Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Canonical Transient Receptor Potential 6 Channel: A New Target of Reactive Oxygen Species in Renal Physiology and Pathology.

SIGNIFICANCE Regulation of Ca2+ signaling cascade by reactive oxygen species (ROS) is becoming increasingly evident and this regulation represents a key mechanism for control of many fundamental cellular functions. Canonical transient receptor potential (TRPC) 6, a member of Ca2+-conductive channel in the TRPC family, is widely expressed in kidney cells, including glomerular mesangial cells, podocytes, tubular epithelial cells, and vascular myocytes in renal microvasculature. Both overproduction of ROS and dysfunction of TRPC6 channel are involved in renal injury in animal models and human subjects. Although regulation of TRPC channel function by ROS has been well described in other tissues and cell types, such as vascular smooth muscle, this important cell regulatory mechanism has not been fully reviewed in kidney cells. Recent Advances: Accumulating evidence has shown that TRPC6 is a redox-sensitive channel, and modulation of TRPC6 Ca2+ signaling by altering TRPC6 protein expression or TRPC6 channel activity in kidney cells is a downstream mechanism by which ROS induce renal damage. CRITICAL ISSUES This review highlights how recent studies analyzing function and expression of TRPC6 channels in the kidney and their response to ROS improve our mechanistic understanding of oxidative stress-related kidney diseases. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Although it is evident that ROS regulate TRPC6-mediated Ca2+ signaling in several types of kidney cells, further study is needed to identify the underlying molecular mechanism. We hope that the newly identified ROS/TRPC6 pathway will pave the way to new, promising therapeutic strategies to target kidney diseases such as diabetic nephropathy. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 25, 732-748.
Optimized Frameless ALOHA for Cooperative Base Stations With Overlapped Coverage Areas

Herein, we consider the problem of cooperative multi-access in the presence of overlapped coverage areas. Assuming a frameless ALOHA transmission scheme, we derive exact analytical throughput expressions for throughput in the aforementioned scenarios as a function of the frame length of the system and for arbitrary average numbers of users transmitting in each slot (target degree). After obtaining these original expressions, we then formulate a utility function whose maximization (obtained, e.g., through genetic algorithms) yields unequal and optimum target degrees to be employed by users in each group in order to maximize the peak throughput of the whole system while satisfying a given prescribed outage. A comparison of the resulting cooperative multiple base station (BS) multi-access scheme against optimized single-BS frameless ALOHA systems—which presume the perfect isolation of users at each BS and an equal optimum target degree for all users—indicates a significant gain in overall throughput, thereby revealing that a “multi-access diversity gain” can be reaped by allowing groups of users from different BSs to overlap.
Estrogen receptor alpha drives mTORC1 inhibitor-induced feedback activation of PI3K/AKT in ER+ breast cancer

The mTORC1 inhibitor RAD001 (everolimus) is approved for treatment of recurrent/metastatic estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer in combination with the aromatase inhibitor (AI) exemestane. The benefits of A) continued anti-estrogen therapy for anti-estrogen-resistant disease in the context of mTORC1 inhibition, and B) adjuvant everolimus in combination with anti-estrogen therapy for early-stage disease are being tested clinically, but molecular rationale remains unclear. We hypothesized that mTORC1 inhibition activates the IGF-1R/InsR/IRS-1/2 axis in an ER-dependent manner to drive PI3K/AKT and promote cancer cell survival, implicating ER in survival signaling induced by mTORC1 inhibition. Anti-estrogen treatment synergized with RAD001 to inhibit ER+ breast cancer cell growth. Inhibition of ER, IGF-1R/InsR, or IRS-1/2 suppressed AKT activation induced by mTORC1 inhibition. RAD001 primed IGF-1R/InsR for activation, which was enhanced by ER signaling. Post-menopausal patients with early-stage ER+ breast cancer were treated presurgically +/− the AI letrozole. Viable tumor fragments from surgical specimens were treated with RAD001 and/or OSI-906 ex vivo; RAD001 increased AKT activation, which was abrogated by presurgical letrozole. Letrozole decreased IGF-1R and IRS-1/2 tumor levels. These data suggest that ER drives PI3K/AKT activation in response to mTORC1 inhibition, providing molecular rationale for therapeutic combinations of anti-estrogens and mTORC1 inhibitors in endocrine-sensitive disease.
Distributed Online Scheduling and Routing of Multicast-Oriented Tasks for Profit-Driven Cloud Computing

