Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The protective role of macrophage migration inhibitory factor in acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery

Clinical data after cardiac surgery and experimental mouse models of acute kidney injury suggest a renoprotective role of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). MIF muffles kidney injury Patients undergoing open-heart surgery are susceptible to complications, including acute kidney injury (AKI). Stoppe et al. observed that patients who had high serum concentrations of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) after cardiac surgery had lower risk of AKI. Renal ischemia-reperfusion injury induced more inflammation and kidney cell death in mice lacking Mif than in wild-type mice. Treating isolated kidney cells with MIF protected against hypoxia-induced cell death. Mice treated with MIF or a soluble form of CD74 (MIF receptor) showed reduced kidney injury after ischemia-reperfusion. This study suggests that MIF may protect the kidney from ischemia-reperfusion injury. Acute kidney injury (AKI) represents the most frequent complication after cardiac surgery. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a stress-regulating cytokine that was shown to protect the heart from myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury, but its role in the pathogenesis of AKI remains unknown. In an observational study, serum and urinary MIF was quantified in 60 patients scheduled for elective conventional cardiac surgery with the use of cardiopulmonary bypass. Cardiac surgery triggered an increase in MIF serum concentrations, and patients with high circulating MIF (>median) 12 hours after surgery had a significantly reduced risk of developing AKI (relative risk reduction, 72.7%; 95% confidence interval, 12 to 91.5%; P = 0.03). Experimental AKI was induced in wild-type and Mif−/− mice by 30 min of ischemia followed by 6 or 24 hours of reperfusion, or by rhabdomyolysis. Mif-deficient mice exhibited increased tubular cell injury, increased regulated cell death (necroptosis and ferroptosis), and enhanced oxidative stress. Therapeutic administration of recombinant MIF after ischemia-reperfusion in mice ameliorated AKI. In vitro treatment of tubular epithelial cells with recombinant MIF reduced cell death and oxidative stress as measured by glutathione and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances in the setting of hypoxia. Our data provide evidence of a renoprotective role of MIF in experimental ischemia-reperfusion injury by protecting renal tubular epithelial cells, consistent with our observation that high MIF in cardiac surgery patients is associated with a reduced incidence of AKI.
Modeling How To Catch Flying Objects : Optimality Vs . Heuristics

The question how humans manage to catch flying objects is one which has long been discussed in research but still lacks a sufficient answer. It is not a trivial one because noise influences the flying object thereby changing its trajectory and both uncertainty and latency influence the human’s observations. Moreover, the task is time-critical especially for sports like table tennis where prediction and open loop behaviour is required as opposed to baseball where closed loop behaviour suffices. Though whether table tennis or baseball the goal of reaching the impact position in time to catch the ball remains the same. Heuristics were defined which describe both open loop and closed loop behaviour relying on the prediction of the ball’s trajectory or on online updates regarding the ball’s movement. Up to now no heuristic or common framework exists which combines open loop and closed loop behaviour and the latter is deemed non-optimal while the first is not generally acknowledged. This thesis tries to close the gap between open loop and closed loop heuristics through the consideration of noise and latency in the model. By approaching the question as an optimal control problem an optimal common framework shall be found. This shall combine all human catching techniques and include an optimal policy for human ball catching that is assumed to follow heuristics.
Assessment of Primary Site Response in Children With High-Risk Neuroblastoma: An International Multicenter Study.

PURPOSE The International Neuroblastoma Response Criteria (INRC) require serial measurements of primary tumors in three dimensions, whereas the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) require measurement in one dimension. This study was conducted to identify the preferred method of primary tumor response assessment for use in revised INRC. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients younger than 20 years with high-risk neuroblastoma were eligible if they were diagnosed between 2000 and 2012 and if three primary tumor measurements (antero-posterior, width, cranio-caudal) were recorded at least twice before resection. Responses were defined as ≥ 30% reduction in longest dimension as per RECIST, ≥ 50% reduction in volume as per INRC, or ≥ 65% reduction in volume. RESULTS Three-year event-free survival for all patients (N = 229) was 44% and overall survival was 58%. The sensitivity of both volume response measures (ability to detect responses in patients who survived) exceeded the sensitivity of the single dimension measure, but the specificity of all response measures (ability to identify lack of response in patients who later died) was low. In multivariable analyses, none of the response measures studied was predictive of outcome, and none was predictive of the extent of resection. CONCLUSION None of the methods of primary tumor response assessment was predictive of outcome. Measurement of three dimensions followed by calculation of resultant volume is more complex than measurement of a single dimension. Primary tumor response in children with high-risk neuroblastoma should therefore be evaluated in accordance with RECIST criteria, using the single longest dimension.
Enabling Collaborations in Information Systems Practice

Information-systems (IS) has become a 'broad church' that includes academics and practitioners in several areas of theory and application. It is not only important to facilitate understanding and communication among individuals, but to be able to engage into forms of collaboration with others. This paper will highlight some important issues arisen in the practice of formulating IS projects which reflect what is also happening elsewhere in the social sciences. The paper will focus on suggesting ways of enabling collaborations to develop between those involved in exploring new projects and ideas, with a view that these could be facilitated if we assume continuous and systemic attitude of engagement with ‘other’ people. This attitude would require us to go beyond what we consider relevant for IS as a discipline.
Indicators of community receptivity to international service-learning programs.

