Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of capillary endothelial cell growth by pericytes and smooth muscle cells

Morphological studies of developing capillaries and observations of alterations in capillaries associated with pathologic neovascularization indicate that pericytes may act as suppressors of endothelial cell (EC) growth. We have developed systems that enable us to investigate this possibility in vitro. Two models were used: a co- culture system that allowed direct contact between pericytes and ECs and a co-culture system that prevented physical contact but allowed diffusion of soluble factors. For these studies, co-cultures were established between bovine capillary ECs and the following growth- arrested cells (hereafter referred to as modulating cells): pericytes, smooth muscle cells (SMCs), fibroblasts, epithelial cells, and 3T3 cells. The modulating cell type was growth arrested by treatment with mitomycin C before co-culture with ECs. In experiments where cells were co-cultured directly, the effect of co-culture on EC growth was determined by comparing the mean number of cells in the co-cultures to the mean for each cell type (EC and modulating cell) cultured separately. Since pericytes and other modulating cells were growth arrested, any cell number change in co-cultures was due to EC growth. In the co-cultures, pericytes inhibited all EC proliferation throughout the 14-d time course; similar levels of EC inhibition were observed in SMC-EC co-cultures. Co-culture of ECs with fibroblasts, epithelial cells, and 3T3 cells significantly stimulated EC growth over the same time course (30-192% as compared to EC cultured alone). To determine if cell contact was required for inhibition, cells were co-cultured using Millicell chambers (Millipore Corp., Bedford, MA), which separated the cell types by 1-2 mm but allowed the exchange of diffusible materials. There was no inhibition of EC proliferation by pericytes or SMCs in this co-culture system. The influence of the cell ratios on observed inhibition was assessed by co-culturing the cells at EC/pericyte ratios of 1:1, 2:1, 5:1, 10:1, and 20:1. Comparable levels of EC inhibition were observed at ratios from 1:1 to 10:1. When the cells were co- cultured at a ratio of 20 ECs to 1 pericyte, inhibition of EC growth at 3 d was similar to that observed at other ratios. However, at higher ratios, the inhibition diminished so that by the end of the time course the co-cultured ECs were growing at the same rate as the controls. These results suggest that pericytes and SMCs can modulate EC growth by a mechanism that requires contact or proximity. We postulate that similar interactions may operate to modulate vascular growth in vivo.
Numerical validation of a procedure for direct identification of passive linear multiport with convex programming

The paper deals with the numerical validation, performance evaluation and robustness assessment of a procedure for the direct identification of passive transfer matrices based on convex programming. Validation is pursued by producing data sets from lumped multiport systems with random parameters (passive, non passive, and possibly affected by random noise), then evaluating the identification ability of the considered method. Results demonstrate how the considered approach satisfactorily covers the passive identification of a large class of data sets, even in presence of significant passivity violations or noise flawed data, at average accuracies comparable with non passive identifications obtained with standard Vector Fitting.
Long-Term Persistence of Activated Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes after Viral Infection of the Central Nervous System

Mice intranasally inoculated with influenza A/X-31 are protected against a subsequent intracerebral challenge with the neurovirulent influenza A/WSN and this heterotypic protection is mediated by CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes. We have studied the kinetics of this secondary immune response and found that despite the elimination of replication-competent virus by day 10, we were able to recover activated influenza-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) that killed freshly ex vivo from the brains of mice for at least 320 d after the intracerebral inoculation. The activated antiviral CTLs expressed high levels of the early activation marker CD69, suggesting continuing TCR signaling despite a lack of viral protein and major histocompatibility complex staining by immunohistochemistry in the brain parenchyma and barely detectable levels of viral nucleic acid by single and two-step reverse transcription PCR. Local persistence of activated lymphocytes may be important for efficient long-term responses to viruses prone to recrudesce in sites of relative immune privilege.
A memetic framework for cooperative coevolution of recurrent neural networks

Memetic algorithms and cooperative coevolution are emerging fields in evolutionary computation which have shown to be powerful tools for real-world application problems and for training neural networks. Cooperative coevolution decomposes a problem into subcomponents that evolve independently. Memetic algorithms provides further enhancement to evolutionary algorithms with local refinement. The use of crossover-based local refinement has gained attention in memetic computing. This paper employs a cooperative coevolutionary framework that utilises the strength of local refinement via crossover. The framework is evaluated by training recurrent neural networks on grammatical inference problems. The results show that the proposed approach can achieve better performance than the standard cooperative coevolution framework.
A 5.8 nW CMOS Wake-Up Timer for Ultra-Low-Power Wireless Applications