It is known that to support a few common applications well, e.g., datacenter (DC) backup, multicast-oriented tasks need to be handled in inter-DC networks. In this letter, we propose an approach to schedule and route multicast-oriented tasks in inter-DC networks with arbitrary topologies. Specifically, we leverage Lyapunov optimization to develop a distributed online approach that can maximize the time-average profit with only local information. Besides, we also design a destination grouping scheme to address the scalability issue of our proposed approach and demonstrate that the number of queues in the system can be reduced significantly. Extensive simulations verify the performance of the proposed approaches.
Investigating the effective factors on electronic trade by viral marketing

Article history: Received July 28, 2013 Received in revised format 20 November 2013 Accepted 14 January 2014 Available online February 17 2014 This paper performs an investigation to explore a number of strategies underpinning virtual marketing. The study also provides several suggestions for marketers seeking to use viral marketing to position brands or to change a brand’s image, to encourage new product trials and to increase product uptake rates. In this article, we investigate the effect of external factors such as capturing the imagination, targeting credible sources, leveraging combinations of technology and easy to use product on virtual marketing. In addition, the study considers internal factors such as inclusion (the need to be part of a group, the need to be different) and affection on viral marketing. The survey has been accomplished among 140 Iranian people, who were familiar with virtual marketing and they are selected, randomly. Using Pearson correlation as well as regression analysis, the study provides some evidences that there were some positive and meaningful relationship between some internal/external factors and virtual marketing. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Altered Acoustic Startle Reflex, Prepulse Inhibition, and Peripheral Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Morphine Self-Administered Rats

Abstract Background: Previous studies suggested that opiate withdrawal may increase anxiety and disrupt brain-derived neurotrophic factor function, but the effects of i.v. morphine self-administration on these measures remain unclear. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were implanted with a catheter in the jugular vein. After 1 week of recovery, the animals were allowed to self-administer either i.v. morphine (0.5 mg/kg per infusion, 4 h/d) or saline in the operant conditioning chambers. The acoustic startle reflex and prepulse inhibition were measured at a baseline and on self-administration days 1, 3, 5, and 7 (1- and 3-hour withdrawal). Blood samples were collected on self-administration days 3, 5, and 7 from separate cohorts of animals, and the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and corticosterone were assayed using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Results: Compared with the saline group, the morphine self-administration group showed hyper-locomotor activity and reduced defecation during the self-administration. The morphine self-administration increased acoustic startle reflex at 1-hour but not 3-hour withdrawal from morphine and disrupted prepulse inhibition at 3-hour but not 1-hour withdrawal. The blood brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels were decreased in the morphine self-administration group at self-administration days 3 and 5, while the corticosterone levels remained unchanged throughout the study. Conclusions: The current findings suggest that spontaneous withdrawal from i.v. morphine self-administration may have transient effects on acoustic startle, sensorimotor gating, and peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels, and these changes may contribute to the adverse effects of opiate withdrawal.
Modeling Trench Sidewall and Bottom Flow in On-Site Wastewater Systems

Little is known about how much wastewater infiltrates the soil via the trench sidewall versus the trench bottom in onsite wastewater systems. Our objectives were to develop a method of simulating trench bottom and sidewall flow using a two-dimensional numerical computer model that would include the trench within the model space and determine how much sidewall flow would occur under steady-state conditions. We used HYDRUS-2D to simulate water flow in a two-dimensional cross section of a conventional gravel-filled trench and the surrounding drainfield. Hydraulic properties of the gravel were assumed (saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks =1,000 cm d−1 ) and simulations were run for drainfield soils consisting of a clay loam ( Ks =3.2 cm d−1 ) and a sand ( Ks =41 cm d−1 ) . Biomats were simulated at the bottom of the trench and part way up the trench sidewall ( Ks =0.2 to 2.8 cm d−1 depending on the simulation). Typical wastewater loading rates for Georgia of 2 and 4 cm d−1 for the clay loam and sand, respecti.
Heterogeneous Vehicles Routing for Water Canal Damage Assessment

