Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oncogenic KRAS Reduces Expression of FGF21 in Acinar Cells to Promote Pancreatic Tumorigenesis in Mice on a High-Fat Diet.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Obesity is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer. In mice, a high-fat diet (HFD) and expression of oncogenic KRAS lead to development of invasive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by unknown mechanisms. We investigated how oncogenic KRAS regulates the expression of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), a metabolic regulator that prevents obesity, and the effects of recombinant human FGF21 (rhFGF21) on pancreatic tumorigenesis. METHODS We performed immunohistochemical analyses of FGF21 levels in human pancreatic tissue arrays, comprising 59 PDAC specimens and 45 non-tumor tissues. We also studied mice with tamoxifen-inducible expression of oncogenic KRAS in acinar cells (KrasG12D/+ mice) and fElasCreERT mice (controls). KrasG12D/+ mice were placed on a HFD or regular chow diet (control) and given injections of rhFGF21 or vehicle; pancreata were collected and analyzed by histology, immunoblots, quantitative PCR, and immunohistochemistry. We measured markers of inflammation in the pancreas, liver, and adipose tissue. Activity of RAS was measured based on the amount of bound GTP. RESULTS Pancreatic tissues of mice expressed high levels of FGF21 compared with liver. FGF21 and its receptor proteins were expressed by acinar cells. Acinar cells that expressed KrasG12D/+ had significantly lower expression of Fgf21 mRNA, compared with acinar cells from control mice, partly due to downregulation of PPARG expression-a transcription factor that activates Fgf21 transcription. Pancreata from KrasG12D/+ mice on a control diet and given injections of rhFGF21 had reduced pancreatic inflammation, infiltration by immune cells, and acinar-to-ductal metaplasia compared with mice given injections of vehicle. HFD-fed KrasG12D/+ mice given injections of vehicle accumulated abdominal fat, developed extensive inflammation, pancreatic cysts, and high-grade pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias (PanINs); half the mice developed PDAC with liver metastases. HFD-fed KrasG12D/+ mice given injections of rhFGF21 had reduced accumulation of abdominal fat and pancreatic triglycerides, fewer pancreatic cysts, reduced systemic and pancreatic markers of inflammation, fewer PanINs, and longer survival-only about 12% of mice developed PDACs and none of the mice had metastases. Pancreata from HFD-fed KrasG12D/+ mice given injections of rhFGF21 had lower levels of active RAS than from mice given vehicle. CONCLUSIONS Normal acinar cells from mice and humans express high levels of FGF21. In mice, acinar expression of oncogenic KRAS significantly reduces FGF21 expression. When these mice are placed on a HFD, they develop extensive inflammation, pancreatic cysts, PanINs, and PDACs, which are reduced by injection of FGF21. FGF21 also reduces the GTP binding capacity of RAS. FGF21 might be used in prevention or treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Diagnosis and management of duodenal perforations: a narrative review

Abstract Duodenal perforation is a rare, but potentially life-threatening injury. Multiple etiologies are associated with duodenal perforations such as peptic ulcer disease, iatrogenic causes and trauma. Computed tomography with intravenous and oral contrast is the most valuable imaging technique to identify duodenal perforation. In some cases, surgical exploration may be necessary for diagnosis. Specific treatment depends upon the nature of the disease process that caused the perforation, the timing, location and extent of the injury and the clinical condition of the patient. Conservative management seems to be feasible in stable patients with sealed perforations. Immediate surgery is required for patients presenting with peritonitis and/or intra-abdominal sepsis. Minimally invasive techniques are safe and effective alternatives to conventional open surgery in selected patients with duodenal perforations. Here we review the current literature on duodenal perforations and discuss the outcomes of different treatment strategies.
Coarse-to-fine deep neural network for fast pedestrian detection

