Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-Term Circulation of Atypical Porcine Pestivirus (APPV) within Switzerland

In 2015, a new pestivirus was described in pig sera in the United States. This new “atypical porcine pestivirus” (APPV) was later associated with congenital tremor (CT) in newborn piglets. The virus appears to be distributed worldwide, but the limited knowledge of virus diversity and the use of various diagnostic tests prevent direct comparisons. Therefore, we developed an APPV-specific real-time RT-PCR assay in the 5′UTR of the viral genome to investigate both retro- and prospectively the strains present in Switzerland and their prevalence in domestic pigs. Overall, 1080 sera obtained between 1986 and 2018 were analyzed, revealing a virus prevalence of approximately 13% in pigs for slaughter, whereas it was less than 1% in breeding pigs. In the prospective study, APPV was also detected in piglets displaying CT. None of the samples could detect the Linda virus, which is another new pestivirus recently reported in Austria. Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed a broad diversity of APP viruses in Switzerland that are considerably distinct from sequences reported from other isolates in Europe and overseas. This study indicates that APPV has already been widely circulating in Switzerland for many years, mainly in young animals, with 1986 being the earliest report of APPV worldwide.
Molecular mechanism of Forkhead box M1 inhibition by thiostrepton in breast cancer cells

Breast cancer is the most common type of malignancies in women worldwide, and genotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs are effective by causing DNA damage in cancer cells. However, >90% of patients with metastatic cancer are resistant to chemotherapy. The Forkhead box M1 (FOXM1) transcription factor plays a pivotal role in the resistance of breast cancer cells to chemotherapy by promoting DNA damage repair following genotoxic drug treatment. The aim of the present study was to investigate the inhibition of the FOXM1 protein by thiostrepton, a natural antibiotic produced by the Streptomyces species. Experimental studies were designed to examine the effectiveness of thiostrepton in downregulating FOXM1 mRNA expression and activity, leading to senescence and apoptosis of breast cancer cells. The cytotoxicity of thiostrepton in breast cancer was determined using cell viability assay. Additionally, thiostrepton treatment decreased the mRNA expression of cyclin B1 (CCNB1), a downstream target of FOXM1. The present results indicated that thiostrepton inhibited FOXM1 mRNA expression and its effect on CCNB1. Molecular dynamic simulations were performed to study the interactions between FOXM1-DNA and thiostrepton after molecular docking. The results revealed that the possible mechanism underlying the inhibitory effect of thiostrepton on FOXM1 function was by forming a tight complex with the DNA and FOXM1 via its binding domain. Collectively, these results indicated that thiostrepton is a specific and direct inhibitor of the FOXM1 protein in breast cancer. The findings of the present study may lead to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for breast cancer and help overcome resistance to conventional chemotherapeutic drugs.
SIRPα deficiency accelerates the pathologic process in models of Parkinson disease

Microglia‐mediated neuroinflammation is a crucial pathophysiological contributor to several aging‐related neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease (PD). During the process of aging or stress, microglia undergoes several transcriptional and morphological changes that contribute to aberrant immunological responses, which is known as priming. Key molecules involved in the process, however, are not clearly defined. In the present study, we have demonstrated that level of microglial signal regulatory protein α (SIRPα) decreased during aging or inflammatory challenge. Functional studies suggested that downregulation of SIRPα released the brake of inflammatory response in microglia, revealing an inhibitory effect of SIRPα in microglial activation. Furthermore, we assessed the impact of SIRPα downregulation in PD pathogenesis using both cell culture and animal models. Our results showed that SIRPα deficiency resulted in abnormal inflammatory response and phagocytic activity of microglia, which in turn, further accelerated degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in 1‐Methyl‐4‐phenyl‐1,2,3,6‐tetrahydropyridine or lipopolysaccharides mice models. These results collectively demonstrate that dysregulation of SIRPα signaling in microglia during aging plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of age‐related neurological disorders such as PD.
Proceedings of the 2000 NAACL-ANLP Workshop on Automatic Summarization

Automatic summarization aims at producing a concise, condensed representation of the key information content in an information source for a particular user and task. Interest in automatic summarization continues to grow, motivated by the explosion of on-line information sources and advances in natural language processing and information retrieval. In fact, some form of automatic summarization may be indispensable given the massive information universes that lie ahead in the 21st century. The problem of automatic summarization poses a variety of tough challenges in both NL understanding and generation. A spate of recent papers and tutorials on this subject at conferences such as ACL/EACL, AAAI, ECAI, IJCAI, and SIGIR point to a growing interest in research in this field. Several commercial summarization products have also appeared. There have been several workshops in the past on this subject: in Dagstuhl (1994), Madrid (1997), and Stanford (1998). It is our great pleasure to bring the fourth such event to you. While the field continues to progress, there are also many problems that need to be addressed before the promises of automatic text summarization can be fully realized. The papers included in this volume present a snapshot of recent progress in solving some of the problems: concept identification, identification of discourse markers, multi-document summarization, content visualization, evaluation, and use. Out of 29 submissions to the workshop, 10 are included in these proceedings.
Comparitive Analysis of DV-hop and APIT Localization Techniques in WSN