In Japan, inspection of irrigation water canals has been mostly conducted manually. However, the huge demand for more regular inspections as infrastructure ages, coupled with the limited time window available for inspection, has rendered manual inspection increasingly insufficient. With shortened inspection time and reduced labor cost, automated inspection using a combination of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ground vehicles (cars) has emerged as an attractive alternative to manual inspection. In this paper, we propose a path planning framework that generates optimal plans for UAVs and cars to inspect water canals in a large agricultural area (tens of square kilometers). In addition to optimality, the paths need to satisfy several constraints, in order to guarantee UAV navigation safety and to abide by local traffic regulations. In the proposed framework, the canal and road networks are first modeled as two graphs, which are then partitioned into smaller subgraphs that can be covered by a given fleet of UAVs within one battery charge. The problem of finding optimal paths for both UAVs and cars on the graphs, subject to the constraints, is formulated as a integer quadratic program (IQP). The proposed framework can also quickly generate new plans when a current plan is interrupted. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated by simulation results showing the successful generation of plans covering all given canal segments, and the ability to quickly revise the plan when conditions change.
Effective Thermal Conductivity of Saturated Sintered Nickel Loop Heat Pipe Wicks

In this investigation, the effective thermal conductivity of sintered metal wicks was studied both experimentally and analytically. The experimental study consisted of measuring the effective conductivity of eleven samples in vacuum and with three different saturating fluids (air, water and methanol). The analytical study aimed to find a model to better predict the effective conductivity. The wicks tested were typical of loop heat pipes for spacecraft thermal control systems. The data obtained using the different fluids allows the effective thermal conductivity to be predicted as a function of other saturating fluids. The measured values for effective thermal conductivity were compared with other typically measured parameters for loop heat pipe wicks, including the porosity, permeability, pore radius, and compression load.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury

What is the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)? Ligaments are ropes that hold bones together. The knee has four major ligaments. Two collateral ligaments run along the sides of the knee. There are also two cruciate ligaments which cross in the middle of the knee (the term ‘cruciate’ comes from the Latin word for cross). The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important stabilizing ligament of the knee. It courses from back of the femur (thigh bone) to the front of the tibia (shin bone). The primary function is to keep the tibia from sliding forward, especially with twisting or pivoting motions.
Use of Deep Learning for Characterization of Microfluidic Soft Sensors

Soft sensors made of highly deformable materials are one of the enabling technologies to various soft robotic systems, such as soft mobile robots, soft wearable robots, and soft grippers. However, major drawbacks of soft sensors compared with traditional sensors are their nonlinearity and hysteresis in response, which are common especially in microfluidic soft sensors. In this research, we propose to address the above issues of soft sensors by taking advantage of deep learning. We implemented a hierarchical recurrent sensing network, a type of recurrent neural network model, to the calibration of soft sensors for estimating the magnitude and the location of a contact pressure simultaneously. The proposed approach in this letter is not only able to model the nonlinear characteristic with hysteresis of the pressure response, but also find the location of the pressure.
An Analog Correlator for a WCDMA Receiver

A prototype analog correlator structure suitable for a WCDMA receiver was implemented. The advantages of this correlator are low power consumption compared to a digital correlator and small chip area. The target is to use such correlator as parallel correlators (fingers) of a RAKE receiver. The analog baseband correlator utilizes passive MOS-multipliers, a first-order low-pass continuous-time oversampling sigma–delta analog-to-digital converter and a second-order sinc type of decimation filter (for both I and Q input paths). The modulator sampling rate is twice the chip rate with oversampling ratios of 8–512 depending of the PN code length. The circuit was implemented in 0.8 μm CMOS-technology with a supply voltage of 2.8 V. The layout size is 345 μm×686 μm and the current drain is approximately 370 μA.
Study on the anti-endotoxin effect of sinomenine using an Agilent genome array

