Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blocking SDF-1α/CXCR4 Downregulates PDGF-B and Inhibits Bone Marrow–Derived Pericyte Differentiation and Tumor Vascular Expansion in Ewing Tumors

Bone marrow cells (BMC) are critical to the expansion of the tumor vessel network that supports Ewing sarcoma growth. BMCs migrate to the tumor and differentiate into endothelial cells and pericytes. We recently demonstrated that stromal-derived growth factor 1α (SDF-1α) regulates platelet-derived growth factor B (PDGF-B) and that this pathway plays a critical role in bone marrow–derived pericyte differentiation in vitro. We investigated the role of SDF-1α/PDGF-B in the tumor microenvironment in vivo in promoting bone marrow–derived pericyte differentiation in Ewing tumors. The CXCR4 antagonist AMD 3100 was used to disrupt the SDF-1α/CXCR4 axis in vivo in two xenograft Ewing tumor models. BMCs from GFP+ transgenic mice were transplanted into lethally irradiated nude mice to track BMC migration to the tumor site. Following BMC engraftment, tumor-bearing mice received daily subcutaneous injections of either PBS or AMD 3100 for 3 weeks. Tumors were resected and tumor sections were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. AMD 3100 inhibited BMC differentiation into desmin+ and NG2+ pericytes, affected the morphology of the tumor vasculature, decreased perfusion, and increased tumor cell apoptosis. We observed smaller vessels with tiny lumens and a decrease in the microvessel density. AMD 3100 also inhibited PDGF-B protein expression in vitro and in vivo. SDF-1α in the tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in promoting pericyte formation and Ewing sarcoma tumor neovascularization by regulating PDGF-B expression. Interfering with this pathway affects tumor vascular morphology and expansion. Mol Cancer Ther; 13(2); 483–91. ©2013 AACR.
Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak During Treatment With Bevacizumab and Irinotecan After Carmustine-Impregnated Wafers Placement in Patients With Grade 2 Oligodendroglioma and Glioblastoma Multiforme: Report of Two Cases and Review of Literature

ABSTRACT Placement of carmustine-impregnated wafers has become a common practice after surgical resection of malignant gliomas. Bevacizumab is used as a second-line agent for the treatment of malignant gliomas and is sometimes used in patients who have had recent wafer implantation. We describe two cases of fatal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak in patients treated with bevacizumab and irinotecan after 4 weeks of carmustine wafer implantation. Possible mechanisms for the CSF leak in these patients are discussed. We recommend waiting for a longer period of time before starting bevacizumab in patients who had implantation of carmustine wafers.
Exploring dynamic capabilities, intellectual capital and innovation performance relationship: evidence from the garment manufacturing

The notions of dynamic capabilities, intellectual capital, and innovation performance have been examined in many competitive advantage scholarly papers. However, there have been small numbers of management studies that consider the link of dynamic capabilities and intellectual capital in respect of innovation performance. Previous studies tend to argue that dynamic capabilities played a mediator or moderator role on intellectual capital and innovation performance linkage. Therefore, this study seeks to propose a new perspective that dynamic capabilities are the antecedents of intellectual capital leading to innovation performance. Thus, the rationale for this study is to propose a conceptual model and to provide empirical support on the mediator role of intellectual capital in dynamic capabilities and innovation performance linkage. By using accidental and snowballs sampling techniques, this study distributed questionnaires to 297 small and medium enterprises of the garment manufacturing in Indonesia. Partial least square offers the main statistics methodology for data analysis. Results show that dynamic capabilities had a significant influence on intellectual capital and innovation performance. Moreover, intellectual capital partially mediated dynamic capabilities’ influence on innovation performance. Therefore, it is expected that organisations should grow, implement and maintain their dynamic capabilities in order to improve their intellectual capital and innovation outcomes. Lastly, some future studies are suggested.
Generation of mice that conditionally express the activation domain of Notch2

The Notch pathway is an intercellular signaling mechanism frequently used for controlling cell fate during organogenesis. There are four structurally related Notch receptors in mice and humans, and Notch1 and Notch2 are essential genes. In this report we describe the construction of a transgenic mouse strain that expresses the Notch2 intracellular domain in response to cell lineage specific expression of Cre recombinase. This approach bypasses the requirement for ligand‐ receptor interaction and allows the direct determination of the consequences of Notch2 activation in vivo. Exogenous expression of the Notch2 intracellular domain resulted in the developmental arrest of secondary heart field derived cardiomyocytes during the transition from immature α‐Smooth Muscle Actin expressing cells to mature α‐Actinin positive cardiomyocytes. In contrast, a cell nonautonomous mesenchymal expansion was observed in semilunar valves. This new conditionally expressed allele of Notch2 can be used in studies by investigators interested in the effects of Notch2 activation in vivo. genesis, 47:573–578, 2009. Published 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Further Identification and Characterization of Novel Intermediate and Mature Cleavage Products Released from the ORF 1b Region of the Avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus 1a/1b Polyprotein

