Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PIFITHRIN-&agr; ATTENUATES P53-MEDIATED APOPTOSIS AND IMPROVES CARDIAC FUNCTION IN RESPONSE TO MYOCARDIAL ISCHEMIA/REPERFUSION IN AGED RATS

ABSTRACT Ischemic cardiovascular disease is a common age-related disease. The p53-dependent cardiac myocyte apoptosis induced by myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (MI/R) is an important feature in the progression of ischemic heart disease. In the present studies, we hypothesized that inhibition of p53-dependent myocyte apoptosis may improve cardiac dysfunction in aged rats after MI/R. A dose (2.2 mg/kg, i.p.) of pifithrin-&agr; (PFT), a p53 inhibitor, or saline was administered to 20-month-old male F344 rats, which were subjected to 30 min of myocardial ischemia by ligating the left main coronary artery, followed by release of the ligature and 4 h of reperfusion. Results of our experiments indicate that MI/R induced a significant decrease in cardiac output index (CI) and mean arterial blood pressure (MABP). Administration of PFT to aged rats 40 min before ischemia significantly improved CI and MABP during 3 to 4 h of reperfusion. The improvement of cardiac function was associated with a marked reduction in DNA fragmentation in the area at risk of the heart when compared with aged MI/R rats pretreated with saline. Interestingly, treatment with PFT 10 min after ischemia or 10 min after reperfusion had a similar protective effect on CI and MABP, but this effect did not reach statistical significance when compared with aged MI/R rats pretreated with saline. Treatment with PFT, however, did not influence plasma creatine kinase activity and the number of circulating leukocytes and infiltrated leukocytes in the area at risk of the heart. Moreover, results of Western blot show that pretreatment with PFT significantly attenuated the ratio of Bax to Bcl-2 in the area-at-risk tissue of the heart compared with that of rats pretreated with saline. Our results suggest that pretreatment with PFT significantly improved cardiac function. The mechanism of protective effect of PFT may involve the inhibition of p53 transcriptional function, thereby attenuating the p53/Bax-mediated myocyte apoptosis during the reperfusion period.
Human-Centered Design Method for Serious Games : A Bridge Across Disciplines

Human-centered design (HCD) is often considered a central, largely unquestioned, tenet of good practice for product design. However, while various manuscripts had been published on HCD methods for generic interactive systems, few discuss HCD method for interdisciplinary projects; specifically, serious games (designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment). Applying HCD to the design of a video game, we soon found that there were missing links in the reviewed methods. Through the development of our serious game, an educational computer game to prepare first time parents for childbirth and labor, we propose a new HCD method We show how iterative design, evaluation, and testing must take into account the interdisciplinary requirements of creating serious games. It is necessary to receive inputs from all of the different fields of experts before initiating the design stages: the thematic experts as well as the game design experts and learning experts.
Face Recognition via Collaborative Representation: Its Discriminant Nature and Superposed Representation

Collaborative representation methods, such as sparse subspace clustering (SSC) and sparse representation-based classification (SRC), have achieved great success in face clustering and classification by directly utilizing the training images as the dictionary bases. In this paper, we reveal that the superior performance of collaborative representation relies heavily on the sufficiently large class separability of the controlled face datasets such as Extended Yale B. On the uncontrolled or undersampled dataset, however, collaborative representation suffers from the misleading coefficients of the incorrect classes. To address this limitation, inspired by the success of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), we develop a superposed linear representation classifier (SLRC) to cast the recognition problem by representing the test image in term of a superposition of the class centroids and the shared intra-class differences. In spite of its simplicity and approximation, the SLRC largely improves the generalization ability of collaborative representation, and competes well with more sophisticated dictionary learning techniques, on the experiments of AR and FRGC databases. Enforced with the sparsity constraint, SLRC achieves the state-of-the-art performance on FERET database using single sample per person.
Influence of the substrate material on the optical properties of tungsten diselenide monolayers