Indicators of Community Receptivity to International Service Learning Programs Henry R. Cunningham May 8, 2004 This dissertation is an exploratory study of the indicators of receptivity that communities portray towards international service-learning programs. Historically, programs such as service learning programs choose communities and other working partners based on the needs of these communities. International service-learning on the other hand because of the high cost of travel to another country and accommodation needs to minimize the risk of having unsupportive partners. In this light, communities should be assessed to ensure that they are receptive to international service-learning programs. The study was conducted in a community that displayed a high level of receptivity to the University of Louisville International Service Learning Program. It focused on five areas of community receptivity namely: having a shared mission with the University, community involvement, community attachment, community cohesion, and social capital. A qualitative methodology of in-depth interviews was conducted with community leaders. Results were generally consistent across all five areas studied. The interviews revealed that the community had a shared mission with the University of Louisville to
Efficient cross-layer design for MIMO-HARQ wireless systems

In this paper, we present a throughput optimized cross-layer design for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems. The proposed design efficiently combines power control (PC), adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) and MIMO technology at the physical layer, with an automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocol at the data-link layer. Both basic ARQ and type-I hybrid ARQ are considered. More specifically, the optimal couple of transmit power level and modulation and coding scheme (MCS) are jointly selected for transmission over each transmit antenna, as a function of the MIMO channel state. The considered optimality criterion is the maximization of the MIMO system's average throughput, while maintaining the average radiated power under a prescribed constraint. Numerical and simulation results reveal significant average transmit power gains with respect to a MIMO-ARQ scheme only using AMC. This gain is more important when hybrid ARQ is employed instead of basic ARQ.
Optimal Differentially Private Algorithms for k-Means Clustering

We consider privacy-preserving k-means clustering. For the objective of minimizing the Wasserstein distance between the output and the optimal solution, we show that there is a polynomial-time (ε,δ)-differentially private algorithm which, for any sufficiently large Φ2 well-separated datasets, outputs k centers that are within Wasserstein distance Ø(Φ2) from the optimal. This result improves the previous bounds by removing the dependence on ε, number of centers k, and dimension d. Further, we prove a matching lower bound that no (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithm can guarantee Wasserstein distance less than Ømega (Φ2) and, thus, our positive result is optimal up to a constant factor. For minimizing the k-means objective when the dimension d is bounded, we propose a polynomial-time private local search algorithm that outputs an αn-additive approximation when the size of the dataset is at least ~Ø (k3/2 · d · ε-1 · poly(α-1)).
Traffic-Aware Energy Optimizing Strategies for Multi-Cell Coordinated Green Cellular Networks

The ongoing 5G cellular networks are expected to meet the demands posed by the energy and radio resource crises, especially exploiting flexible management for the traffic in idle zone. In this paper, two energy optimizing solutions are proposed for macro-tier with the tradeoff consideration regarding spectrum efficiency and quality of service (QoS), which adapt to the instantaneous traffic variance based upon dynamic cell configuration. To characterize the optimal energy savings for base stations (BSs), an active cell rotation (ACR) scheme is cyclic activated to control the number of active BSs by appropriately scheduling different work patterns in the cell group, and hence, guarantee QoS requirement of the user equipment by a recovery mechanism. An improved cooperative ACR scheme is also proposed, which enables BSs to achieve better spectrum utilization while pursuing energy efficiency in terms of traffic load. In addition, closed-form stationary results as well as asymptotic analysis are also derived for formulating the traffic variance and state transitions by a Markov-based framework. The numerical performances indicate that the proposed methodologies can have positive effects on addressing greenness in both energy and spectrum domains while meeting the upcoming intense traffic and QoS requirements.
Neighbor embedding based single image super-resolution using hybrid feature and adaptive weight decay regularization

In this paper, a novel single image super-resolution technique based on neighbor embedding is proposed. Conventional neighbor embedding technique uses gradient feature vector in neighbor selection. However, since gradient feature is high-frequency feature, it is not appropriate for feature representation in weak-edge and texture regions. Therefore, instead of using only gradient feature as in neighbor embedding, hybrid feature which combines gradient feature for edge region and luminance norm feature for non-edge region is used. Also, adaptive weight decay regularization is applied to shrink unstable weights for neighbors. Consequently, experimental result shows that the proposed method can reconstruct more details in weak-edges, textures, and strong-edges as well as conventional method.
Bidirectional Regulation of COX-2 Expression Between Cancer Cells and Macrophages.