Abstract The coronavirus 3C-like proteinase is one of the viral proteinases responsible for processing of the 1a and 1a/1b polyproteins to multiple mature products. In cells infected with avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), three proteins of 100, 39, and 35 kDa, respectively, were previously identified as mature cleavage products released from the 1b region of the 1a/1b polyprotein by the 3C-like proteinase. In this report, we show the identification of two more cleavage products of 68 and 58 kDa released from the same region of the polyprotein. In addition, two stable intermediate cleavage products with molecular masses of 160 and 132 kDa, respectively, were identified in IBV-infected cells. The 160-kDa protein was shown to be an intermediate cleavage product covering the 100- and 68-kDa proteins, and the 132-kDa protein to be an intermediate cleavage product covering the 58-, 39-, and 35-kDa proteins. Immunofluorescent staining of IBV-infected cells and cells expressing individual cleavage products showed that the 100-, 68-, and 58-kDa proteins were associated with the membranes of the endoplasmic reticulum, and the 39- and 35-kDa proteins displayed diffuse distribution patterns.
Variance in three-dimensional reconstructions from projections

Methods for estimation of variance for the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction from projections are introduced. First, a Fourier space variance for a class of 3D reconstruction algorithms that involve interpolation is derived. It is used to construct a test for the validity of the single particle analysis process. Second, a real space variance/covariance for an arbitrary reconstruction algorithm is introduced. It is calculated using a bootstrap technique and used to investigate conformational variability of biological macromolecules.
Z-source matrix converter with unity voltage transfer ratio

This paper proposes a novel Z-source matrix converter structure and a switching technique for unity voltage transfer ratio. The conventional matrix converter is well known for its advantages over a DC-linked back-to-back converter, but yet it does not receive much attention in the industry owing to its reduced voltage ratio (max. 0.866). To overcome the inherent drawback of the low voltage transfer ratio, a novel matrix converter topology employing a Z-source network is introduced, and then the operating principle and control scheme are clarified. A simulation of the overall system is carried out and theoretical calculations and feasibility of the proposed topology are verified. The results show that the proposed Z-source matrix converter can achieve unity voltage transfer ratio by controlling shoot-through zero interval (T0) and the proposed switching strategy can effectively reduce the harmonic distortion of output waveforms.
Image Retrieval-Based Decision Support System for Dermatoscopic Images

This paper presents a content-based image retrieval system for dermatoscopic images as a diagnostic aid to the dermatologists for skin cancer recognition. In this context, the ultimate aim is to support decision making by locating, retrieving and displaying relevant past cases along with diagnostic reports. However, most challenging aspect in this domain is to extract local lesion specific image features and define the relevance between query and database images for retrieval. A fast and automatic segmentation method to detect the lesion from background healthy skin is proposed. This method first transforms a color image into an intensity image by utilizing domain specific image properties and NBS color distance in HVC color space. Lesion mask is detected by fusing individually segmented images based on iterative thresholding. Lesion specific local color and texture features are extracted and represented in the form of mean and variance-covariance of color channels and in a reduced PCA sub-space. Finally, for effective image retrieval, a similarity matching function is defined based on the fusion of a Bhattacharyya and Euclidean distance metric. The performance of the retrieval system is evaluated using average precision on a collection of 358 images, which demonstrates effectiveness of the proposed approach
Spatial resolution of domain copying in a magnetic domain expansion readout disk

In a magnetic amplifying magnetooptical system (MAMMOS) disk, the copying process of a magnetic domain from the recording layer into the readout layer is investigated by using a laser spot diameter of 0.66 /spl mu/m. Interference between neighboring bits occurs when the spatial resolution of the copy process is larger than half the domain size. It is observed that a reduction of the readout power from 2.3 to 2.0 mW corresponds to a decrease of the copy window from 0.5 to 0.06 /spl mu/m. As a result, at 2.0 mW packed magnetic domains with a width of only 0.11 /spl mu/m have been resolved without interference by using domain expansion.
New contributions in overcomplete image representations inspired from the functional architecture of the primary visual cortex = Nuevas contribuciones en representaciones sobrecompletas de imágenes inspiradas por la arquitectura funcional de la corteza visual primaria