Pedestrian detection belongs to a category of object detection is a key issue in the field of video surveillance and automatic driving. Although recent object detection methods, such as Fast/Faster RCNN, have achieved excellent performance, it is difficult to meet real-time requirements and limits the application in real scenarios. A coarse-to-fine deep neural network for fast pedestrian detection is proposed in this paper. Two-stage approach is presented to realize fine trade-off between accuracy and speed. In the coarse stage, we train a fast deep convolution neural network to generate most pedestrian candidates at the cost of a number of false positives. The detector can cover the majority of scales, sizes, and occlusions of pedestrians. After that, a classification network is introduced to refine the pedestrian candidates generated from the previous stage. Refining through classification network, most of false detections will be excluded easily and the final pedestrian predictions with bounding box and confidence score are produced. Competitive results have been achieved on INRIA dataset in terms of accuracy, especially the method can achieve real-time detection that is faster than the previous leading methods. The effectiveness of coarse-to-fine approach to detect pedestrians is verified, and the accuracy and stability are also improved.
A Highly Efficient Gray Image Compression Codec using Neuro Fuzzy Based Soft Hybrid JPEG Standard

In the current scenario, image compression field demands highly efficient image compression with less compression error. To achieve efficient image compression, there is a requirement of a technique which can increase compression ratio to a greater extent as compare to available techniques, while on the same time can keeps the compression error as low as possible. In case of lossless image compression techniques it is not possible to achieve higher compression ratio, though they provides low compression error. On the other side lossy image compression techniques like JPEG and JPEG2k can able to proved sound compression ratio up to a limited range and also provides higher compression error. This paper brought forward a novel gray image compression technique using hybrid transform structure along with neuro fuzzy environment. The results obtained include compression between conventional JPEG, JPEG2k, previously developed fuzzy based soft hybrid JPEG (FSHJPEG) and the proposed technique neuro fuzzy based soft hybrid JPEG (NFSHJPEG).
Effects of temperature on sperm motility of burbot Lota lota: spontaneous activation and calcium dependency.

Several factors regulating activation of spermatozoon motility in Eurasian burbot, Lota lota, including osmolality, calcium (Ca2+ ) ions, and temperature were investigated. Spermatozoon motility in Eurasian burbot, Lota lota was assessed at 4°C and 30°C in seminal fluid, isotonic media (with and without Ca2+ ) and hypotonic media (with and without Ca2+ ). Spermatozoa were spontaneously activated in seminal fluid at 20°C and the maximum motility was recorded at 30°C, which is out of the spawning temperature range, indicating that no risk of activation occurs during routine semen handling in artificial insemination. Initiation of spermatozoon motility in L. lota is mediated by Ca2+ and sensitivity to Ca2+ is dependent on temperature. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
“I can see you; I can feel it; and vice-versa”: consciousness and its relation to emotional physiology

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore whether masked emotional faces can elicit changes in physiology without awareness. We also explore whether emotional miss-discrimination involves the physiological correlates associated with the perception of an emotion. We adjust the discrimination threshold of presentation per participant and stimulus type to chance-level performance using hit rates and receiver-operating characteristics (ROC). We assess subliminality using an adjusted Bayesian criterion for awareness (A = .167). We measure skin-conductance, heart-rate, facial-emotional and engagement-task force-pressure responses to masked fearful, angry, happy, sad and neutral faces. We report that when faces were subjectively adjusted using unbiased ROC criteria for awareness, we found non-significant differences between emotions and Bayesian evidence for null responses. Hit-rate adjustments were associated with physiological changes for hits and misses for fearful, angry and happy faces. For misses for discrimination performance, participants could correctly appraise the valence and arousal of the presented face. Miss-discrimination for seeing a fearful face when presented with innocuous cues was also associated with high arousal responses. These findings suggest that if physiological arousal is elicited during the presentation of masked emotion, conscious assessment is, upon explicit post-trial inquiry, involved in the evaluation of the elicited emotion and the emotional elicitor.
syncope: Automatic Enforcement of Distributed Consistency Guarantees