BACKGROUND/AIM Our aim was to investigate the crosstalk between tumor and immune cells (M2 macrophages) and its effects on cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX2) regulation in canine mammary tumors (CMT). MATERIALS AND METHODS Sh1b CMT cells and human BT474 mammary or HT29 colon cancer cells were co-cultured with canine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) or with macrophage-like differentiated THP1 monocytes (dTHP1). Intracellular COX2 expression by PBMCs, dTHP1 and cancer cells was evaluated by flow cytometry. RESULTS Co-culturing of Sh1b and canine PBMCs induced COX2 overexpression in CMT cells. In turn, COX2 expression by PBMCs, mostly CD68+ macrophages, was attenuated by co-culture with Sh1b (p=0.0001). In accordance, co-culture with dTHP1 prompted intracellular production of COX2 in both Sh1b CMT cells and HT29 human colon cancer cells and reduced production of COX2 in BT474 human mammary cancer cells. The intracellular COX2 expression from dTHP1 decreased when treated with conditioned medium from cultured Sh1b and HT29 cancer cells. CONCLUSION Bidirectional COX2 regulation between cancer and monocytes/macrophages might shape a tolerogenic tumor microenvironment in CMT.
The effects of an 8-week, pre-season training program on vertical jump, agility and anaerobic power in elite female basketball players

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of an eight-week training program by comparing changes in four performance indicators: vertical jump, peak power, agility and anaerobic power. A n additional objective was to monitor the adaptive process of each subject in the treatment group by quantifying the training stimulus and measuring these adaptation indicators: fatigue, stress, sleep quality and D O M S , via a daily training log. The treatment group, (n= 10) completed an eight-week pre-season plan, which emphasized agility, explosive power and anaerobic conditioning and followed an undulating periodization model. The control group, a college level team, (n = 9) participated in regular practice sessions only. Three repeated measurements were taken on the treatment group (baseline, at week 5 and at week 9) and two measurements were taken (baseline and week 9) on the control group. Tests administered to both groups were a vertical jump test, a T-test and an anaerobic speed test. A 2 x 4 M A N O V A was conducted to measure performance changes over time with the treatment group. Statistical significance was set at a <. 05. Although statistical significance was only detected when comparing week 5 to week 9 (p=.041) the descriptive results showed the athlete's in the treatment group improved in all four performance indicators,. Follow-up univariate analysis confirmed that the agility scores were significantly better at week 9 (p=.009). It was also found that the once individual athlete's training logs were quantified, those who documented a maladaptive pattern also did not show improvements in performance. A multivariate two sample t-test was also performed to assess differences between the treatment group and the control group. No significance was found (p=.308). This study indicates that, although both groups demonstrated
Goal Oriented Time Adaptivity Using Local Error Estimates

We consider initial value problems (IVPs) where we are interested in a quantity of interest (QoI) that is the integral in time of a functional of the solution. For these, we analyze goal oriented time adaptive methods that use only local error estimates. A local error estimate and timestep controller for step-wise contributions to the QoI are derived. We prove convergence of the error in the QoI for tolerance to zero under a controllability assumption. By analyzing global error propagation with respect to the QoI, we can identify possible issues and make performance predictions. Numerical tests verify these results. We compare performance with classical local error based time-adaptivity and a posteriori based adaptivity using the dual-weighted residual (DWR) method. For dissipative problems, local error based methods show better performance than DWR and the goal oriented method shows good results in most examples, with significant speedups in some cases.
A new route to synthesize aryl acetates from carbonylation of aryl methyl ethers

Aryl acetates were synthesized efficiently for the first time by the carbonylation of aryl methyl ethers. Ether bond activation is very interesting because the synthesis of many valuable compounds involves conversion of ethers. Moreover, C–O bond cleavage is also very important for the transformation of biomass, especially lignin, which abundantly contains ether bonds. Developing efficient methods to activate aromatic ether bonds has attracted much attention. However, this is a challenge because of the inertness of aryl ether bonds. We proposed a new route to activate aryl methyl ether bonds and synthesize aryl acetates by carbonylation of aryl methyl ethers. The reaction could proceed over RhCl3 in the presence of LiI and LiBF4, and moderate to high yields of aryl acetates could be obtained from transformation of various aryl methyl ethers with different substituents. It was found that LiBF4 could assist LiI to cleave aryl methyl ether bonds effectively. The reaction mechanism was proposed by a combination of experimental and theoretical studies.
A study of co-movements between oil price, stock index and exchange rate under a cross-bicorrelation perspective: the case of Mexico