La presente tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo indagar en algunos paralelismos entre la arquitectura funcional de las areas visuales primarias y el tratamiento de imagenes, Un primer objetivo consiste en mejorar los modelos existentes de vision biologica basandose en la teoria de la informacion. Un segundo es el desarrollo de nuevos algoritmos de tratamiento de imagenes inspirados de la vision natural. Los datos disponibles sobre el sistema visual abarcan estudios fisiologicos y psicofisicos, psicologia Gestalt y estadisticas de las imagenes naturales. La tesis se centra principalmente en las representaciones sobrecompletas (i.e. representaciones que incrementan la dimensionalidad de los datos) por las siguientes razones. Primero porque permiten sobrepasar importantes desventajas de las transformaciones ortogonales; segundo porque los modelos de vision biologica necesitan a menudo ser sobrecompletos y tercero porque construir representaciones sobrecompletas eficientes involucra problemas matematicos relevantes y novedosos, en particular el problema de las aproximaciones dispersas. La tesis propone primero una transformacion en ondiculas log-Gabor auto-inversible inspirada del campo receptivo y la organizacion en multiresolucion de las celulas simples del cortex visual primario (V1). Esta transformacion ofrece resultados prometedores para la eliminacion del ruido. En segundo lugar, las interacciones observadas entre las celulas de V1 que consisten en la inhibicion lateral y en la facilitacion entre celulas alineadas se han mostrado eficientes para extraer los bordes de las imagenes naturales. En tercer lugar, la redundancia introducida por la transformacion sobrecompleta se reduce gracias a un algoritmo dedicado de aproximacion dispersa el cual construye una representacion dispersa de las imagenes sobre la base de sus bordes. Para una decorrelacion adicional y para conseguir mas altas tasas de compresion, los bordes alineados a lo
Roles and Limitations of FDG PET in Pediatric Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Purpose The usefulness of 18F fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma (p-HL) has been well demonstrated; however, pediatric non-Hodgkin lymphoma (p-NHL) has distinct characteristics from p-HL and adult NHL. We assessed roles of FDG PET in p-NHL. Materials and Methods Nineteen patients with p-NHL underwent 80 scans. Scans for staging (group A, n = 6) and response assessment (group B, n = 42) were compared with conventional imaging modalities (CIMs). Scans within group B for end-chemotherapy assessment (subgroup B+, n = 11) and for post-therapeutic surveillance (group C, n = 32) were analyzed for diagnostic performance. Results In group A, PET and CIM demonstrated comparable results. In group B, PET diagnoses were concordant with CIM in 21 and discordant in 11 studies. Of the discordant cases, PET suggested remnant lesions in 5 cases, whereas CIM suggested lesions in 6 cases. PET modified therapeutic strategy in 4 cases by detecting new extranodal lesions. In subgroup B+, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for predicting relapse were 50%, 71%, and 64%, respectively. In group C, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 100%, 87%, and 88%, respectively, but positive predictive value was 33%. Conclusions The role of FDG PET in p-NHL may be limited, unlike with p-HL or adult NHL. Nevertheless, FDG PET may serve complementarily in detecting unexpected lesions that can emerge in p-NHL.
Approche computationnelle de l'acquisition précoce des phonèmes

Pendant leur premiere annee de vie, les bebes acquierent tres rapidement differents aspects de la phonologie de leur langue maternelle, notamment grâce a des mecanismes d'apprentissage statistique. Nous nous interessons a l'hypothese selon laquelle les bebes detectent les distributions complementaires de segments pour apprendre les regles allophoniques (et les phonemes) de leur langue. Nous avons etudie la faisabilite de cette hypothese a l'aide d'un algorithme statistique teste sur des corpus de langues artificielles et naturelles. Nous avons trouve que l'algorithme detecte efficacement les regles allophoniques ainsi que des fausses alertes qui peuvent etre eliminees par un filtre phonotactique et des filtres linguistiques qui imposent des contraintes de naturalite sur les regles allophoniques. Au total, notre etude suggere qu'il est possible d'apprendre les regles allophoniques de facon prelexicale a partir de quelques principes computationnels et biais d'apprentissage.
Glutamate regulates caveolin expression in rat hippocampal neurons

