Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polarized distribution of Na+/H+ exchanger isoforms in rabbit collecting duct cells.

The present study describes two Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE) isoforms in an immortalized rabbit renal cortical collecting tubule cell line (RC.SV3). Na+/H+ exchange activity was assayed using fluorescence measurements of intracellular pH (pHi) in monolayers mounted in a cuvette containing two fluid compartments, making it possible to independently measure Na+/H+ exchange activity on either the apical or basolateral surface. RC.SV3 monolayers express Na+/H+ exchange activities in both the apical and basolateral membrane domains. The two exchangers have half-saturation constants (Km) for external sodium and sensitivities to dimethylamiloride, to HOE-694 and to cimetidine and clonidine consistant with the NHE-1 isoform on the basolateral cell surface and the NHE-2 isoform on the apical surface. Protein kinase A inhibition of basolateral exchanger activity was significantly higher than that of the apical exchanger. Protein kinase C significantly stimulated both exchangers equally. RT-PCR analysis found RNA for only NHE-1 and NHE-2, and immunofluorescence with an antibody against NHE-1 demonstrated a basolateral location for this isoform. The results suggest that RC.SV3 cells have two Na+/H+ exchange activities separated spatially to the two cellular membranes, with the NHE-1 and the NHE-2 isoforms located on the basolateral and the apical membranes, respectively.
Applications of Micro/Nano Automation Technology in Detecting Cancer Cells for Personalized Medicine

The coming era of personalized cancer treatment is presenting automation with unprecedented opportunities. Currently, the drug susceptibility test of clinical cancer patients is mainly dependent on manual labor with a low level of automation. Automating the process of primary cancer cell detection will potentially have tremendous economic benefits and social significance. Automated cancer cell detection means developing robotic and automation equipments to handle single cells and molecules at the micro/nanometer-scale. The achievements of information science, engineering technology, life sciences, and nanotechnology in the past decades have led to the birth of robots that can perform effective manipulations on single living cells at the micro/nanometer-scale in aqueous conditions, opening the door to automated cancer cell detection. However, there is still a huge gap between current single-cell micro/nano automation technology and clinical requirements for personalized medicine. In this paper, we will review the progress of single-cell micro/nano automation technology in recent years and discuss the facing challenges and future directions in three aspects, including automated cell isolation and delivery, automatically acquiring the physiological features of cells and data analysis.
Revisiting the Profitability of Market Timing with Moving Averages

In a recent empirical study by Glabadanidis ("Market Timing With Moving Averages" (2015), International Review of Finance, Volume 15, Number 13, Pages 387-425; the paper is also available on the SSRN and has been downloaded more than 7,500 times) the author reports striking evidence of extraordinary good performance of the moving average trading strategy. In this paper we demonstrate that "too good to be true" reported performance of the moving average strategy is due to simulating the trading with look-ahead bias. We perform the simulations without look-ahead bias and report the true performance of the moving average strategy. We find that at best the performance of the moving average strategy is only marginally better than that of the corresponding buy-and-hold strategy. In statistical terms, the performance of the moving average strategy is indistinguishable from the performance of the buy-and-hold strategy. This paper is supplied with R code that allows every interested reader to reproduce the reported results.
Identification of human myocardial proteins separated by two‐dimensional electrophoresis using an effective sample preparation for mass spectrometry

Peptide mass fingerprinting is a powerful tool for the identification of proteins separated by two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis (2‐DE). The identification of in‐gel digested proteins by peptide mass fingerprinting was significantly improved in comparison to blot‐digests by using a peptide‐collecting device. This device allows the effective purification and concentration of enzymatic digests of low‐intensity spots without expensive equipment and is described in detail. Sensitivity in the fmol range was demonstrated by unequivocal identification of bovine serum albumin after sodium dodecyl sulfate — polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Furthermore the high performance liquid chromatography pattern of in‐gel digests indicated a 2‐ to 3‐fold higher yield of the separated peptides. Therefore, a higher amount of the peptides was available to perform N‐terminal sequencing. The identification of 16 proteins from a high‐resolution 2‐DE gel map of human myocardium tissue has been achieved by means of this technique. Three of these proteins were associated with changes in spot intensity with dilated cardiomyopathy.
Takayasu’s arteritis: management of left main stem stenosis