Designing reliable and highly available distributed applications typically requires data to be replicated over geo-distributed stores. But, such architectures force application developers to make an undesirable tradeoff between ease of reasoning, possible when replicated data is required to be strongly consistent, and performance, possible when such guarantees are weakened. Unfortunately, undesirable behaviors may arise under weak consistency that can violate application correctness, forcing designers to either implement ad-hoc mechanisms to avoid these anomalies, or choose to run applications using stronger levels of consistency than necessary. The former approach introduces unwanted complexity, while the latter sacrifices performance. In this paper, we describe a lightweight runtime verification system that relieves developers from having to make such tradeoffs. Instead, our approach leverages declarative axiomatic specifications that reflect the necessary constraints any correct implementation must satisfy to guide a runtime consistency enforcement and monitoring mechanism. This mechanism guarantees a provably optimal strategy that imposes no additional communication or blocking overhead beyond what is required to satisfy the specification, allowing distributed operations to run in a provably safe environment. Experimental results show that the performance of our automatically derived mechanisms is better than both specialized hand-written protocols and common store-offered consistency guarantees, providing strong evidence of its practical utility.
The novel lncRNA CALIC upregulates AXL to promote colon cancer metastasis

Long non‐coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are aberrantly expressed in many disease conditions, including cancer. Accumulating evidence indicates that some lncRNAs may play critical roles in cancer progression and metastasis. Here, we identify a set of lncRNAs that are upregulated in metastatic subpopulations isolated from colon cancer HCT116 cells in vivo and show that one of these lncRNAs, which we name CALIC, is required for the metastatic activity of colon cancer cells. We show that CALIC associates with the RNA‐binding protein hnRNP‐L and imparts specificity to hnRNP‐L‐mediated gene expression. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the CALIC/hnRNP‐L complex upregulates the tyrosine kinase receptor AXL and that knockdown of CALIC or AXL using shRNA in colon cancer cells attenuates their ability to form metastases in mice. These results suggest that the CALIC/hnRNP‐L complex enhances the metastatic potential of colon cancer cells.
Nucleotide signaling pathway convergence in a cAMP‐sensing bacterial c‐di‐GMP phosphodiesterase

Bacterial usage of the cyclic dinucleotide c‐di‐GMP is widespread, governing the transition between motile/sessile and unicellular/multicellular behaviors. There is limited information on c‐di‐GMP metabolism, particularly on regulatory mechanisms governing control of EAL c‐di‐GMP phosphodiesterases. Herein, we provide high‐resolution structures for an EAL enzyme Bd1971, from the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, which is controlled by a second signaling nucleotide, cAMP. The full‐length cAMP‐bound form reveals the sensory N‐terminus to be a domain‐swapped variant of the cNMP/CRP family, which in the cAMP‐activated state holds the C‐terminal EAL enzyme in a phosphodiesterase‐active conformation. Using a truncation mutant, we trap both a half‐occupied and inactive apo‐form of the protein, demonstrating a series of conformational changes that alter juxtaposition of the sensory domains. We show that Bd1971 interacts with several GGDEF proteins (c‐di‐GMP producers), but mutants of Bd1971 do not share the discrete phenotypes of GGDEF mutants, instead having an elevated level of c‐di‐GMP, suggesting that the role of Bd1971 is to moderate these levels, allowing “action potentials” to be generated by each GGDEF protein to effect their specific functions.
Treatment of Adult Spinal Deformity with Sagittal Imbalance Using Oblique Lumbar Interbody Fusion: Can We Predict How Much Lordosis Correction Is Possible?