Caveolae are cholesterol‐rich, membrane microdomains that appear critical to signaling between extracellular and intracellular macromolecules as well as cholesterol homeostasis. Caveolae formation is modulated by caveolin, a protein family that is the proteinaceous hallmark of caveolae. Very little is known regarding the events that modulate caveolin expression and regulation in neurons. To detect caveolin expression in neurons, primary rat hippocampal neurons were harvested at embryonic day 18, maintained for 7 days in vitro, and then analyzed for caveolin immunofluorescence. Caveolin‐1 immunoreactivity was detected in cells that were identified as neurons by morphology and concurrent microtubule‐associated protein (MAP2) staining. Changes in caveolin‐1 expression were evaluated by reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) analyses of RNA isolated from hippocampal neurons treated with glutamate receptor agonists. Glutamate induced a concentration‐dependent increase in caveolin‐1 mRNA. The largest increases in caveolin‐1 mRNA were detected after 6 hours of treatment. Kainate and AMPA both mimicked glutamate effects on caveolin‐1 mRNA expression. Western blot analyses revealed that caveolin was induced at the protein level as well. Taken together, these data suggest that glutamate can regulate caveolin expression through kainate and AMPA ionotropic glutamate receptors. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Automatic Annotation of Medical Records

One of the research projects running at the medical informatics department of the Institute of Computer Science AS CR explores the problem of medical information representation and development of electronic health record (EHR). With respect to this effort an interesting problem arises: how to transfer knowledge from a medical record written in a free text form into a structured electronic format represented by the EHR. Currently, this task was solved by writing extraction rules (regular expressions) for every element of information that is to be extracted from the medical record. However, such approach is very time consuming and requires supervision of a skilled programmer whenever the target area of medicine is changed. In this article we explore the possibility to mechanize this process by automatically generating the extraction rules from a pre-annotated corpus of medical records. Since we are currently in the phase of data acquisition and preliminary tests we will not present any final results, rather we will sketch the technologies we intend to use and describe the tools that were developed so far as a part of this project.
Keeping found things found

Purpose This study aims to investigate the usefulness and challenges of personal digital information management (PDIM) as perceived by engineering faculty members. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative research strategy based on survey design was used to collect data through structured questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique was applied to obtain a representative sample from faculty members of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. Findings Findings indicate that faculty members understand the usefulness of PDIM practices for their teaching and learning. They opined that these practices improve their performance along with effective utilization of resources. PDIM practices save their time, energy and money. Nevertheless, they have to face challenges in managing their personal information in digital format including technology obsolescence, bulk of incoming emails, prediction of future value of information, information fragmentation and memory load in remembering the location of information. It is also noted that PDIM practices are equally useful for both male and female faculty members. However, female faculty members have to face more PDIM challenges than male faculty members. Practical implications Overall, findings of the study reveal that there are benefits of PDIM and it is useful for faculty members with certain challenges. This study identified five major challenges. All these challenges were from technological and cognitive psychology domain. It is noted that assessing future value of information plays important role in overall process of PDIM. Originality/value The present study would be valuable addition in literature and it would be helpful in devising information literacy instructions programs in academic libraries. This study would also helpful for improving quality services for teaching as required by Pakistan Engineering Council. Findings of this study would helpful for system engineers, software developers and system librarians in designing and developing personal information management systems in Pakistan.
Utilization and acquaintance of knowledge by the users of UAS, library, Dharwad

This study investigates the use of information resources and services available in the library by the postgraduate students and research scholars of University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. For the present study a well-structured questionnaire has been formulated and distributed among the postgraduate students and research scholars of Agricultural Universities in Karnataka in order to ascertain the frequency of visit to the library, frequency of use of printed information resources, use of library services, frequency of use of electronic information resources, level of satisfaction towards utilization of library resources and role of library in promoting the use of information resources. The outcome and suggestions of the study would be beneficial to take appropriate measures to improve information resources and services.
Formation of a RuvAB-Holliday junction complex in vitro.

The ruvA and ruvB genes of Escherichia coli encode a novel DNA helicase that interacts with Holliday junctions and promotes branch migration. In this work, we have investigated the protein-DNA complexes formed between RuvA, RuvB and Holliday junctions. As shown previously, RuvA protein binds a synthetic Holliday junction in vitro, to form a specific protein-DNA complex that can be detected by a band-shift assay. We now show that the combined presence of RuvA and RuvB results in a super-shift of this complex indicative of the formation of a RuvAB-Holliday junction complex. In the absence of RuvA, the RuvB protein fails to bind Holliday junctions. The RuvAB-Holliday junction complex was detected by the band-shift assay only under conditions that favoured its stability, e.g. complex formation in the presence of a nucleoside triphosphate that can not be hydrolysed by RuvB (adenosine 5'-[gamma-thio]triphosphate). In contrast, nucleoside triphosphates that can be hydrolysed (ATP, dATP, dCTP or TTP), lead to RuvAB-mediated branch migration of the junction. These results indicate that the formation of a (RuvAB-ATP)-Holliday junction complex represents the first step in the process of branch migration, and that branch migration is dependent upon ATP hydrolysis. In addition, we show that Holliday junction DNA stimulates the ATPase activity of RuvAB to a greater extent than either single-stranded or linear duplex DNA.