Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radial forearm versus anterolateral thigh free flaps for laryngopharyngectomy defects: prospective, randomized trial.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the use of anterolateral thigh flaps versus radial forearm free flaps for the reconstruction of laryngopharyngectomy defects in a prospective, randomized study. METHODS Nineteen patients who were to undergo laryngopharyngectomy were randomized into either anterolateral thigh or radial forearm groups. The primary outcome measure was complication rate (eg, flap failure, fistula formation, pharyngeal stenosis). Secondary outcome measures included donor-site morbidity (limb function, cosmesis, pain). RESULTS There was a significant (p = .04) increase in reconstructive complications in the anterolateral thigh group, including esophageal stenosis and pharyngeal fistulae. There was no significant difference in donor-site complications. CONCLUSION There is an increased free flap complication rate without decreased flap donor-site morbidity when using the anterolateral thigh flap to reconstruct laryngopharyngectomy defects. As such, we recommend the radial forearm free flap as the preferred flap for reconstruction of laryngopharyngectomy defects.
Slab-Thickness Dependence of Photonic Bandgap in Photonic-Crystal Slabs

The slab-thickness dependence of the photonic bandgap in air-bridge photonic-crystal slabs was theoretically investigated by the 3-D plane-wave expansion method. The photonic bandgap was found to achieve a maximum for a certain slab thickness depending on air-hole volume filling factor. A kink in the photonic bandgap width versus slab thicknesses was observed, and found to be due to a transition in the nature of the modes at the top of the bandgap. Through a systematic investigation, a linear relation between the optimized slab thickness for the maximum photonic bandgap versus air-volume filling factor was found to hold over a wide range of air-volume filling factors. The linear relation also holds for photonic-crystal slabs composed of other materials and would favor the design and application of various 2-D photonic-crystal-slab devices such as reflectors, cavities, and waveguides.
A Bone Anabolic Effect of RANKL in a Murine Model of Osteoporosis Mediated Through FoxP3+ CD8 T Cells

TNF‐α and IL‐17 secreted by proinflammatory T cells (TEFF) promote bone erosion by activating osteoclasts. We previously demonstrated that in addition to bone resorption, osteoclasts act as antigen‐presenting cells to induce FoxP3 in CD8 T cells (TcREG). The osteoclast‐induced regulatory CD8 T cells limit bone resorption in ovariectomized mice (a murine model of postmenopausal osteoporosis). Here we show that although low‐dose receptor activator of NF‐κB ligand (RANKL) maximally induces TcREG via Notch signaling pathway to limit bone resorption, high‐dose RANKL promotes bone resorption. In vitro, both TNF‐α and IL‐17, cytokines that are abundant in ovariectomized animals, suppress TcREG induction by osteoclasts by repressing Notch ligand expression in osteoclasts, but this effect can be counteracted by addition of RANKL. Ovariectomized mice treated with low‐dose RANKL induced TcREG that suppressed bone resorption, decreased TEFF levels, and increased bone formation. High‐dose RANKL had the expected osteolytic effect. Low‐dose RANKL administration in ovariectomized mice lacking CD8 T cells was also osteolytic, confirming that TcREG mediate this bone anabolic effect. Our results show that although RANKL directly stimulates osteoclasts to resorb bone, it also controls the osteoclasts' ability to induce regulatory T cells, engaging an important negative feedback loop. In addition to the conceivable clinical relevance to treatment of osteoporosis, these observations have potential relevance to induction of tolerance and autoimmune diseases. © 2015 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Intelligent Fusion of Wi-Fi and Inertial Sensor-Based Positioning Systems for Indoor Pedestrian Navigation

Indoor positioning systems based on wireless local area networks are growing rapidly in importance and gaining commercial interest. Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) systems, which rely on inertial sensors, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, or even magnetometers to estimate users' movement, have also been widely adopted for real-time indoor pedestrian location tracking. Since both kinds of systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, a maximum likelihood-based fusion algorithm that integrates a typical Wi-Fi indoor positioning system with a PDR system is proposed in this paper. The strength of the PDR system should eliminate the weakness of the Wi-Fi positioning system and vice versa. The intelligent fusion algorithm can retrieve the initial user location and moving direction information without requiring any user intervention. Experimental results show that the proposed positioning system has better positioning accuracy than the PDR system or Wi-Fi positioning system alone.
Power minimization in uni-directional relay networks with cognitive radio capabilities