Takayasu arteritis is a chronic vasculitis involving the aorta and its main branches, the pulmonary arteries, and the coronary tree, and needs to be considered in a young patient with angina, in particular when pulses are absent. This case illustrates the limitations of exercise testing in diagnosing the extent of coronary artery disease and the risks associated with coronary angiography in patients with inflammatory disease in the left main stem coronary artery. It also highlights the novel use of non-invasive scanning with positron emission tomography using 18-fluorodeoxyglucose in assessing remission from this disease. Revascularisation was performed with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and stenting as an emergency procedure, but treatment of the restenosis with directional atherectomy was based on a review of the available literature. The lymphocytic alveolitis seen in this patient has not been previously described in Takayasu’s disease.
High systemic bone mineral density increases the risk of incident knee OA and joint space narrowing, but not radiographic progression of existing knee OA: the MOST study

Objectives: Previous studies suggest that high systemic bone mineral density (BMD) is associated with incident knee osteoarthritis (OA) defined by osteophytes but not with joint space narrowing (JSN), and are inconsistent regarding BMD and progression of existing OA. The association of BMD with incident and progressive tibiofemoral OA was tested in a large prospective study of men and women aged 50–79 years with or at risk for knee OA. Methods: Baseline and 30-month weight-bearing posteroanterior and lateral knee radiographs were scored for Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grade, JSN and osteophytes. Incident OA was defined as the development of K-L grade ⩾2 at follow-up. All knees were classified for increases in grade of JSN and osteophytes from baseline. The association of gender-specific quartiles of baseline BMD with risk of incident and progressive OA was analysed using logistic regression, adjusting for covariates. Results: The mean (SD) age of 1754 subjects was 63.2 (7.8) years and body mass index was 29.9 (5.4) kg/m2. In knees without baseline OA, higher femoral neck and whole body BMD were associated with an increased risk of incident OA and increases in grade of JSN and osteophytes (p<0.01 for trends); adjusted odds were 2.3–2.9-fold greater in the highest compared with the lowest BMD quartiles. In knees with existing OA, progression was not significantly related to BMD. Conclusions: In knees without OA, higher systemic BMD was associated with a greater risk of the onset of JSN and K-L grade ⩾2. The role of systemic BMD in early knee OA pathogenesis warrants further investigation.
Training the Trainers of Tomorrow Today - driving excellence in medical education

Abstract Training the Trainers of Tomorrow Today (T4) is a new way to deliver "Training for Trainers". Responding to local dissatisfaction with existing arrangements, T4 builds on 3 essential requirements for a future shape of training: 1. Clinical Leadership and a Collaborative Approach 2. Cross-Specialty Design and Participation 3. Local Delivery and Governance Networks Design principles also included: 3 levels of training to reflect differing needs of clinical supervisors, educational supervisors and medical education leader, mapping to GMC requirements and the London Deanery's Professional Development Framework; alignment of service, educational theory and research; recognition of challenges in delivering and ensuring attendance in busy acute and mental health settings, and the development of a faculty network. The delivery plan took into account census of professional development uptake and GMC Trainee Surveys. Strong engagement and uptake from the 11 Trusts in NW London has been achieved, with powerful penetration into all specialties. Attendance has exceeded expectations. Against an initial 12 month target of 350 attendances, 693 were achieved in the first 8 months. Evaluation of content demonstrates modules are pitched appropriately to attendees needs, with positive feedback from trainers new to the role. Delivery style has attracted high ratings of satisfaction: 87% attendees rating delivery as "good\excellent". External evaluation of impact demonstrated improved training experiences through changes in supervision, the learning environment and understanding of learning styles. We have addressed sustainability of the programme by advertising and recruiting Local Faculty Development Trainers. Volunteer consultants and higher trainees are trained to deliver the programme on a cascade model, supported by the Specialty Tutors, individual coaching and educational bursaries. The Trainers are local champions for excellence in training, provide a communication between the programme and local providers, are a repository of expertise in their service, and trouble shoot local barriers to engagement.
An Analysis on the Difference of Regional Energy Consumption in China Based on the Method of the Theil Index