Monolayers of transition-metal dichalcogenides such as WSe2 have become increasingly attractive due to their potential in electrical and optical applications. Because the properties of these 2D systems are known to be affected by their surroundings, we report how the choice of the substrate material affects the optical properties of monolayer WSe2. To accomplish this study, pump-density-dependent micro-photoluminescence measurements are performed with time-integrating and time-resolving acquisition techniques. Spectral information and power-dependent mode intensities are compared at 290 K and 10 K for exfoliated WSe2 on SiO2/Si, sapphire (Al2O3), hBN/Si3N4/Si, and MgF2, indicating substrate-dependent appearance and strength of exciton, trion, and biexciton modes. Additionally, one CVD-grown WSe2 monolayer on sapphire is included in this study for direct comparison with its exfoliated counterpart. Time-resolved micro-photoluminescence shows how radiative decay times strongly differ for different substrate materials. Our data indicates exciton–exciton annihilation as a shortening mechanism at room temperature, and subtle trends in the decay rates in correlation to the dielectric environment at cryogenic temperatures. On the measureable time scales, trends are also related to the extent of the respective 2D-excitonic modes’ appearance. This result highlights the importance of further detailed characterization of exciton features in 2D materials, particularly with respect to the choice of substrate.
Multiple-Vector Model-Predictive Power Control of Three-Phase Four-Switch Rectifiers With Capacitor Voltage Balancing

Model-predictive power control (MPPC) takes the switching nonlinearity of power converters and system constraints into consideration. It is a promising control technique for three-phase four-switch rectifiers (TPFSRs) because capacitor-voltage-balancing control and instantaneous power control can be simultaneously designed for this type of power converters. However, since only one switching vector is allowed in each control interval, conventional MPPC (C-MPPC) may lead to significant output power ripples that can severely degrade system power quality. This is particularly true for TPFSRs due to the limited number of switching states as well as the constraint imposed by the capacitor-voltage-balancing control. To improve the performance of TPFSRs, this paper proposes a multiple-vector MPPC scheme, which can minimize active power and reactive power ripples and achieve capacitor voltage balancing with a constant switching frequency. An equivalent zero-voltage vector model and a capacitor-voltage-balancing model are derived to implement the proposed control scheme. Comparative experimental results are presented to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed control scheme over the C-MPPC.
Hardware and Energy-Efficient Stochastic LU Decomposition Scheme for MIMO Receivers

In this paper, we design a hardware and energy-efficient stochastic lower-upper decomposition (LUD) scheme for multiple-input multiple-output receivers. By employing stochastic computation, the complex arithmetic operations in LUD can be performed with simple logic gates. With proposed dual partition computation method, the stochastic multiplier and divider exhibit high computation accuracy with relative short length stochastic stream. We have designed and synthesized the stochastic LUD with CMOS 130-nm technology. According to the postlayout report, the hardware efficiency of the stochastic LUD is as high as 1.5× compared with the exiting LUD methods, and the energy efficiency is also higher than the state-of-the-art LUD when the matrix dimension is 8 × 8 and larger.
Lack of ABCG 2 shortens latency of BRCA 1-deficient mammary tumors and this is not 1 affected by genistein or resveratrol 2 3

Lack of ABCG2 shortens latency of BRCA1-deficient mammary tumors and this is not 1 affected by genistein or resveratrol 2 3 Serge A.L. Zander, Ariena Kersbergen, Wendy Sol, Maaike Gonggrijp, Koen van de Wetering, Jos Jonkers, 4 Piet Borst, Sven Rottenberg 5 6 Authors’ affiliations: 7 Divisions of Molecular Oncology and Molecular Pathology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute (Antoni van 8 Leeuwenhoek Hospital), Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands 9 10 Running title: 11 ABCG2 loss shortens latency of BRCA1-deficient tumors 12 13
A General Framework for the Study of Decentralized Distribution Systems