In this work, we consider a uni-directional (one way) relay network with a pair of primary transmitter and receiver which are relay-assisted by multiple cognitive radio (CR) terminals. A CR base station is deployed to sense the absence/presence of the primary user based on the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the fusion center. The primary network utilizes a two-step one-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying scheme and uses the CRs as its relay nodes. In the first step of AF relaying, the primary transmitter sends its signal to the CRs/relays. A distributed beamforming is then performed in the second step of relaying. In this phase, the CR base station sets the beamforming weights of CR terminals to satisfy the SNR requirements at the primary transmitter and at the CR base station. We aim at minimizing the power dissipated in the cognitive (relay) nodes together with ensuring an accurate spectrum sensing process. This optimization problem is efficiently solved by using semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques. Simulation results are provided to compare the relay transmit power in our investigated network with that in a conventional AF relay network.
Role of RNF4 in the Ubiquitination of Rta of Epstein-Barr Virus*

Background: Rta is a transcription factor encoded by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) that activates the transcription of vial lytic genes and promotes lytic development. Results: RNF4 enhances the ubiquitination of Rta, thus decreasing lytic replication and virions production. Conclusion: RNF4 targets SUMO-2-conjugated Rta and promotes Rta ubiquitination. Significance: RNF4 is a SUMO-targeted ubiquitin ligase of Rta that modulates the amount of Rta during EBV lytic progression. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) encodes a transcription factor, Rta, which is required to activate the transcription of EBV lytic genes. This study demonstrates that treating P3HR1 cells with a proteasome inhibitor, MG132, causes the accumulation of SUMO-Rta and promotes the expression of EA-D. GST pulldown and coimmunoprecipitation studies reveal that RNF4, a RING-domain-containing ubiquitin E3 ligase, interacts with Rta. RNF4 also targets SUMO-2-conjugated Rta and promotes its ubiquitination in vitro. Additionally, SUMO interaction motifs in RNF4 are important to the ubiquitination of Rta because the RNF4 mutant with a mutation at the motifs eliminates ubiquitination. The mutation of four lysine residues on Rta that abrogated SUMO-3 conjugation to Rta also decreases the enhancement of the ubiquitination of Rta by RNF4. This finding demonstrates that RNF4 is a SUMO-targeted ubiquitin E3 ligase of Rta. Finally, knockdown of RNF4 enhances the expression of Rta and EA-D, subsequently promoting EBV lytic replication and virions production. Results of this study significantly contribute to efforts to elucidate a SUMO-targeted ubiquitin E3 ligase that regulates Rta ubiquitination to influence the lytic development of EBV.
Adaptive Time-Stepping Using Control Theory for the Chemical Langevin Equation

Stochastic modeling of biochemical systems has been the subject of intense research in recent years due to the large number of important applications of these systems. A critical stochastic model of well-stirred biochemical systems in the regime of relatively large molecular numbers, far from the thermodynamic limit, is the chemical Langevin equation. This model is represented as a system of stochastic differential equations, with multiplicative and noncommutative noise. Often biochemical systems in applications evolve on multiple time-scales; examples include slow transcription and fast dimerization reactions. The existence of multiple time-scales leads to mathematical stiffness, which is a major challenge for the numerical simulation. Consequently, there is a demand for efficient and accurate numerical methods to approximate the solution of these models. In this paper, we design an adaptive time-stepping method, based on control theory, for the numerical solution of the chemical Langevin equation. The underlying approximation method is the Milstein scheme. The adaptive strategy is tested on several models of interest and is shown to have improved efficiency and accuracy compared with the existing variable and constant-step methods.
Masters Thesis on Estimation of Direction of Arrival and Beamforming in Adaptive Array Antennas

In recent years there has been a rapid growth in the number of wireless users, particularly in the area of mobile communications. This rapid growth in mobile communications demands for more system capacity through efficient utilization of frequency spectrum and also keeping the Interference as low as possible. In today’s Radio resource management, Adaptive array antennas have an important role in increasing the system capacity and controlling the interference in mobile communications. Adaptive array antenna is an antenna system, which uses spatially separated antennas called array antennas and processes the received signals with a digital signal processor. Simply speaking these array antennas can reduce the co channel interference and effectively utilize the bandwidth by steering a high gain in the direction of interest and low gains in the undesired directions, technically this is called adaptive beamforming. This adaptive beamforming enables the base station to form narrow beam towards desired user and nulls towards the interfering user, hence improving the signal quality.
The predictive value of allergen skin prick tests and IgE tests at pre‐school age: The PACT study

Sensitization toward allergens, as determined by skin prick test (SPT) or specific IgE (sIgE), is a predictor for the later presence of allergy‐related disease (atopic eczema, allergic rhinoconjuctivitis and asthma). However, it is not known whether SPT or sIgE should be the preferred test. The aim of this study was to compare the predictive ability of SPT and sIgE when performed in a general population of 2‐yr‐old children.
Comprehensive Analysis of Genes Expressed by Rare Microchimeric Fetal Cells in the Maternal Mouse Lung1