Background Endotoxin is a significant contributing factor underlying the occurrence of fever, diarrhea, inflammation, edema, coagulation, shock and other syndromes associated with gram-negative bacterial infections. To date, there is no effective treatment for endotoxemia. Aim The aim of this study was to characterize differentially expressed genes in sinomenine-treated and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced endothelial cells by microarray analysis and to determine the potential pharmacological activity of sinomenine. Design The cultured cells of five treatment groups (n = 3) were collected. Participants: total RNA was extracted and subjected to Agilent Porcine 4 × 44 K whole genome microarray. Methods Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes and gene ontology software were applied to screen and analyze differentially regulated genes. Results The results showed that 723 differentially regulated genes were identified including 410 up-regulated genes and 313 down-regulated genes in therapy group vs. LPS group. Ten genes may be key controlled genes in the pathogenesis of LPS, including five up-regulated genes (ARG1, TLR2, IL1A, VCAM1, DKK3) and five down-regulated genes (HABP2, ID1, CHDH, GPX3, PTGFR), which primarily contribute to biological processes such as inflammatory response, vascular lesion, metabolic process and cell cycle. IL1A and FMO3 were considered as potent target genes. Conclusion Global gene expression profile analysis showed that sinomenine might effectively be useful to regulate inflammatory responses as part of future anti-endotoxin therapies.
Treadmill exercise activates PI3K/Akt signaling pathway leading to GSK-3β inhibition in the social isolated rat pups

Social isolation is known to precipitate depression-like symptoms in rodents and has emerged as a dependable paradigm to screen the behavioral and neurobiological changes observed in humans. In the present study, the undying mechanisms of treadmill exercise on social isolation-induced depression was evaluated. The rat pups in the social isolation groups were housed individually. The social isolation procedures started on the postnatal day 14. The rat pups in the exercise groups were forced to run on treadmill for 30 min once a day from postnatal day 21 to postnatal day 34. The expression of phosphoinositide 3 kinase (PI3K), tyrosine kinase B (Akt), and glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK-3β) in the hippocampus were determined by using western blot analysis. The ratio phosphorylated PI3K (p-PI3K)/PI3K and phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt)/Akt were decreased and the ratio of phosphorylated-GSK-3 (p-GSK-3β)/GSK-3β was increased by social isolation. Treadmill exercise increased the ratio p-PI3K/PI3K and p-Akt/Akt and suppressed the ratio of p-GSK-3β/GSK-3β in the hippocampus of social isolated rat pups. Treadmill exercise activates PI3K/Akt signaling pathway leading to GSK-3β inhibition in social isolated rats. These results suggested that treadmill exercise may improve depressive symptoms via activation of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.
B cells in multiple sclerosis therapy—A comprehensive review

For decades, B cells were ignored in multiple sclerosis (MS) pathogenesis, and the disease was always regarded as a T cell‐mediated disorder. Recent evidence shows that there is an antigen‐driven B‐cell response in the central nervous system of patients with MS, and memory B cells/plasma cells are detectable in MS lesions. The striking efficacy of B cell‐depleting therapies in reducing the inflammatory activity of the disease highlights that B cells may play more pathogenetic roles than expected. B cells express several unique characteristic markers on their surface, for example, CD19, CD20 molecules, that provide selective targets for monoclonal antibodies. In this respect, several B cell‐targeted therapies emerged, including anti‐CD20 antibodies (rituximab, ocrelizumab, and ofatumumab), anti‐CD19 antibody (inebilizumab), and agents targeting the BAFF/APRIL signaling pathway (atacicept, belimumab, and LY2127399). In this review, we discuss, in detail, the immunobiology of B cells and their protective and destructive roles in MS pathogenesis. In the second part, we list the completed and ongoing clinical trials investigating the safety and efficacy of B cell‐related monoclonal antibodies in MS.
Timing-driven placement for FPGAs