We develop a general framework for the analysis of decentralized distribution systems. We carry the analysis in terms of a simplified model which entailsN retailers who face stochastic demands and hold stocks locally and/or at one or more central locations. An exogenously specified fraction of any unsatisfied demand (demand greater than locally available stock) at a retailer could be satisfied using excess stocks at other retailers and/or stocks held at a central location. We consider inventory ordering and allocation decisions. The operational decisions of inventory and allocation of stocks and the financial decision of allocation of revenues/costs must be made in a way consistent with the individual incentives of the various independent retailers. We develop a "coopetitive" framework for the sequential decisions of inventory and allocation. We introduce the notion ofclaims that allows us to separate the ownership (with decision rights) and the location of inventories in the system. For the cooperative shipping and allocation decision, we use the concept of core and develop sufficient conditions for the existence of the core. For the inventory decision, we develop conditions for the existence of a pure strategy Nash Equilibrium. For this decentralized system, we show that there exists an allocation mechanism that achieves the first-best solution for inventory deployment and allocation. We develop conditions under which the first-best equilibrium will be unique. Our model can be easily generalized to include complicated ownership structures such as "super dealers," partnerships, "inventory speculators," and situations in retail e-commerce settings such as "click-through arrangements," separation of "demand generators," and "fulfillment houses," etc. It can also be applied to situations involving capacity allocations and product substitutions.
Identification and characterization of three distinct families of glycoprotein complexes in the envelopes of human cytomegalovirus

Several disulfide-linked glycoprotein complexes were identified in the envelope of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). These glycoprotein complexes were fractionated by rate-zonal centrifugation in sucrose density gradients in the presence of detergents. Fractionated glycoproteins and complexes were immunoprecipitated with three different monoclonal antibodies specific for HCMV glycoproteins and a rabbit polyclonal antiserum prepared against detergent-extracted virion and dense-body envelope glycoproteins. Three distinct families of disulfide-linked glycoprotein complexes were observed and designated glycoprotein complex gcI, gcII, and gcIII. The gcI family, recognized by monoclonal antibody 41C2 under nonreducing conditions, consisted of three complexes with approximate molecular masses of 250 to 300, 190, and 160 kilodaltons (kDa). These complexes consistently sediment more rapidly than other HCMV glycoproteins or complexes in sucrose density gradients. Upon reduction of the gcI family, two size classes of glycoproteins with average molecular masses of 93 to 130 and 55 kDa were observed. The gcII family was recognized by monoclonal antibody 9E10. Under nonreducing conditions, as many as six electrophoretic forms were observed for gcII. When reduced, the major component of the gcII family was a heterogeneous glycoprotein designated gp47-52. The gcIII family was recognized by monoclonal antibody 1G6. It consisted of a complex of approximately 240 kDa without reduction of disulfide bonds. When reduced, two glycoprotein size classes with average molecular masses of 145 and 86 kDa were observed. Polyclonal antiserum R-7 reacted strongly with the gcI and gcIII families, but weakly with the gcII family.
Resolución de Problemas Combinatorios con Restricciones Suaves y Fuzzy Utilizando Algoritmos de Satisfactibilidad TIC2003-00950

The main goal of our project is to solve, using SAT technology, combinatorial problems that have both soft and hard constraints in its definition. At the same time such constraints can be crisp or fuzzy. In our approach we will use the language (extended with weights and preference degrees when necessary) of Boolean and many-valued formulas to model the problems. Additionally, we will use (maximum) satisfiability algorithms to find the solutions. In other words, the goal of our project is to design and implement a generic problem solving method for OCSPs (over-constrained constraint satisfaction problem) using (maximum) Boolean and many-valued algorithms. To experimentally evaluate our algorithms we will build a benchmark repository with realistic OCSP instances and design and implement random instance generators.
PRESENCE OF N-ETHYL MALEIMIDE SENSITIVE FACTOR (NSF) ON THE ACROSOME OF MAMMALIAN SPERM

