Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in Cancer Resistance

Diminished oxygen availability (hypoxia) is a hallmark of the tumor microenvironment. A major regulator of cellular adaptation to hypoxia is the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) family of transcription factors, which play key roles in many crucial aspects of cancer biology including angiogenesis, stem cell maintenance, metabolic reprogramming, resistance to apoptosis, autocrine growth factor signaling, the EMT program, invasion and metastasis. Resistance to chemotherapy/radiotherapy is the primary cause for treatment failure in clinical oncology. Hypoxia and accumulation of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) in solid tumors have been associated with resistance to treatment and poor prognosis. HIFs causes autophagy establishment to promote survival of cancer cells, and is also associated with the promotion and maintenance of cancer stem cells, a minority subpopulation within the tumor responsible for tumor recurrence and resistance to chemotherapy. In this review, we provide a concise comparative description of the structure, regulation, transcribed genes and roles played by each HIFα subunit in coordinating the transcriptional responses to hypoxia and on the roles they play in the promotion of resistance to anti-cancer therapy.
Genome wide identification and expression analysis of ERF gene family members in chickpea in response to drought stress

The ERF (Ethylene Responsive Factor) genes are a family of transcription factors containing an AP2/ERF domain, which play crucial roles in plant development and response to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, genome wide analysis of ERF genes was carried out in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and 98 ERF genes (named CarERF1–CarERF98) were identified. Phylogenetic analysis categorized ERF gene family into two different sub-families, DREB and ERF. DREB subfamily was further divided into 5 subgroups (A1, A2, A4, A5 and A6) and ERF subfamily was divided into 6 subgroups (B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6). DREB A3 subgroup genes were not found in chickpea. One representative gene from each subgroup was selected for the expression analysis in two chickpea cultivars, namely, ICC 4958 (drought tolerant) and ICC 1882 (drought susceptible) in response to drought, ABA and ethephon treatments. The expression analysis was carried out using quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR). Interestingly, CarERF29 belonging to group B4 (ERF subfamily) was significantly up-regulated (about 190 fold) under drought stress in both the cultivars (ICC 4958 and ICC 1882). In response to ABA treatment, both the cultivars showed similar pattern where majority of the genes were upregulated after 12 h of the stress treatment. In case of ethephon treatment, ERF genes were up regulated with increasing duration of treatment in both the cultivars as they are ethylene responsive genes. These results strongly suggest that CarERFs are abiotic stress responsive genes that may play important roles in the stress tolerance of chickpea.
A new automated approach for co-registration of national forest inventory and airborne laser scanning data.

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) data are often used for downscaling point based forest inventory (FI) measurements in order to obtain spatially distributed estimates of forest parameters. Such downscaling algorithms usually consist in a direct coupling between selected FI parameters and ALS data collected at the field sampling locations. Thus, adequate co-registration between FI and ALS data is an essential pre-processing step in order to get accurate predictive relationships. The current paper presents a new, automated co-registration approach which iteratively searches for the best match between an ALS based canopy height model and the tree positions and heights measured during the FI. While the basic principle of the algorithm applies to various types of FI sampling configurations, the co-registration approach has been specifically developed to take into account the tree selection criteria posed by angle count sampling. Several criteria are employed to detect possible ambiguous solutions and to reduce post-processing efforts by an image operator. Model validation was based on National Forest Inventory (NFI) and ALS data of the Austrian Vorarlberg province. Results show that 67% of the sample plots could be accurately automatically co-registered (i.e, distance to reference data set 4 m were correctly marked by the algorithm as being ambiguous. Applying the automatically co-registered sample plots in a growing stock model provided estimates that were clearly superior to those obtained with the original plot positions and even slightly outperformed those based on manual co-registration. As the developed algorithm will be part of an operational processing chain for Austrian NFI data, it has a high practical relevance.
Multiplicative controllability for nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations between sign-changing states

In this paper we study the global approximate multiplicative controllability for nonlinear degenerate parabolic Cauchy problems. In particular, we consider a one-dimensional semilinear degenerate reaction-diffusion equation in divergence form governed via the coefficient of the reaction term (bilinear or multiplicative control). The above one-dimensional equation is degenerate since the diffusion coefficient is positive on the interior of the spatial domain and vanishes at the boundary points. Furthermore, two different kinds of degenerate diffusion coefficient are distinguished and studied in this paper: the weakly degenerate case, that is, if the reciprocal of the diffusion coefficient is summable, and the strongly degenerate case, that is, if that reciprocal isn’t summable. In our main result we show that the above systems can be steered from an initial continuous state that admits a finite number of points of sign change to a target state with the same number of changes of sign in the same order. Our method uses a recent technique introduced for uniformly parabolic equations employing the shifting of the points of sign change by making use of a finite sequence of initial-value pure diffusion problems. Our interest in degenerate reaction-diffusion equations is motivated by the study of some energy balance models in climatology (see, e.g., the Budyko-Sellers model) and some models in population genetics (see, e.g., the Fleming-Viot model).
Nanoporous Titania Coating of Microwell Chips for Stem Cell Culture and Analysis