ABSTRACT During pregnancy, cells from each fetus travel into the maternal circulation and organs, resulting in the development of microchimerism. Identification of the cell types in this microchimeric population would permit better understanding of possible mechanisms by which they affect maternal health. However, comprehensive analysis of fetal cells has been hampered by their rarity. In this study, we sought to overcome this obstacle by combining flow cytometry with multidimensional gene expression microarray analysis of fetal cells isolated from the murine maternal lung during late pregnancy. Fetal cells were collected from the lungs of pregnant female mice. cDNA was amplified and hybridized to gene expression microarrays. The resulting fetal cell core transcriptome was interrogated using multiple methods including Ingenuity Pathway Analysis, the BioGPS gene expression database, principal component analysis, the Eurexpress gene expression atlas, and primary literature. Here we report that small numbers of fetal cells can be flow sorted from the maternal lung, facilitating discovery-driven gene expression analysis. We additionally show that gene expression data can provide functional information about fetal cells. Our results suggest that fetal cells in the murine maternal lung are a mixed population, consisting of trophoblasts, mesenchymal stem cells, and cells of the immune system. Detection of trophoblasts and immune cells in the maternal lung may facilitate future mechanistic studies related to the development of immune tolerance and pregnancy-related complications, such as pre-eclampsia. Furthermore, the presence and persistence of mesenchymal stem cells in maternal organs may have implications for long-term postpartum maternal health.
A new decoupling control strategy for bearingless switched reluctance motors based on improved mathematical model

This paper presents a new decoupling control strategy for a 12/8 bearingless switched reluctance motor (BSRM) with improved mathematical model. Firstly, the improved mathematical model is built by Maxwell stress tensor method selecting one-forth arc integration path of the fringing magnetic field. Then, a new decoupling control strategy is described. The average torque and radial force of the scheme is decoupled and the utilization of current is enhanced. Finally, finite element analysis (FEA) model under this control strategy is established, and simulation results verify that the proposed mathematical model and control strategy are effective.
Tn5053 family transposons are res site hunters sensing plasmidal res sites occupied by cognate resolvases

DNA sequence database search revealed that most of Tn5053/Tn402 family transposons inserted into natural plasmids were located in putative res regions upstream of genes encoding various resolvase‐like proteins. Some of these resolvase genes belonged to Tn3 family transposons and were closely related to the tnpR genes of Tn1721 and a recently detected Tn5044. Using recombinant plasmids containing fragments of Tn1721 or Tn5044 as targets in transposition experiments, we have demonstrated that Tn5053 displays striking insertional preference for the res regions of these transposons: more than 70% of Tn5053 insertion events occur in clusters inside the target res regions, while most remaining insertion events occur no further than 200 base pairs away from both sides of the res regions. We demonstrate that Tn5053 insertions (both into and outside a res region of the target plasmid) require the presence of a functional cognate resolvase gene either in cis or in trans. To our knowledge, this is the first case when a site‐specific recombination system outside a transposon has been shown to be involved in transposition.
Dimerization of the RamC Morphogenetic Protein of Streptomyces coelicolor

ABSTRACT RamC is required for the formation of spore-forming cells called aerial hyphae by the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. This protein is membrane associated and has an amino-terminal protein kinase-like domain, but little is known about its mechanism of action. In this study we found that the presence of multiple copies of a defective allele of ramC inhibits morphogenesis in S. coelicolor, consistent with either titration of a target or formation of inactive RamC multimers. We identified a domain in RamC that is C terminal to the putative kinase domain and forms a dimer with a Kd of ∼0.1 μM. These data suggest that RamC acts as a dimer in vivo.
A programmable Controller for unified management of virtualized network infrastructures

We are currently witnessing an evolution towards network virtualization and Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm. SDN permits the decoupling of the control and data planes of traditional networks, and offers flexible and programmable networks. Besides, the need for dynamic provisioning and composition of networking services leads to the deployment of software components on virtualized network infrastructures. In this paper, we propose a unified management of networking and Information Technology resources and the exposure of management operations to the operator and to third-party service providers. For this sake, we introduce a programmable Controller that offers runtime reconfiguration of components. It exposes different management views according to operator or third-party applications' needs, and simplifies the automation of virtualized networking services. A networking use case is presented to evaluate the advantages of the proposed Controller, where our approach is compared to the control of both Linux Bonding and Click modules. Our Controller overcomes the limitations of virtual network functions management and provisioning approaches at the expense of a slight increase in execution time.
Computational geometry-based scale space for edge-preserving multiscale image decomposition