Energy is the driven force and the most important physical foundation of economic development. It is expected that energy consumption will likely continue to rise due to accelerating industrialization and urbanization in China. To achieve the national energy strategy, it is necessary to examine the factors significantly affecting energy consumption in China. It is known that there exist marked differences in the gift for resources, economic structure and the processes of industrialization among different regions in China. This makes energy consumption explicitly show an evident regional difference. This problem has been receiving more and more attentions in recent years. It is noted that most of the studies on the regional difference of energy consumption made use of the methods of range, coefficient of variation, Lorentz curve and Gini coefficient. However, the method of the Theil index has been rarely used in this kind of study. Compared with other methods mentioned above, the method of the Thiel index has the ability to measure the differences both in a region and among different regions. Based on the method of the Theil index, in the present study, the author analyzed the regional difference of energy consumption in China and examined the effects of economic growth and industrial structure on the regional difference of the energy consumption through comparing the Theil indexes computed by taking GDP and industrial value-added as weights, respectively. The results showed that the total difference of the regional energy consumption primarily stemmed from the differences in the regions, while the differences in the regions were mainly caused by the differences among provinces in Eastern China. Since 1995, the total difference and the differences in Eastern, Middle and Western China have been decreasing. But the differences among Eastern, Middle, and Western China have been increasing. Given that 70% of energy consumption was used in the industrial sector, it can be concluded that the Theil index computed by taking industrial value-added as the weight tends to better show the regional differences of energy consumption, while the Theil index computed by taking GDP as the weight partly tampered the differences. In summary, it is the regional difference in economic development levels and economic structures that leads to a significant difference in regional energy consumption. This suggests that government take the regional differences into account in making national energy strategies. Meanwhile, both Middle and Western China are suggested to adjust the modes of economic development and improve the levels of technology as well as to effectively reduce energy intensity.
Spinal meningiomas in women in Los Angeles County: investigation of an etiological hypothesis.

A series of 3 studies explored the hypothesis that the preponderance of spinal meningiomas among postmenopausal women relates to their higher prevalence of spinal osteoporosis: (a) medical records showed that meningiomas in women, unlike other spinal tumors, usually arise in the mid thoracic spine where osteoporotic vertebral fractures predominate; (b) radiographic evidence of osteoporosis was seen commonly with meningiomas but not with other spinal tumors; and (c) age-adjusted multivariate analysis of data from an interview study of 81 women with spinal meningioma and 155 random digit dial controls showed 6 factors related to risk. Four factors were protective: (a) current use (at diagnosis) of estrogen replacement therapy [odds ratio (OR) = 0.2; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.1-0.6]; (b) past use of oral contraceptives (P trend < 0.01); (c) past participation in sports (OR = 0.5; CI = 0.2-0.9); and (d) premenopausal status (OR = 0.2; CI = 0.1-0.7). Risk increased among women who had ever smoked cigarettes (OR = 1.7; CI = 0.9-3.1) or had a history of high dose radiography (> 500 mrad exposure to active marrow/examination; includes upper or lower gastrointestinal series and/or cardiac angiography; OR = 2.9, and CI = 1.6-5.3), although no association was seen with prior radiotherapy. Other results that did not support the hypothesis include findings that cases and controls were similar in mean body weight and in the proportion who had postmenopausal fractures or height loss. In conclusion, these studies lend some support to our hypothesis, but other known meningioma risk factors such as ionizing radiation also appear important. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Bayesian Selection of Systemic Risk Networks