Stem cell research is today an active and promising field of research. To learn more about the biology of stem cells, technical improvements are needed such as tools to study stem cells in order to characterize them further and to gain insights to the molecular regulations of their maintenance, differentiation and identification. Common procedure when studying stem cells is to coat the surface where the stem cells are to be cultured with organic materials like matri-gel, poly-L-lysine and fibronectin. The resulting coating is usually relatively fragile and it is difficult to know if the coating is evenly distributed. In addition, these forms of coatings cannot be sterilized and re-used, but must be added as an initial, time-consuming step in the daily protocol. A microwell chip with hundreds of 500 nl wells has recently been shown to be a useful tool for stem cell culturing. This platform is here modified to facilitate and improve the coating conditions for adherent cell culture. A robust and highly porous film of TiO2 is deposited in the wells prior cell seeding. TiO2 is known to be biocompatible and provides a surface that is even and well characterized, simple to produce and re-usable. Furthermore it enables the microwell chips to be stored pre-coated for longer periods of time before use. We investigated the growth of rat mesenchymal stem cells on nanoporous titania films and found that they proliferated much faster than on conventional coatings. The combination of the robust TiO2 coating of the microwell chip enables thousands of individually separated single, or clones of, stem cells to be studied simultaneously and opens up the possibility for more user-friendly cell culturing.
INFLUENCE OF LANDSCAPE CHARACTERISTICS ON CAPYBARA ROAD-KILL ON HIGHWAY BR-040, SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL

Motor vehicles colliding with large- and medium-sized mammals on highways may cause serious accidents, including loss of human lives or substantial material damages. Predicting the sites of highest incidence of the collisions is a relevant matter to propose mitigation measures, and this is done by using models that relate collision occurrences with landscape characteristics of the surroundings. Capybaras are one of the largest mammals in the tropics and the most common victims of vehicle collisions in Brazil. This work aimed to determine which landscape characteristics are related to capybara road-kill along 180.4 km of the BR-040 Highway between Rio de Janeiro and Juiz de Fora cities, Southeastern Brazil. Capybaras were monitored for 4 years, and 51 road-kills were registered. The landscape characteristics assessed within 1 km of the road-kill were quantified as: urban area, forest cover, herbaceous cover, crop fields and distance of the nearest river. Afterwards, logistic regression models were generated, and the best were selected by Akaike's Information Criterion. The occurrence of capybara road-kills was mainly associated with river proximity, but also high herbaceous cover and low forest cover was relevant. Landscape characteristics found to be relevant are indeed related to the habitat of these social and semi-aquatic mammals that prefer to be near open areas and water bodies. Some mitigation measures are proposed to reduce collisions with these animals, including installation of signs and fences in the surroundings of water bodies.
Modeling Purchases as Repeated Events

We put forward a statistical model for interpurchase times that incorporates all current and past information available for all purchases as time runs along the calendar time scale. It delivers forecasts for the number of purchases in the next period, as well as for the timing of subsequent and consecutive purchases. Purchase occasions are viewed as a counting process that counts the recurrent purchases for each house-hold as they evolve over time. We illustrate our model for yogurt purchases and highlight its managerial implications.
NEW RESULTS FROM THE EMMA EXPERIMENT

EMMA (Electron Model for Many Applications) is a prototype non-scaling electron FFAG operating at Dares- bury Laboratory. After demonstrating serpentine channel acceleration and fast resonance crossing in 2011, studies continue of the beam dynamics to explore the large trans- verse and longitudinal acceptance, the detailed effects of integer tune crossing at slow acceleration rates, compari- son of measurements to detailed field measurements, and the experimental mapping of the machine by relating the initial and final phase space coordinates. These recent re- sults are reported in this paper, together with more prac- tical improvements such as injection orbit matching with real-time monitoring of the bunch coordinates in transverse phase space.
Risks and benefits from using mobile banking in an emerging country