New advancements in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) make it a significant technology in research and academic community. Because of its ad-hoc and minimum infrastructure nature, it has gained lot of attention by researchers in past few years. In WSN, sensor nodes are small sized with limited energy processors which have most important task in WSN. They gather data, process it and further send it to the destination. In many applications like rescue operations, military tracking, environment monitoring etc. it is required that location of sensors must be known else the information collected gets no meaning. So, many localization algorithms are introduced in WSN which meet the resource, hardware, cost and energy constraints of WSN. Range free localization techniques are best suited for these requirements of network. DV-HOP and APIT range free techniques have gained attention in most of research efforts. So,in this paper ,performance of these techniques is evaluated on the basis of accuracy obtained while implementeing them in WSN . Detail analysis of localization error is done by considering different network parameters effecting it directly. Further structured deployment of anchors is proposed that gave more reliable results .
The Challenge of Treating Pulmonary Vasculitis in Behçet Disease: Two Pediatric Cases

We reported 2 pediatric patients with BD with pulmonary vasculitis, treated successfully with an aggressive immunosuppressive modality, and we have done a systematic review. Behçet disease (BD) is a multisystemic autoinflammatory disorder characterized by recurrent mucocutaneous, ocular, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, central nervous system, and vascular manifestations. Pulmonary arterial involvement (PAI) of BD is probably the most severe form of vasculitis, at least in children. PAI has a high mortality, morbidity, and recurrence rate. There are limited data regarding treatment and outcomes of pediatric patients with BD with PAI. Herein, we report 2 pediatric patients with BD presented with hemoptysis and support our data with a systematic review. These patients were given immunosuppressive therapy, which covered pulse methylprednisolone followed by oral prednisolone, intravenous cyclophosphamide every 3 weeks for a total of 6 cycles, and interferon-α2a concomitantly. These are the first reported cases in the literature successfully treated with this treatment modality in a complication with 50% mortality. These patients have been followed up for a period of at least 4 years without any vascular recurrence. Pediatricians should be aware that patients with BD may not present with full diagnostic criteria. They should consider BD in a child with PAI to avoid diagnostic delay and start life-saving accurate immunosuppressive treatment.
Understanding Missing Entropy in Coarse-Grained Systems: Addressing Issues of Representability and Transferability.

Coarse-grained (CG) models facilitate efficient simulation of complex systems by integrating out the atomic, or fine-grained (FG), degrees of freedom. Systematically-derived CG models from FG simulations often attempt to approximate the CG potential of mean force (PMF), an inherently multidimensional and many-body quantity, using additive pairwise contributions. However, they currently lack fundamental principles that enable their extensible use across different thermodynamic state points, i.e., transferability. In this work, we investigate the explicit energy-entropy decomposition of the CG PMF as a means to construct transferable CG models. In particular, despite its high-dimensional nature, we find for liquid systems that the entropic component to the CG PMF can similarly be represented using additive pairwise contributions, which we show is highly coupled to the CG configurational entropy. This approach formally connects the missing entropy that is lost due to the CG representation, i.e., translational, rotational and vibrational modes associated with the missing degrees of freedom, to the CG entropy. By design, the present framework imparts transferable CG interactions across different temperatures due to the explicit definition of an additive entropic contribution. Furthermore, we demonstrate that transferability across composition state points, such as between bulk liquids and their mixtures, is also achieved by designing combining rules to approximate cross-interactions from bulk CG PMFs. Using the predicted CG model for liquid mixtures, structural correlations of the fitted CG model were found to corroborate a high-fidelity combining rule. Our findings elucidate the physical nature and compact representation of CG entropy and suggest a new approach for overcoming the transferability problem. We expect this approach will further extend the current view of CG modeling into predictive multiscale modeling.
AML-derived mesenchymal stem cells upregulate CTGF expression through the BMP pathway and induce K562-ADM fusiform transformation and chemoresistance