The latest financial crisis has stressed the need of understanding the world financial system as a network of interconnected institutions, where financial linkages play a fundamental role in the spread of systemic risks. In this paper we propose to enrich the topological perspective of network models with a more structured statistical framework, that of Bayesian graphical Gaussian models. From a statistical viewpoint, we propose a new class of hierarchical Bayesian graphical models, that can split correlations between institutions into country specific and idiosyncratic ones, in a way that parallels the decomposition of returns in the well-known Capital Asset Pricing Model. From a financial economics viewpoint, we suggest a way to model systemic risk that can explicitly take into account frictions between different financial markets, particularly suited to study the on-going banking union process in Europe. From a computational viewpoint, we develop a novel Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm based on Bayes factor thresholding.
Comparison of endogenous murine leukemia virus proviral organization and RNA expression in 3-methylcholanthrene-induced and spontaneous thymic lymphomas in RF and AKR mice

3-Methylcholanthrene-induced T-cell thymic lymphomas in RF mice were examined for involvement of murine leukemia virus (MuLV)-related sequences in leukemogenesis. Both the expression of MuLV-related RNA species and the organization of endogenous MuLV proviral DNA were analyzed. Of 27 primary tumors examined, only 5 exhibited elevated MuLV-related RNA species homologous to xenotropic specific env DNA. None of these RNA species hybridized with ecotropic p15E DNA sequences. Only two of these five tumors contained MuLV-like RNA species that hybridized with ecotropic MuLV long terminal repeat sequences, despite the probe's ability to detect both ecotropic MuLV and mink cell focus-inducing viral RNA. No muLV resembling mink cell focus-inducing virus whose expression could be correlated with lymphomagenesis was detected in either preleukemic thymocytes, primary 3-methylcholanthrene-induced thymic tumors, tumors passaged in vivo, or cell lines derived from tumors. Restriction endonuclease analysis of DNA from both primary tumors and cell lines failed to reveal either proviral DNA with recombinant env genes or rearrangement of endogenous MuLV proviruses. Therefore, chemically induced lymphomagenesis in RF mice appears different from the spontaneous lymphomagenic process in AKR mice with respect to the involvement of endogenous MuLV sequences.
Intégration du déploiement de flotte et du service aux passagers dans la gestion de la planification pour compagnie aérienne. (Integration of the fleet deployment and of the passengers services into the airline scheduling management)

Etant donnes un planning aerien et des previsions de demande, le probleme d'affectation de flotte aerienne consiste a determiner la meilleure facon de repartir les types d'appareils sur les vols. Cette repartition a un impact majeur sur le profit d'une compagnie aerienne, puisqu'elle determine les quantites de places disponibles sur les itineraires du reseau aerien, ainsi que le cout de fonctionnement de celui-ci. Des decennies de recherche ont rendues les modelisations de ce probleme de plus en plus realistes. Cette these s'inscrit dans la continuite de ces recherches en considerant le probleme d'affectation de flotte dans un contexte ou les demandes des passagers sont incertaines. Nous proposons dans un premier temps une etude autour des deux modeles de la litterature les plus utilises dans l'industrie, FAM et IFAM. Nous montrons que FAM peut etre vu comme une Relaxation Lagrangienne de IFAM, avec des multiplicateurs Lagrangiens particuliers. Nous implementons cette relaxation, et nous appliquons des resultats connus pour l'etendre en une generation de colonnes basee sur une decomposition de Dantzig-Wolfe de IFAM. Nous etudions ensuite les effets que l'imprecision des previsions peut avoir sur la performance d'IFAM, et nous presentons au terme de cette etude une nouvelle approche pour modeliser le probleme d'affectation de flotte. Notre modele, Market Driven Fleet Assignment Model (MDFAM), integre les demandes par itineraires comme variables de decision, et contraint ces demandes plutot que de les considerer comme une entree fixe. Nous appelons les contraintes resultantes des contraintes de Marche. Nous illustrons la flexibilite de cette approche a travers divers exemples, et nous proposons une serie d'experiences visant a determiner quelles sont les contraintes de marche donnant les meilleurs resultats. Nous comparons les differents modeles, et nous montrons que MDFAM peut atteindre des niveaux de performance similaires a ceux offert par IFAM, tout en etant plus facile a utiliser et a implementer.
The performance of adaptive frame aggregation with delay limits in ultrahigh-speed WLAN