Study Design Prospective, single-center study. Purpose The current trend of operative treatment for adult spinal deformity (ASD) is combined anterior-posterior staged surgery. When anterior surgery was first performed, oblique lumbar interbody fusion (OLIF) was employed; this method became increasing popular. This study aimed to determine the lordosis correction that can be achieved using OLIF and assess whether we can preoperatively predict the lordosis correction angle achieved using OLIF. Overview of Literature Many previous studies on OLIF have shown improved clinical and radiologic outcomes. With the increase in the popularity of OLIF, several surgeons have started using larger cages to attain greater lordosis correction. Moreover, some studies have reported complications of OLIF because of immoderate cage insertion. To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study that attempted to determine whether it is possible to predict the lordosis correction angle achieved with OLIF preoperatively, using fullextension lateral view (FELV). Methods Forty-six patients with ASD were enrolled. All the operations were performed by a single surgeon in two stages (first, anterior and second, posterior) with a 1-week interval. Radiological evaluation was performed by comparing the Cobb’s angle of the segmental and regional lordosis obtained using preoperative and postoperative simple radiography (including the FELV) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Results Regional lordosis (L1–S1) in the whole-spine standing lateral radiograph was −3.03°; however, in the supine lateral MRI, it was 20.92°. The regional lordosis of whole-spine standing lateral and supine lateral (MRI) was significantly different. In the FELV, regional lordosis was 25.72° and that in the postoperative supine lateral (MRI) was 25.02°; these values were not significantly different. Conclusions Although OLIF offers many advantages, it alone plays a limited role in ASD treatment. Lordosis correction using OLIF as well as lordosis determined in the FELV was possible. Hence, our results suggest that FELV can help predict the lordosis correction angle preoperatively and thus aid the selection of the appropriate technique in the second staged operation.
Angelica polysaccharide mitigates lipopolysaccharide-evoked inflammatory injury by regulating microRNA-10a in neuronal cell line HT22

Abstract Background Angelica polysaccharide (AP) is disengaged from the roots of Angelica sinensis. The extensive pathological activities of AP have been discovered in disparate diseases. Nevertheless, the impression of AP in epilepsy (EP) remains unaware. The research attempted to probe the impact of AP on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-evoked inflammatory injury in HT22 cells. Methods AP were exploited to stimulate HT22 cells, cell cytotoxicity was monitored by CCK-8 assay. LPS was utilized to administrate HT22 cells to evoke inflammatory injury, meanwhile the involvements of AP in cell proliferation, apoptosis and inflammatory cytokines productions were examined. MicroRNA-10a (miR-10a) inhibitor and its negative control were one by one transfected into HT22 cells, the effect of miR-10a inhibition on LPS- and AP-treated cells was determined. NF-κB and JAK2/STAT3 pathways were ultimately detected. Results AP promoted cell proliferation, inhibited apoptosis and suppressed IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-6 productions in LPS-stimulated HT22 cells. Additionally, AP raised miR-10a expression in HT22 cells administration with LPS. These functions of AP in LPS-disposed cells were conversed by miR-10a suppression. Further, AP interdicted NF-κB and JAK2/STAT3 pathways via enhancing miR-10a. Conclusions Data corroboarted that AP mitigated LPS-evoked inflammatory injury through repression of NF-κB and JAK2/STAT3 pathways by regulating miR-10a in HT22 cells.
Subtle predictive movements reveal actions regardless of social context

Humans have a remarkable ability to predict the actions of others. To address what information enables this prediction and how the information is modulated by social context, we used videos collected during an interactive reaching game. Two participants (an “initiator” and a “responder”) sat on either side of a plexiglass screen on which two targets were affixed. The initiator was directed to tap one of the two targets, and the responder had to either beat the initiator to the target (competition) or arrive at the same time (cooperation). In a psychophysics experiment, new observers predicted the direction of the initiators' reach from brief clips, which were clipped relative to when the initiator began reaching. A machine learning classifier performed the same task. Both humans and the classifier were able to determine the direction of movement before the finger lift-off in both social conditions. Further, using an information mapping technique, the relevant information was found to be distributed throughout the body of the initiator in both social conditions. Our results indicate that we reveal our intentions during cooperation, in which communicating the future course of actions is beneficial, and also during competition despite the social motivation to reveal less information.
A model of intention to provide mental health first aid in college students