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), are the basic cellular components that make up the bone marrow microenvironment (BMM). In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the morphology and function of MSCs changes in accordance with the transformation of the BMM. Moreover, the transformation of MSCs into osteoblasts is determined through the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway, ultimately leading to an altered expression of the downstream adhesion molecule, connective tissue growth factor (CTGF). In this study, we aimed to explore the interaction of possible pathways in AML-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AML-MSCs) co-cultured with the K562 and K562-ADM cell lines. AML-MSCs were co-cultured with K562/K562-ADM cells, and the interactions between the cells were verified by morphological detection, peroxidase staining (POX), reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). The proliferation of K562/K562-ADM cells under co-culture conditions was detected by flow cytometry. The expression levels of BMP4 and CTGF were examined by RT-qPCR and western blot (WB) analysis. The detection of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-32 was also determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In the co-culture system, the K562-ADM cells underwent fusiform transformation. The occurrence of this transformation was associated with an increased expression of CTGF due to the dysregulation of the BMP pathway. The AML-MSCs promoted the proliferation of the K562-ADM cell, but inhibited that of the K562 cells. These findings were confirmed by changes in the expression of the soluble cytokines, IL-6 and IL-32. On the whole, the findings of this study demonstrate that AML-MSCs regulate the expression of CTGF through the BMP pathway. In addition, they affect cytokine production, induce spindle-shaped transformation, and increase drug resistance in the K562-ADM cells. Thus, the morphological transformation through the BMP pathway provides us with a novel target with which to circumvent tumor occurrence, development, drug resistance, invasion and metastasis.
Regulation of toxic shock syndrome toxin‐1 by the accessory gene regulator in Staphylococcus aureus is mediated by the repressor of toxins

Toxic shock syndrome toxin‐1 (TSST‐1) is a superantigen (SAg) produced by Staphylococcus aureus thought to be responsible for essentially all cases of menstrual‐associated toxic shock syndrome (TSS). As a potent exotoxin, it is not surprising that S. aureus has evolved multiple systems to control expression of TSST‐1. Although the accessory gene regulator (Agr) system is recognized to enhance TSST‐1 expression, how Agr regulates TSST‐1 is unclear. Using an agr‐null mutant, complementation experiments demonstrated that Agr controls TSST‐1 expression through the activity of the RNAIII effector molecule. RNAIII can repress translation of the repressor of toxins (Rot) regulator, and deletion of rot increased expression of TSST‐1 during the exponential phase of growth. Deletion of agr did not affect rot transcription, but did result in overexpression of the Rot protein, and Rot was also shown to bind and positively regulate the rot promoter. Overexpression of Rot dramatically repressed TSST‐1, and Rot bound directly to the TSST‐1 promoter. Deletion of both agr and rot in S. aureus returned TSST‐1 expression to wild‐type levels. This work demonstrates that Agr, although widely considered to be an inducer of TSST‐1, has evolved in combination with Rot, to restrict the expression of this potent SAg.
Towards an Analysis of Verifiable Mix Network Properties

With the development of mix-net, the basic properties of mix-net cannot satisfy all the requirements of people. The verifiable mix-net raised in response to the proper time and conditions. In this paper, we study the problem of simultaneously achieving several security properties, for mix-nets and verifiability mix-nets. More precisely, under different assumptions and requirements, verifiability mix-nets have more extra security properties than mix-nets. The basic properties of mix-nets contain correctness, privacy, robustness, availability and efficient. The extra properties of verifiability mix-nets contain universal verifiability, unconditional anonymous, receipt-freeness. This paper summarizes all of the security properties, and defines them explicitly and systematically.
Effects of single and repeated drought on soil microarthropods in a semi-arid ecosystem depend more on timing and duration than drought severity

Soil moisture is one of the most important factors affecting soil biota. In arid and semi-arid ecosystems, soil mesofauna is adapted to temporary drought events, but, until now, we have had a limited understanding of the impacts of the different magnitudes and frequencies of drought predicted to occur according to future climate change scenarios. The present study focuses on how springtails and mites respond to simulated repeated drought events of different magnitudes in a field experiment in a Hungarian semi-arid sand steppe. Changes in soil arthropod activities were monitored with soil trapping over two years in a sandy soil. In the first year (2014), we applied an extreme drought pretreatment, and in the consecutive year, we applied less devastating treatments (severe drought, moderate drought, water addition) to these sites. In the first year, the extreme drought pretreatment tended to have a negative effect (either significantly or not significantly) on the capture of all Collembola groups, whereas all mite groups increased in activity density. However, in the consecutive year, between the extreme drought and control treatments, we only detected differences in soil microbial biomass. In the cases of severe drought, moderate drought and water addition, we did not find considerable changes across the microarthropods, except in the case of epedaphic Collembola. In the cases of the water addition and drought treatments, the duration and timing of the manipulation seemed to be more important for soil mesofauna than their severity (i.e., the level of soil moisture decrease). We suggest that in these extreme habitats, soil mesofauna are able to survive extreme conditions, and their populations recover rapidly, but they may not be able to cope with very long drought periods.
Computational analysis of airflow dynamics for predicting collapsible sites in the upper airways: Machine learning approach.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep breathing disorder. Employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD), this study provides a quantitative standard for accurate diagnosis and effective surgery based on the investigation of the relationship between airway geometry and aerodynamic characteristics. Based on computed tomography data from patients having normal geometry, four major geometric parameters were selected, and a total of 160 idealized cases were modeled and simulated. We created a predictive model using Gaussian process regression (GPR) through a dataset obtained through numerical method. The results demonstrated that the mean accuracy of the overall GPR model was approximately 72% with respect to the CFD results for the realistic upper airway model. A support vector machine model was also used to identify the degree of OSA symptoms in patients as normal-mild and moderate/severe. We achieved an accuracy of 82.5% with the training dataset and an accuracy of 80% with the test dataset.
Attitudes toward standardized assessment tools and their use among clinicians in a public mental health service