An emerging countries banking service providers are eager to implement new technologies and services in order to grasp, penetrate the market and gain competitive advantage. The banks made use of technology by introducing new products such as mobile banking, but customers are not really adopting this new banking model provided as a result some challenges. Then, the overall objective of this study is to explore the risks and benefits on acceptance and usage of mobile banking by users in emerging countries. Also, to identify whether the independent variables are statistically significant factors in the adoption of mobile banking. The research established the effect of independent variables, which include perceived usefulness, and perceived ease use on dependent variables, i.e. the adoption of mobile banking. In the findings it was found that participants would use mobile banking if it is easy to use because then it will be useful to them. Conclusions were made that perceived ease of use of mobile banking positively affect perceived usefulness of mobile banking, perceived ease of use of mobile banking positively affect the behavioral intention to use mobile banking while perceived usefulness of mobile banking has a positive impact on the behavioral intention to use mobile banking.
Combined Effect of Syzygium cumini Seed Kernel Extract with Oral Hypoglycemics in Diabetes Induced Increase in Susceptability to Ulcerogenic Stimuli

Diabetes has been reported to increase propensity to peptic ulceration through its effect both on offensive and defensive mucosal factors. Seeds of Syzygium cumini have been reported to have both antidiabetic as well as ulcer protective effects. The present study evaluated the antidiabetic effects of ethanolic extract of dried seed kernel of Syzygium cumini (200 mg/kg) and its comparative effect on gastric ulceration with standards Acarbose (5 mg/kg) an α-glucosidase inhibitor and natural standard Quercetin 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg. The study also investigated the combined effect of Syzygium cumini seed kernel extracts with oral hypoglycemic agents in diabetes induced ulcer. The development of diabetic ulcers was assessed biochemically. Diabetes was induced by high fat diet/low dose streptozotocin (35 mg/kg). The protective effects of Syzygium cumini in rats with type 2 diabetes mellitus were investigated by oral glucose tolerance test. Single and repeated dose study was performed in normal and diabetic rats. Diabetic rats were exposed to gastric ulceration by indomethacin and ethanol induced models to study the role of oral hypoglycemics in diabetes induced increase in susceptibility to ulcerogenic stimuli. Syzygium cumini and its combination with standard showed significance in reducing the elevations of gastric ulcer index in the induced models and restored the depleted antioxidant defenses (superoxide dismutase, catalase and total proteins activities) caused by indomethacin administration. It was concluded that Syzygium cumini along with Acarbose represents a potential therapeutic option to reduce the risk of Diabetes induced gastric ulcerogenic stimuli in type 2 diabetic patients.
Comparison of two classification criteria of lateral strength asymmetry of the lower limbs in professional soccer players

Prospective studies have indicated that assessing muscle function by the isokinetic test in the preseason is able to identify muscle strength variables that can be associated with injuries in the hamstring muscles of professional soccer players. However, the results are conflicting and could be related to the different cutoff points for the categorization of athletes in asymmetric or symmetric. Based on these conflicting results, the present study aims to: i) Identify the cutoff points of lateral asymmetry (LA) of the 95% confidence interval for the peak torque in soccer players, evaluated by the isokinetic test, taking into consideration the mean population value; ii) Compare LA between 15% cutoff point proposed in literature and the upper limit of 95% confidence interval (UP) of the study population. Sixty-four professional soccer players performed five knee flexion and extension repetitions at rate of 60°/s, with a one-minute interval. To determine the cutoff point for strength asymmetries, the UP was used, and for the purpose of diagnostic concordance of information among the different values, the McNemar’s χ2 test was applied. The proportion between symmetric and asymmetric athletes was not different from the 15% cutoff point and the general population, both for knee flexors (χ2 = 0.5, p = 0.250) and the knee extensors (χ2 = 2.0, p = 0.125). It was concluded that the cutoff point of 15% referenced in literature for the general population provides similar diagnostic information for the classification of professional soccer players.
A novel RP-HPLC method development and validation of Cobicistat in bulk drug and tablet dosage form

The literature review reveals that there are some analytical methods reported for Cobicistat by RP-HPLC method and most of the work was done on biological fluids. Present study aims to develop a specific, precise, accurate, rapid, sensitive and faster elution RP-HPLC method for the estimation of Cobicistat in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage form, using laboratory chemicals. Chromatography was carried on reverse phase C18 (4.6 x 100 mm, 5mm, Make: Phenomenex) column, in an isocratic mode using a combination of methanol and water in the ratio of 20:80 v/v as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.8 ml/min with UV detection at 249 nm. The selected chromatographic conditions were found to analyze Cobicistat (retention time = 4.7 min). The different analytical performance parameters such as linearity, precision, accuracy, specificity, limit of detection and limit of quantification were determined. The linearity of the calibration curve for each analyte in the desired concentration range is good (r2>0.9) The recovery of the method was between 98-102%. Hence, the proposed method is highly sensitive, precise and accurate and it may be successfully applied for the reliable quantification of API content in the commercial formulation of Cobicistat.
Well-Being in Adolescence—An Association With Health-Related Behaviors