We have extended previous observations to show that the ATPase N-ethyl maleimide sensitive factor (NSF) an important regulator of membrane trafficking and fusion in somatic cells, is present on bovine, murine and rhesus macaque sperm. However, NSFs main effectors, alfa- and beta-SNAP, although present in the developing acrosome, could not be detected in the mature organelle. The fact that NSF localizes mainly to the acrosome suggests that this protein, together with other factors such as rabs and SNAREs, may be a common feature in the triggering/regulation of membrane merging during the mammalian acrosome reaction.
High visceral fat percentage is associated with poor outcome in endometrial cancer

Despite evidence of increased endometrial cancer (EC) risk in obese women, the impact of obesity on clinical and histological phenotype is poorly understood. This study explored abdominal fat volumes and fat distribution quantified by computed tomography (CT), in relation to tumor characteristics and outcome. 227 EC patients with preoperative abdominal CT scans were included. Total abdominal fat volume (TAV), subcutaneous abdominal fat volume (SAV) and visceral abdominal fat volume (VAV) were quantified, and visceral fat percentage calculated (VAV%=[VAV/TAV]x100). Waist circumference (WC) and liver density (LD) were measured, and body mass index (BMI) calculated. Data for estrogen, progesterone and androgen receptor (ERα/PR/AR) expression by immunohistochemistry were available for 149 tumors, and global gene expression data for 105 tumors. High BMI, TAV, SAV, VAV and WC, and low LD, were associated with low grade endometrioid tumors and PR and AR positivity (all p≤0.03). High VAV% was associated with high age (p<0.001), aneuploidy (p=0.01) and independently predicted reduced disease-specific survival (HR 1.05, 95% CI 1.00-1.11, p=0.041). Tumors from patients with low VAV% showed enrichment of gene sets related to immune activation and inflammation. In conclusion, high VAV% independently predicts reduced EC survival. Tumors arising in patients with low VAV% show enrichment of immune and inflammation related gene sets, suggesting that the global metabolic setting may be important for tumor immune response.
Influence of performance evaluation rating segmentation on motivation and fairness perceptions.

This study investigated the impact of rating segmentation (i.e., the number of alternative appraisal categories available for rating employee performance) on motivation and perceptions of fairness. Participants were 305 student volunteers who performed a catalog search task. A 2 x 4 factorial design with 2 performance rating systems-low segmentation (3 categories) and moderate segmentation (5 categories)--and 4 performance levels was used. Overall, the results indicated that the 5-category system resulted in higher self-efficacy regarding participants' ability to reach the next higher rating category. higher goals for rating improvement, and higher rating improvements than the 3-category system. The effects of rating system and performance rating on rating improvement were partially mediated by self-efficacy and personal goals. The rating system and the performance rating affected perceptions of distributive and procedural justice.
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF RECURSIVE APPROACH OF PARALLEL SELF TIMED ADDER

: As technology scales down into the lower nanometre values power, delay area and frequency becomes important parameters for the analysis and design of any circuits. This brief presents a parallel single-rail self timed adder. It is based on a recursive formulation for performing multi-bit binary addition. The operation is parallel for those bits that do not need any carry chain propagation. Thus, the design attains logarithmic performance over random operand conditions without any special speedup circuitry or look-ahead schema. A practical implementation is provided along with a completion detection unit. The implementation is regular and does not have any practical limitations of high fan-outs. A high fan-in gate is required though but this is unavoidable for asynchronous logic and is managed by connecting the transistors in parallel. Simulations have been performed using an industry standard toolkit that verifies the practicality and superiority of the proposed approach over existing asynchronous adders.
Bootstrap Procedures for Recursive Estimation Schemes with Applications to Forecast Model Selection