In this paper we introduce a new Simulated Annealing-based timing-driven placement algorithm for FPGAs. This paper has three main contributions. First, our algorithm employs a novel method of determining source-sink connection delays during placement. Second, we introduce a new cost function that trades off between wire-use and critical path delay, resulting in significant reductions in critical path delay without significant increases in wire-use. Finally, we combine connection-based and path-based timing-analysis to obtain an algorithm that has the low time-complexity of connection-based timing-driven placement, while obtaining the quality of path-based timing-driven placement. A comparison of our new algorithm to a well known non-timing-driven placement algorithm demonstrates that our algorithm is able to increase the post-place-and-route speed (using a full path-based timing-driven router and a realistic routing architecture) of 20 MCNC benchmark circuits by an average of 42%, while only increasing the minimum wiring requirements by an average of 5%.
Possible Therapeutic Application of Targeting Type II Natural Killer T Cell-Mediated Suppression of Tumor Immunity

Natural killer T (NKT) cells are a unique T cell subset that exhibits characteristics from both the innate immune cells and T cells. There are at least two subsets of NKT cells, type I and type II. These two subsets of NKT cells have opposite functions in antitumor immunity. Type I NKT cells usually enhance and type II NKT cells suppress antitumor immunity. In addition, these two subsets of NKT cells cross-regulate each other. In this review, we mainly focus on immunosuppressive NKT cells, type II NKT cells. After summarizing their definition, experimental tools to study them, and subsets of them, we will discuss possible therapeutic applications of type II NKT cell pathway targeted therapies.
EFFECT OF GERMINATION ON NUTRITIONAL QUALITY OF BARLEY

The Barley grains were germinated under controlled conditions and their soaking and germination time was finalized for best results. The ungerminated and germinated flour was evaluated for its nutritional and physicochemical properties.It was found that the germination of barley grains reduced the carbohydrate content from 72.02 to 61.06 (%), starch 59.56 to 56.32 (%), amylopectin 43.48 to 38.32 (%), ash content 1.59 to 1.39 (%), fat 7 to 5 (%), falling number 240 to 80 (%) and oil binding capacity 3.55 to 3.21 (%) respectively. The germination of grains increased the moisture content from 9.6 to 11.2 (%), total sugar 9.03 to 12.98 (%), reducing sugar 2.82 to 4.73(%), non-reducing sugar 6.21 to 8.25 (%), protein content 11.25 to 13.85 (%), amylose content 16.08 to 18.02 (%), water absorption capacity 195.6 to 236.4 (%), particle size 0.05 to 0.056 (μm) and water solubility index 16 to 26.8 (%) respectively. So, the present study revealed that germination significantly affects the nutritional and physicochemical properties of barley.
Formulation Development of Solid Dispersions of Nateglinide using meltable hydrophilic carrier

The objectives of the present research work are to improve the solubility and dissolution rate of nateglinide. Solid dispersions of nateglinide were prepared by fusion method by using three selected hydrophilic meltable carriers vis-a-vis gelucire 44/14, poloxamer 188 and polyethyleneglycol (PEG6000). Sylysia 550 was used as an adsorbent. Solid dispersions were evaluated for solubility, phase solubility, flowability, compressibility, Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Solubility studies showed 10, 16 and 7 fold increase in solubility for gelucire 44/14, poloxamer 188 and PEG6000 based solid dispersions respectively. The Gibbs free energy ΔGtr° values were all negative for all the three carriers indicating spontaneous nature of solubilisation. FT-IR and DSC spectra showed that drug and carriers are compatible with each other. Solid dispersions exhibiting highest solubility for each were compressed into immediate release tablets by using crosscaramellose sodium as superdisintegrant. In vitro dissolution studies, exhibited more than 90 % drug dissolution in 1 h for poloxamer 188 based solid dispersion tablets (F11). The adsorbent, sylysia 550 may be used to impart good flow and compressibility to solid dispersions. Among the three carriers, poloxamer 188 exhibited better solubility and dissolution enhancement potential for nateglinide.