Abstract Background Psychologically distressed college students’ peers are often the first line of mental health support. Mental health first aid (MHFA) focuses on the quality of early intervention provided by peers to those in psychological distress but has neglected what motivates college students to provide MHFA. Aims The current study used the MHFA framework and bystander theory as a foundation to examine factors influencing college students’ intention to provide MHFA. Methods Participants were 778 U.S. college students from a larger group of college students (N = 29,765) from the 2015–2016 Healthy Minds Study archival dataset. Secondary data analysis using path analysis modeling was used to test for both direct and indirect effects. Results The specified path analysis model demonstrated exact fit to the data, χ2(67) = 82.359, p = 0.098. Personal stigma decreased MHFA intention, whereas both perceived MHFA efficacy and personal responsibility increased MHFA intention. Of note, perceiving campus climate as supportive of helping others indirectly increased MHFA intention. Conclusions The current study supports a theory-driven framework rooted in the MHFA and bystander theory literature that could facilitate targeted interventions aimed at improving mental health prevention via college student prosocial behavior.
Markovito’s Team Description RoboCup@Home 2016

In this paper we present Sabina, a service robot developed by the Markovito team at INAOE. Sabina is based on a PatrolBot robot platform and incorporates a set of general purpose modules for service robots that achieve basic robot skills, such as map building; localization and navigation; object and people recognition and tracking; and human interaction using facial animation, speech and gestures and manipulation. All these modules are integrated in a layered behavior-based architecture implemented on the Robot Operating System (ROS). In addition to these Sabina’s capabilities, we also describe a novel approach to autonomous 3D object reconstruction. The Markovito team has participated in the Robocup@Home category in previous Robocup compe-titions; in Turkey 2011 our team qualiﬁed for the second stage of the competition. In 2015 and 2016, the Markovito team won a 1st place in the mexican RoboCup@home competition.
Bidirectional crosstalk between neutrophils and adipocytes promotes adipose tissue inflammation

Chronic activation of the IL‐1β system in adipose tissue on metabolic disorders is well demonstrated. However, a mechanism for its expression and activation in the tissue has remained unexplored. Here, we demonstrate that IL‐1β transcript was enriched in neutrophils of white adipose tissue (WAT) from lean mice. Mechanistically, the interaction of neutrophils with adipocytes induced IL‐1β expression via NF‐κB pathway. Lipolysis of adipocytes accumulated neutrophils prior to macrophages in WAT and produced high levels of IL‐1β via an inflammasome pathway. Leukotriene B4 (LTB4) production in WAT also contributed to neutrophil accumulation. Furthermore, an LTB4‐inflammasome axis contributed to the expression of chemotactic molecules involved in high‐fat diet‐induced macrophage infiltration into WAT. We have identified previously unappreciated roles for neutrophils in the development of adipose tissue inflammation: robust IL‐1β production and infiltration of macrophages to initiate chronic inflammation. —Watanabe, Y. , Nagai, Y. , Honda, H. , Okamoto, N. , Yanagibashi, T. , Ogasawara, M. , Yamamoto, S. , Imamura, R. , Takasaki, I. , Hara, H. , Sasahara, M. , Arita, M. , Hida, S. , Taniguchi, S. , Suda, T. , Takatsu, K. Bidirectional crosstalk between neutrophils and adipocytes promotes adipose tissue inflammation. FASEB J. 33, 11821‐11835 (2019). www.fasebj. org
Refined measure of functional connectomes for improved identifiability and prediction

Brain functional connectome analysis is commonly based on population‐wise inference. However, in this way precious information provided at the individual subject level may be overlooked. Recently, several studies have shown that individual differences contribute strongly to the functional connectivity patterns. In particular, functional connectomes have been proven to offer a fingerprint measure, which can reliably identify a given individual from a pool of participants. In this work, we propose to refine the standard measure of individual functional connectomes using dictionary learning. More specifically, we rely on the assumption that each functional connectivity is dominated by stable group and individual factors. By subtracting population‐wise contributions from connectivity patterns facilitated by dictionary representation, intersubject variability should be increased within the group. We validate our approach using several types of analyses. For example, we observe that refined connectivity profiles significantly increase subject‐specific identifiability across functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session combinations. Besides, refined connectomes can also improve the prediction power for cognitive behaviors. In accordance with results from the literature, we find that individual distinctiveness is closely linked with differences in neurocognitive activity within the brain. In summary, our results indicate that individual connectivity analysis benefits from the group‐wise inferences and refined connectomes are indeed desirable for brain mapping.