In order to improve the throughput under delay limits for different applications in WLAN, A-MSDU and A-MPDU aggregation in IEEE 802.11n was analyzed, and a new physical layer super-frame technology was put forward to further improve the performance. In noisy channel, the distributed coordination function (DCF) saturation throughput was derived and the impact of frame length on the throughput was discussed. Based on all these analysis, an algorithm of adaptive frame aggregation was proposed. The results show that on the condition of delay limits, there exists an optimal aggregation method to achieve maximum system throughput under a certain bit error rate (BER). Compared to the fixed frame, the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the throughput.
Improved detection times for Mycobacterium avium complex and Mycobacterium tuberculosis with the BACTEC radiometric system

A total of 2,559 routine clinical specimens were cultured for mycobacteria by using BACTEC Middlebrook 7H12 medium (BACTEC), Lowenstein-Jensen slants (LJ), and Mycobactosel selective Middlebrook 7H11 slants (M7H11). Thirty-three isolates (1.3%) of M. avium complex and 82 isolates (3.2%) of M. tuberculosis were recovered. The BACTEC mean detection time of M. avium complex from 27 smear-negative specimens was earlier than that of conventional media for both decontaminated respiratory specimens (BACTEC, 12 days; LJ, 32 days; and M7H11, 38 days) and untreated tissue and fluid specimens (BACTEC, 8 days; LJ, 30 days; and M7H11, 31 days). The sensitivity for smear-negative M. avium complex with BACTEC (74%) was comparable to that with LJ (74%) and M7H11 (63%). The mean detection times of M. tuberculosis from 56 smear-positive respiratory specimens were 8 days for BACTEC, 16 days for LJ, and 17 days for M7H11, and sensitivities for the detection of positive cultures were 98% for BACTEC, 76% for LJ, and 79% for M7H11. The BACTEC mean detection time of M. tuberculosis in smear-negative specimens was better for tissues and fluids (14 days) than for respiratory specimens (24 days). BACTEC yielded substantially earlier detection of M. avium complex from all specimen types and of M. tuberculosis from smear-positive respiratory specimens. The rapid identification and susceptibility testing of M. tuberculosis in BACTEC agreed completely with conventional tests and provided a 3-week reduction in median time to final reports.
Histone-derived piRNA biogenesis depends on the ping-pong partners Piwi5 and Ago3 in Aedes aegypti

Abstract The piRNA pathway is of key importance in controlling transposable elements in most animal species. In the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti, the presence of eight PIWI proteins and the accumulation of viral piRNAs upon arbovirus infection suggest additional functions of the piRNA pathway beyond genome defense. To better understand the regulatory potential of this pathway, we analyzed in detail host-derived piRNAs in A. aegypti Aag2 cells. We show that a large repertoire of protein-coding genes and non-retroviral integrated RNA virus elements are processed into genic piRNAs by different combinations of PIWI proteins. Among these, we identify a class of genes that produces piRNAs from coding sequences in an Ago3- and Piwi5-dependent fashion. We demonstrate that the replication-dependent histone gene family is a genic source of ping-pong dependent piRNAs and that histone-derived piRNAs are dynamically expressed throughout the cell cycle, suggesting a role for the piRNA pathway in the regulation of histone gene expression. Moreover, our results establish the Aag2 cell line as an accessible experimental model to study gene-derived piRNAs.