The objective of this study was to investigate the demographic distribution of selected health-related behaviors and their relationship with different indicators of well-being. The data come from Wave 1 of the youth panel of Understanding Society household panel study. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) measured socio-emotional difficulties. Markers of happiness in different life domains were combined to assess levels of happiness. Generally, younger youth participated in more health-protective behaviors, while older youth reported more health-risk behaviors. Higher consumption of fruit and vegetables and greater participation in sport were associated with higher odds of high happiness. Healthier eating was associated with lower odds of socio-emotional difficulties, while increased fast food consumption was associated with higher odds of socio-emotional difficulties. Smoking, drinking, and decreased sport participation were all associated with socio-emotional difficulties. Health-protective behaviors were associated with happiness, while health-risk behaviors were associated with socio-emotional difficulties.
An Integrated View of EOP and EAP

This paper is concerned with some issues of English for Occupational Purposes and English for Academic Purposes. The main objective of the paper is to describe possible approaches to integrating EOP and EAP on the basis of the pilot English for Specific Academic Purposes course introduced at National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
A Botanist’s Cognitive View on Plant Growth: Cross-Talk between Developmental and Sensitivity Networks

An alteration in plant phenotypes assisted by their responses to the environmental stimuli (=tropism) has been fundamental to understand the “plant sensitivity ” that plays a crucial role in plants’ adaptive success. Plants succeed through the deployment of moderators controlling polar auxin-transport determining organ bending. Stimulus-specific effectors can be synthesized by the outer peripheral cells at the bending sites where they target highly conserved cellular processes and potentially persuade the plant sensitivity at large. Remarkably, the peripheral cells require different time-intervals to achieve the threshold expression-levels of stimulus-specific molecular responders. After stimulus perception, tropic curvatures (especially at growing root-apices) are duly coordinated via integrated chemical and electrical signalling which is the key to cellular communications. Thus, the acquired phenotypic alterations are the perplexed outcome of plant’s developmental pace, complemented by the sensitivity. A novel aspect of this study is to advance our understanding of plant developmental-programming and the extent of plant-sensitivity, determining the plant growth and their future applications.
Concentration Dependent Depth Distribution of Acetonitrile at the Liquid/Vapor Interface of Aqueous Solutions

Chemical reactions occur ubiquitously at the air/water interfaces of oceans and rivers, as well as on aerosols in the atmosphere. Presently, these occurrences are not well understood. In recent years, however, this field has drawn a wave of interest, due to the emergence of experimental techniques sensitive to the liquid surface and more powerful computing architectures that permit the simulations of large systems. The importance of understanding molecular transfer through the liquid/vapor interface to better interpret atmospheric chemical processes cannot be overstated. Reported here, are molecular dynamics simulations of acetonitrile-water binary solutions at concentrations of 0.05--0.6 mole fraction. Evaluating systems of low bulk acetonitrile concentration reveals an enhanced population of the solute near the liquid/vapor interface. These surface-bound acetonitrile molecules exhibit a specific preferential anisotropy, where temporally averaged probability distributions of molecular orientation have indicated interfacial acetonitrile laying nearly flat along the surface with the terminal methyl group directed away from the condensed phase. Upon increasing the bulk concentration, the formation of acetonitrile domains are promoted by interactions between hydrophobic methyl moieties. Dipole-dipole interactions facilitate a pseudonematic, antiparallel pairing of near-neighbor molecules, a behavior present in both bulk solution and near the liquid/vapor interface. In the latter, the preferred orientation of acetonitrile flattens further to accommodate antiparallel pairing of neighbor molecules, such that the methyl group remains above the solution, protected from unfavorable hydration. This study offers an interpretation of a binary liquid solution that manifests behavior similar to liquid-crystals through preferred orientations and pseudonematic antiparallel pairing.
Oil Prices and Real Exchange Rate Movements in Oil-Exporting Countries: The Role of Institutions

Political and legal institutions affect the extent to which the real exchange rates of oil-exporting countries co-move with the oil price. In a simple theoretical model, strong institutions insulate real exchange rates from oil price volatility by generating a smooth pattern of fiscal spending over the price cycle. Empirical tests on a panel of 33 oil-exporting countries provide evidence that countries with high bureaucratic quality and strong and impartial legal systems have real exchange rates that co-move less with the oil price.
Location tracking of mobiles in cellular radio networks

Some useful services in cellular radio networks and also a class of handover algorithms require knowledge of the present position and velocity of mobiles. This paper deals with a method to track mobiles by on-line monitoring of field strength data of surrounding base stations at successive time points. Such data is available in present global system for mobile communication (GSM) systems each 0.48 s and also in code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems for transmission control. Because of strong random fluctuations of the signals, appropriate smoothing is the key point of the procedure. We develop a locally linear prediction model of successive positions as a basis for Kalman filtering. This approach turns out to be extremely successful, achieving average mislocations of 70 m in simulated test runs. Further improvement is possible by using external geographical information.