In recent years it has become apparent that many of the classical testing procedures used to select amongst alternative economic theories and economic models are not realistic. In particular, researchers have become more aware of the fact that parameter estimation error and data dependence play a crucial role in test statistic limiting distributions, a role which had hitherto been ignored to a large extent. Given the fact that one of the primary ways for comparing di®erent models and theories is via use of predictive accuracy tests, it is perhaps not surprising that a large literature on the topic has developed over the last 10 years, including, for example, important papers by Diebold and Mariano (1995), West (1996), and White (2000). In this literature, it is quite common to compare multiple models (which are possibly all misspeci¯ed - i.e. they are all approximations of some unknown true model) in terms of their out of sample predictive ability, for given loss function. Our objectives in this paper are twofold. First, we introduce block bootstrap techniques that are (first order) valid in recursive estimation frameworks. Thereafter, we present two applications where predictive accuracy tests are made operational using our new bootstrap procedures. One of the applications outlines a consistent test for out-of-sample nonlinear Granger causality, and the other outlines a test for selecting amongst multiple alternative forecasting models, all of which may be viewed as approximations of some unknown underlying model. More speci¯cally, our examples extend the White (2000) reality check to the case of non vanishing parameter estimation error, and extend the integrated conditional moment (ICM) tests of Bierens (1982, 1990) and Bierens and Ploberger (1997) to the case of out-of-sample prediction. Of note is that in both of these examples, it is shown that appropriate re-centering of the bootstrap score is required in order to ensure that the tests are properly sized, and the need for such re-centering is shown to arise quite naturally when testing hypotheses of predictive accuracy. The results of a Monte Carlo investigation of the ICM test suggest that the bootstrap procedure proposed in this paper yield tests with reasonable ¯nite sample properties for samples with as few as 300 observations.
Therapeutic action and underlying mechanisms of a combination of two pentacyclic triterpenes, α‐ and β‐amyrin, in a mouse model of colitis

Background and purpose: α‐ and β‐amyrin are pentacyclic triterpenes found in plants and are known to exhibit pronounced anti‐inflammatory effects. Here, we evaluated the effects of a 1:1 mixture of α‐ and β‐amyrin (α,β‐amyrin) on an experimental model of colitis in mice.
The estrogen receptor cooperates with the TGF alpha receptor (c‐erbB) in regulation of chicken erythroid progenitor self‐renewal.

A unique combination of growth promoting factors is described that allows growth of large amounts (10(10)‐10(11)) of normal erythroid progenitors from chick bone marrow. These erythroid progenitors express the estrogen receptor (ER) as well as the receptor tyrosine kinase TGF alpha R/c‐erbB. They require both TGF alpha and estradiol for sustained self‐renewal in vitro, but terminally differentiate upon withdrawal of TGF alpha and inactivation of the ER by an antagonist (ICI 164.384). Overexpression of the human ER in erythroblasts devoid of endogenous ER revealed that the hormone‐activated ER alone arrested erythroid differentiation and repressed a large group of erythrocyte genes. When similarly overexpressed, TGF alpha R/c‐erbB inhibited the expression of a distinct, but overlapping, set of genes. The endogenous ER and TGF alpha R/c‐erbB affect erythrocyte gene expression in a similar, but less pronounced fashion. Surprisingly, suppression of ER function by antagonist efficiently inhibited erythroblast transformation by tyrosine kinase oncogenes, suggesting a role of the endogenous ER in leukemogenesis. We speculate that the oncogenes v‐erbB and v‐erbA cooperate in erythroleukemia induction by a mechanism that is employed by TGF alpha R/c‐erbB and ER to regulate normal progenitor self‐renewal in response to external signals.
Cosine Based Latent Factor Model for Precision Oriented Recommendation

Recommender systems suggest a list of interesting items to users based on their prior purchase or browsing behaviour on e-commerce platforms. The continuing research in recommender systems have primarily focused on developing algorithms for rating prediction task. However, most e-commerce platforms provide ‘top-k’ list of interesting items for every user. In line with this idea, the paper proposes a novel machine learning algorithm to predict a list of ‘top-k’ items by optimizing the latent factors of users and items with the mapped scores from ratings. The basic idea is to learn latent factors based on the cosine similarity between the users and items latent features which is then used to predict the scores for unseen items for every user. Comprehensive empirical evaluations on publicly available benchmark datasets reveal that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms in recommending good items to a user.