In this chapter we studied the nonlinear co-movements between the Mexican Crude Oil price, the Mexican Stock Market Index and the USD/MXN Exchange Rate, for the sample period from 1994 to date. We used a battery of nonlinear tests, cf. (Patterson & Ashley, 2000) and one multivariate test, in order to determine the dynamic co-movement exerted from the oil prices to the stock and exchange rate markets. Such co-movement and time windows are exposed using the Brooks & Hinich (1999) cross- bicorrelation statistical test. The effects of oil spills on other markets have been studied from different angles and on several financial assets. In this study, we focus our attention on the detection, not only of the correlations amongst markets but on the epochs in which such nonlinear dependence might occur. This is important in order to understand better, how the markets that drive the economy interact with each other. We hope to contribute to the literature with such findings, filling a gap in the emerging markets context, in particular, for the Mexican case.
IFNAR1 Controls Autocrine Type I IFN Regulation of PD-L1 Expression in Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells

Tumor cells respond to IFN-γ of activated T cells to upregulate programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in the tumor microenvironment as an adaptive immune resistance mechanism. Tumor cells also express oncogene-driven PD-L1. PD-L1 is also expressed on myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). It is known that both type I and II IFNs upregulate PD-L1 expression in MDSCs. However, the molecular mechanism underlying PD-L1 expression in MDSCs is still largely unknown. We report in this article that MDSCs exhibit constitutive STAT1 phosphorylation in vitro without exogenous IFNs, indicating a constitutive active JAK-STAT signaling pathway in mouse MDSCs in vitro. Furthermore, IFN-α and IFN-β but not IFN-γ are endogenously expressed in the MDSC cell line in vitro and in tumor-induced MDSCs in vivo. Neutralizing type I IFN or inhibiting the JAK-STAT signaling pathway significantly decreased constitutive PD-L1 expression in MDSCs in vitro. However, neither IFN-α expression level nor IFN-β expression level is correlated with PD-L1 expression level in MDSCs; instead, the level of IFN receptor type I (IFNAR1) is correlated with PD-L1 expression levels in MDSCs. Consequently, knocking out IFNAR1 in mice diminished PD-L1 expression in tumor-induced MDSCs. Therefore, we determined that 1) PD-L1 expression in MDSCs is activated by type I IFN through an autocrine manner and 2) the expression level of PD-L1 is controlled at least in part by the IFNAR1 level on MDSCs. Our data indicate that MDSCs may maintain their PD-L1 expression via autocrine type I IFN to exert their suppressive activity in the absence of IFN-γ from the suppressed T cells in the tumor microenvironment.
Dialogue Scenario Collection of Persuasive Dialogue with Emotional Expressions via Crowdsourcing

Existing dialogue data collection methods such as the Wizard of Oz method (WoZ) or real dialogue recording are costly, and they prevent launching a new dialogue system. In this study, we requested crowd workers in crowdsourcing to create dialogue scenarios according to the instruction of the situation for persuasive dialogue systems that use emotional expressions. We collected 200 dialogues in 5 scenarios for a total of 1,000 via crowdsourcing. We also annotated emotional states and users’ acceptance for system persuasion by using crowdsourcing. We constructed a persuasive dialogue system with the collected data and evaluated the system by interacting with crowd works. From the experiment, it was investigated that the collected labels have sufﬁcient agreement even if we did not impose any training of annotation to workers.
Streptozotocin Impairs Proliferation and Differentiation of Adult Hippocampal Neural Stem Cells in Vitro-Correlation With Alterations in the Expression of Proteins Associated With the Insulin System

Rats intracerebroventricularily (icv) treated with streptozotocin (STZ), shown to generate an insulin resistant brain state, were used as an animal model for the sporadic form of Alzheimer’s disease (sAD). Previously, we showed in an in vivo study that 3 months after STZ icv treatment hippocampal adult neurogenesis (AN) is impaired. In the present study, we examined the effects of STZ on isolated adult hippocampal neural stem cells (NSCs) using an in vitro approach. We revealed that 2.5 mM STZ inhibits the proliferation of NSCs as indicated by reduced number and size of neurospheres as well as by less BrdU-immunoreactive NSCs. Double immunofluorescence stainings of NSCs already being triggered to start with their differentiation showed that STZ primarily impairs the generation of new neurons, but not of astrocytes. For revealing mechanisms possibly involved in mediating STZ effects we analyzed expression levels of insulin/glucose system-related molecules such as the glucose transporter (GLUT) 1 and 3, the insulin receptor (IR) and the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) 1 receptor. Applying quantitative Real time-PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunofluorescence stainings we showed that STZ exerts its strongest effects on GLUT3 expression, as GLUT3 mRNA levels were found to be reduced in NSCs, and less GLUT3-immunoreactive NSCs as well as differentiating cells were detected after STZ treatment. These findings suggest that cultured NSCs are a good model for developing new strategies to treat nerve cell loss in AD and other degenerative disorders.