Abstract The aim of the present study was to investigate the use and attitudes toward standardized assessment tools among clinicians in a public mental health service in Norway. A total of 606 clinicians provided feedback on their use and attitudes regarding psychometric qualities of such tools, their practicality, and their benefit over clinical judgment alone using the Attitudes toward Standardized Assessment (ASA) Scales. Clinicians working in the adult mental health field scored significantly higher on use of diagnostic interviews, pre–post evaluations, and ongoing evaluations, whereas clinicians working in the child/adolescent mental health field scored significantly higher on use of screening instruments and held more positive attitudes towards using standardized assessment tools. Attitudes toward standardized assessment tools predicted use of such tools, and results were found to be similar to a study on US clinicians. Whereas the US study only found attitudes regarding the practicality of using such instrument as an independent predictor of assessment use, the current study found that attitudes regarding psychometric qualities of such tools, their practicality, and their benefit over clinical judgment alone were independent predictors of use.
Linking resting‐state networks and social cognition in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show alterations in functional neural connectivity during rest. However, resting‐state network (RSN) disruptions have not been systematically compared between the two disorders. Further, the impact of RSN disruptions on social cognition, a key determinant of functional outcome, has not been studied. Forty‐eight individuals with schizophrenia, 46 with bipolar disorder, and 48 healthy controls completed resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging. An atlas‐based approach was used to examine functional connectivity within nine RSNs across the cortex. RSN connectivity was assessed via nonparametric permutation testing, and associations with performance on emotion perception, mentalizing, and emotion management tasks were examined. Group differences were observed in the medial and lateral visual networks and the sensorimotor network. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated reduced connectivity relative to healthy controls in all three networks. Individuals with bipolar disorder demonstrated reduced connectivity relative to controls in the medial visual network and connectivity within this network was significantly positively correlated with emotion management. In healthy controls, connectivity within the medial and lateral visual networks positively correlated with mentalizing. No significant correlations were found for either visual network in schizophrenia. Results highlight the role of altered early visual processing in social cognitive deficits in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, individuals with bipolar disorder appear to compensate for disrupted visual network connectivity on social cognitive tasks, whereas those with schizophrenia do not. The current study adds clarity on the neurophysiology underlying social cognitive deficits that result in impaired functioning in serious mental illness.
Credit assignment to state-independent task representations and its relationship with model-based decision making

Significance It is widely accepted that agents learn action values based on experience in a “model-free” manner (i.e., without holding a model of the environment). Environments usually embody many features, where a subset is considered relevant for model-free outcome learning. In this study, we show that a putative model-free system assigns credit to outcome-irrelevant task representations, regardless of stimulus features. The degree of impact of these associations is strongly linked to deployment of model-based strategies. Our findings motivate a reconsideration of how model-free representations are formed and regulated according to the structure of the environment. Model-free learning enables an agent to make better decisions based on prior experience while representing only minimal knowledge about an environment’s structure. It is generally assumed that model-free state representations are based on outcome-relevant features of the environment. Here, we challenge this assumption by providing evidence that a putative model-free system assigns credit to task representations that are irrelevant to an outcome. We examined data from 769 individuals performing a well-described 2-step reward decision task where stimulus identity but not spatial-motor aspects of the task predicted reward. We show that participants assigned value to spatial-motor representations despite it being outcome irrelevant. Strikingly, spatial-motor value associations affected behavior across all outcome-relevant features and stages of the task, consistent with credit assignment to low-level state-independent task representations. Individual difference analyses suggested that the impact of spatial-motor value formation was attenuated for individuals who showed greater deployment of goal-directed (model-based) strategies. Our findings highlight a need for a reconsideration of how model-free representations are formed and regulated according to the structure of the environment.