-molecule substrates may themselves be interacting with crowders and cosolutes. At high polyethylene glycol (PEG) concentrations (25–30 wt/wt %), no reaction was observed for TMB. Even at lower concentrations, Michaelis constants (KM) for HRP with the more hydrophobic substrate increased in the presence of crowding agents and cosolutes, particularly with PEG. Diffusion of TMB and OPD in the PEG and dextran reaction media was evaluated using pulsed field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFG-NMR). The diffusivity of the TMB decreased 3.9× in 10% PEG 8k compared to that in buffer and decreased only 1.7× for OPD. Together, these data suggest that weak attractive interactions between small-molecule substrates and crowders or cosolutes can reduce substrate chemical activity and consequently decrease enzyme activity and that these effects vary with the identity of the molecules involved. Because many enzymes can act on multiple substrates, it is important to consider substrate chemistry in understanding enzymatic reactions in complex media such as biological fluids.
Control of Axonal Growth and Regeneration of Sensory Neurons by the p110δ PI 3-Kinase

The expression and function of the 8 distinct catalytic isoforms of PI 3-kinase (PI3K) in the nervous system are unknown. Whereas most PI3Ks have a broad tissue distribution, the tyrosine kinase-linked p110δ isoform has previously been shown to be enriched in leukocytes. Here we report that p110δ is also highly expressed in the nervous system. Inactivation of p110δ in mice did not affect gross neuronal development but led to an increased vulnerability of dorsal root ganglia neurons to exhibit growth cone collapse and decreases in axonal extension. Loss of p110δ activity also dampened axonal regeneration following peripheral nerve injury in adult mice and impaired functional recovery of locomotion. p110δ inactivation resulted in reduced neuronal signaling through the Akt protein kinase, and increased activity of the small GTPase RhoA. Pharmacological inhibition of ROCK, a downstream effector of RhoA, restored axonal extension defects in neurons with inactive p110δ, suggesting a key role of RhoA in p110δ signaling in neurons. Our data identify p110δ as an important signaling component for efficient axonal elongation in the developing and regenerating nervous system.
Microscopic medical image classification framework via deep learning and shearlet transform

Abstract. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in US after cardiovascular disease. Image-based computer-aided diagnosis can assist physicians to efficiently diagnose cancers in early stages. Existing computer-aided algorithms use hand-crafted features such as wavelet coefficients, co-occurrence matrix features, and recently, histogram of shearlet coefficients for classification of cancerous tissues and cells in images. These hand-crafted features often lack generalizability since every cancerous tissue and cell has a specific texture, structure, and shape. An alternative approach is to use convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn the most appropriate feature abstractions directly from the data and handle the limitations of hand-crafted features. A framework for breast cancer detection and prostate Gleason grading using CNN trained on images along with the magnitude and phase of shearlet coefficients is presented. Particularly, we apply shearlet transform on images and extract the magnitude and phase of shearlet coefficients. Then we feed shearlet features along with the original images to our CNN consisting of multiple layers of convolution, max pooling, and fully connected layers. Our experiments show that using the magnitude and phase of shearlet coefficients as extra information to the network can improve the accuracy of detection and generalize better compared to the state-of-the-art methods that rely on hand-crafted features. This study expands the application of deep neural networks into the field of medical image analysis, which is a difficult domain considering the limited medical data available for such analysis.
A Comparison of Student Skill Knowledge Estimates

A fundamental goal of educational research is identifying students' current stage of skill mastery (complete/partial /none). In recent years a number of cognitive diagnosis models have become a popular means of estimating student skill knowledge. However, these models become difficult to estimate as the number of students, items, and skills grows. There exist alternatives such as sum-scores and the capability matrix. While initial theoretical work on sum-scores has been done by [3], the behavior of sum-scores and the capability matrix is not well understood with respect to each other or to estimates from cognitive diagnosis models. In this paper we compare the performance of the three estimates of student skill skill knowledge under a variety of clustering methods.
Threat By Association: Minimal Group Affiliation And Its Outcome For Stereotype Threat

THREAT BY ASSOCIATION: MINIMAL GROUP AFFILIATION AND ITS OUTCOME FOR STEREOTYPE THREAT by ERIC W. FULLER August 2010 Adviser: Dr. Rusty McIntyre Major: Psychology (Social) Degree: Master of Arts Stereotype threat has been shown to be an important cause of performance detriments in various social groups. It has also been theorized that stereotype threat could be applicable to any group so long as the individual believes their performance may reinforce the negative stereotype. The current work attempts to induce stereotype threat in participants believing they belong to an experimentally created and negatively stereotyped group using a minimal group paradigm. Across two studies there did not appear to be significant performance changes typically observed in stereotype threat research. Various cognitive measures and post-performance inquiries did generally support claims that participants were identifying and processing the stereotypes according to the instructions provided, suggesting that although performance was not affected, traditionally thought stereotype threat processes were occurring. Unexpected gender effects were also observed in both performance and post-test measures and are explored where appropriate. Suggestions for future iterations of the current work are suggested in light of the unsupported hypotheses.
A Gibbs Sampler for Phrasal Synchronous Grammar Induction