Abstract. Recently many computational photography applications need to decompose an image into a piecewise smooth base layer, containing large-scale variations in intensity, and a residual detail layer capturing the smaller-scale details in the image. In these applications, the image decomposition method requires multiscale ability to avoid visual artifacts. In this paper, we propose a new model of image decomposition that has the properties of edge-preserving and multiscale ability. Inspired by techniques in computational geometry and morphological image analysis, we use the α-scale space of the input image to extract information about oscillations. We define detail as oscillations between upper and lower envelope of the input image. Building on the key observation that the spatial scale of oscillations is characterized by the α value, we develop an algorithm for decomposing images into multiple scales of superposed oscillations. Compared with traditional image decomposition methods, our method has three advantages as follows: (1) precisely controls scale parameter; (2) preserves edge while decomposing; and (3) decouples noise layer from noisy image. Finally, we compare our results with current existing edge-preserving image decomposition algorithms and demonstrate applications.
Effects of Egg Size and Eggshell Conductance on Hatchability Traits of Meat and Layer Breeder Flocks

Eggs obtained from 46 and 42 weeks old meat (Hybro) and layer (Leghorn) breeders flocks, respectively were used to examine the effects of genetic type of birds and egg size (small, medium and large) on variables of eggshell characteristics and hatchability traits. The variables measured were egg weight (EW), egg surface area (ESA) and eggshell characteristics (shell conductance (EC), per cent shell (PS), shell thickness (ST), shell volume (SV), shell density (SD) and hatchability traits (per cent hatchability (HP), early dead embryos (ED), late dead embryos (LD), pips with live embryos (PL) and pips with dead embryos (PD)). Genetic type of bird influenced all egg characteristics and HP of eggs. Eggs produced by the small Leghorn bird had lower EW, ESA, EC, ST, SV and HP than those produced by the heavy Hybro bird. The reduction of HP was associated with an increase in the percentage of ED and PL. Egg size influenced all variables measured except ST. Small size eggs had lower EW, ESA and EC and higher PS and SD than those of large eggs. Medium size eggs produced a higher HP when compared with that of large size eggs. The reduction of HP in large eggs was associated with higher percentage of ED, LD and PL. There were significant interactions between the genetic group of birds and egg size on LD and HP. Large egg size of Hybro birds had higher LD and lower HP than those of small size eggs produced by the same flock. However, There was no difference in HP and LD among the different egg sizes produced by Leghorn birds. It was concluded that genetic make up of birds and egg size influence eggshell characteristics and HP. The type of bird (heavy or small) influences the optimum egg size for successful hatching. Attention should be given to the size and eggshell characteristics of eggs of breeders' flocks for achieving maximum HP.
TPX2 knockdown suppressed hepatocellular carcinoma cell invasion via inactivating AKT signaling and inhibiting MMP2 and MMP9 expression.

OBJECTIVE Targeting protein for Xenopus kinesin-like protein 2 (TPX2) is a nuclear proliferation-related protein that plays a critical role in the formation of mitotic spindle. High expression of TPX2 has been observed in several types of tumors. However, the role of TPX2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. Our study aimed to investigate the effect of TPX2 on HCC cell invasion. METHODS The immortalized normal human liver cell line L02 and six HCC cell lines including SMMC-7721, BEL-7402, Huh-7, HepG2, Hep3B and SKHep1 were subjected to qRT-PCR and western blot for TPX2 mRNA and protein, respectively. Furthermore, TPX2 small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used to knock down TPX2 expression in SMMC-7721 and HepG2 cells. Cell proliferation and invasion were determined by MTT and transwell assays. Otherwise, expression of p-AKT, MMP2 and MMP9 were evaluated by western blot in SMMC-7721 cells. RESULTS The expression of TPX2 in HCC cell lines was markedly higher than that in normal human liver cell line. TPX2 knockdown using a specific TPX2-siRNA reduced the number of invaded cells and inhibited cell proliferation in SMMC-7721 and HepG2 cells. Furthermore, TPX2 knockdown resulted in inactivation of AKT signaling and down-regulation of MMP2 and MMP9 expression in SMMC-7721 cells. CONCLUSIONS Our study identified that TPX2 might contribute to tumor cell invasion through activating AKT signaling and subsequently increasing MMP2 and MMP9 in HCC.
Beneficence, respect for autonomy, and justice: principles in practice.

The principles of beneficence, respect for autonomy, and justice have been debated in various ways in a number of disciplines including philosophy ( 1 , 2 ) and medical ethics ( 3 - 7 ). The scope of debate is broad and encompasses critiques of orthodox perspectives on ethical theories, for example, McIntyre ( 8 , 9 ), and Nunner-Winkler ( 10 ); critiques of the ethics of scientific research, for example, Faulder ( 11 ); and social scientific interest in examining the moral component of research processes ( 12 , 13 ).