We present a phrasal synchronous grammar model of translational equivalence. Unlike previous approaches, we do not resort to heuristics or constraints from a word-alignment model, but instead directly induce a synchronous grammar from parallel sentence-aligned corpora. We use a hierarchical Bayesian prior to bias towards compact grammars with small translation units. Inference is performed using a novel Gibbs sampler over synchronous derivations. This sampler side-steps the intractability issues of previous models which required inference over derivation forests. Instead each sampling iteration is highly efficient, allowing the model to be applied to larger translation corpora than previous approaches.
Embrittlement of alloy 625 and effect of remedial treatments

This study investigated the susceptibility of alloy 625 to embrittlement in the temperature range 600–800 ℃ using simulated thermal treatments, specimens from ex-service petroleum industry components and subsequent remedial heat treatment. Embrittlement was quantified by conducting impact testing using the Charpy V-notch method and the results discussed in terms of precipitate formation and ageing. The results of annealing the exposed samples at high temperature are presented, demonstrating that embrittlement is most detrimental at intermediate temperatures (i.e. 650 ℃). The study confirms that a 24-h remedial heat treatment of embrittled alloy 625 leads to significant recovery of impact energy on ex-service samples.
Virtual Fields Method on Planar Tension Tests for Hyperelastic Materials Characterisation

Abstract: New methods are emerging in the material characterisation field with the aim of exploiting innovative full‐field strain measurement techniques. Besides experimental issues, also numerical procedures for inverse problems should adapt to a new philosophy: the large amount of data referred to local strains should be used in an appropriate way to obtain as much benefits as possible. In this context, an experimental and numerical procedure for the characterisation of hyperelastic materials is proposed. Planar tension tests have been performed on flat rubber specimens of different geometries. Strain maps obtained by means of a 2D Digital Image Correlation system are used to implement the virtual fields method, to estimate material dependent parameters of two of the most known hyperelastic constitutive laws: Ogden and 2nd order Mooney‐Rivlin models. Numerical results and comparisons with experimental data are shown, analysing also aspects concerning implementation of the numerical procedures and computational efficiency of the algorithms.
Nanostructured hyaluronic acid-based materials for active delivery to cancer

Importance of the field: Active targeting of bioactive molecules by physicochemical association with hyaluronic acid (HA) is an attractive approach in current nanomedicine because HA is biocompatible, non-toxic and non-inflammatory. Areas covered in this review: This review focuses on synthesis, physicochemical characterization and biological properties of different nanoparticulate delivery systems that include HA in their structures. Chemically based approaches to the delivery of small molecule drugs, proteins and nucleic acids in which they become chemically or physically bound to hyaluronic acid are reviewed, including the use of molecular HA conjugates and nanocarriers. The systems are considered in terms of intracellular delivery to different cultured cells that express HA-specific receptors (hyaladherines) differently. The in vivo biodistribution and therapeutic effect of these systems are discussed. What the reader will gain: Different synthetic methodologies for preparations of HA-based nanoparticles are presented extensively. HA nanoparticulate systems of various structures can be compared with respect to their in vitro assays and in vivo biodistribution. Take home message: To make HA useful as an intravenous targeting carrier, strategies have to be devised to: reduce HA clearance from the blood; suppress the HA uptake by liver and spleen; and provide tumor-triggered mechanisms of release of an active drug from the HA carrier.
Improved thermal and mechanical properties of poly(butylene succinate) by polymer blending with a thermotropic liquid crystalline polyester

A novel polymer blending system consisting of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) and a thermotropic liquid crystalline polyester [LCP: a poly(4-hydroxybenzoate)-based polymer] was investigated in the presence and absence of a polycarbodiimide (PCD) and/or 1,1′-carbonyl biscaprolactam (CBC) as chain extenders. Although the LCP was immiscible with PBS, it formed elongated fibrous domains having an orientation in the flowing direction when an extensional flow was applied during the processing. Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the injection-molded polymer blends supported the distribution of micro fibrils of LCP in the PBS matrix by which the efficient toughening was provided. These blend specimens showed highly improved mechanical properties along with retaining high dynamic storage-moduli (E′) up to the melting temperature of PBS. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 39952.