This work presents an ultra-low-power oscillator designed for wake-up timers in compact wireless sensors. In a conventional relaxation oscillator, a capacitor periodically resets to a fixed voltage using a continuous comparator, thereby generating an output clock. The reset is triggered by a continuous comparator and thus the clock period is dependent on the delay of the continuous comparator which therefore needs to be fast compared to the period, making this approach power hungry. To avoid the power penalty of a fast continuous comparator, a constant charge subtraction scheme is proposed in this paper. As a constant amount of charge is subtracted for each cycle, rather than discharging/charging the capacitor to a fixed voltage, the clock period becomes independent of comparator delay. Therefore, the high power continuous comparator can be replaced with a coarse clocked comparator, facilitating low-power time tracking. For precise wake-up signal generation, an accurate continuous comparator is only enabled for one clock period at the end of the specified wakeup time. A wake-up timer using the proposed scheme is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process. The timer consumes 5.8 nW at room temperature with temperature stability of 45 ppm/°C (-10 °C to 90 °C) and line sensitivity of 1%/V (1.2 V to 2.2 V) .
Automatic Transliteration and Back-transliteration by Decision Tree Learning

Automatic transliteration and back-transliteration across languages with drastically different alphabets and phonemes inventories such as English/Korean, English/Japanese, English/Arabic, English/Chinese, etc, have practical importance in machine translation, crosslingual information retrieval, and automatic bilingual dictionary compilation, etc. In this paper, a bi-directional and to some extent language independent methodology for English/Korean transliteration and back-transliteration is described. Our method is composed of character alignment and decision tree learning. We induce transliteration rules for each English alphabet and back-transliteration rules for each Korean alphabet. For the training of decision trees we need a large labeled examples of transliteration and backtransliteration. However this kind of resources are generally not available. Our character alignment algorithm is capable of highly accurately aligning English word and Korean transliteration in a desired way.
Energy Management Strategy in Consideration of Battery Health for PHEV via Stochastic Control and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

This paper presents an energy management strategy for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that not only tries to minimize the energy consumption, but also considers the battery health. First, a battery model that can be applied to energy management optimization is given. In this model, battery health damage can be estimated in the different states of charge (SOC) and temperature of the battery pack. Then, because of the inevitability that limiting the battery health degradation will increase energy consumption, a Pareto energy management optimization problem is formed. This multi-objective optimal control problem is solved numerically by using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) for satisfying the vehicle power demand and considering the tradeoff between energy consumption and battery health at the same time. The optimization solution is obtained offline by utilizing real historical traffic data and formed as mappings on the system operating states so as to implement online in the actual driving conditions. Finally, the simulation results carried out on the GT-SUITE-based PHEV test platform are illustrated to demonstrate that the proposed multi-objective optimal control strategy would effectively yield benefits.
Animalizar y mecanizar: dos formas de deshumanización

Dehumanization is defined as people? s tendency to perceive the outgroup as being less human than the ingroup (for reviews, see Haslam, Loughnan, Kashima, & Bain, 2008; Leyens, Demoulin, Vaes, Gaunt, & Paladino, 2007, Vaes, Leyens, Paladino and Pires Miranda, 2012). Thus, it might be thought that groups that are denied humanness will be discriminated against to a greater degree than groups considered to be fully human (Vala, Pereira and Leyens, 2009). Indeed, as Leyens et al. (2007) pointed out, this process has subtle and important consequences in our daily lives that can affect intergroup relations. Furthermore, according to Haslam (2006), dehumanization can be manifested in two forms: animalistic and mechanistic. In his model, the author posited how individuals can be likened to animals, and hence, they will be perceived as unintelligent, immoral, coarse or uncivilized. Likewise, people can also be seen as robots or machines, in which case, they will be perceived as cold, rigid, mechanical, or lacking emotions or agency. The present dissertation used the model by Haslam in order to analyse and compare these two forms of dehumanization. In our analysis, we will attempt to clarify how animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization affect intergroup relations. This insight was the basis for the development of different empirical studies that form part of this thesis. Accordingly, the chapters included in this dissertation are built on experimental research and show some results related to the different senses of humanness, the creation of new procedures to capture them and discriminate between animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization, and the study of the consequences that both forms of dehumanization have on different interpersonal and intergroup measures. The thesis is structured in four chapters. The first chapter is a theoretical review of the most relevant literature on infrahumanization and dehumanization. Specifically, it provides theoretical support for the main sections included in this dissertation: the different senses of humanness; the various forms of measuring animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization; the consequences of dehumanization reported in the literature. The second chapter includes the main goals set in the thesis, as well as our hypotheses. The reader will find the empirical part of the dissertation from chapter 3 onwards. Eleven studies are presented across four papers. Lastly, in the fourth chapter, we discuss the main findings and analyse the theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and also some ideas for future research. It should be noted that the papers presented in the third chapter of the thesis were written with the intention of being submitted for publication, therefore, certain explanations of basic concepts and theories inevitably appear several times. Additionally, in order to fulfill the requirements of the International PhD program at Granada University, some chapters were written in Spanish (chapter 1), and others in English (chapters 2, 3 and 4).
The economic implications of generic substitution of antiepileptic drugs: a review of recent evidence

Background: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers generic and branded drugs to be therapeutically equivalent if they are pharmaceutically equivalent and bioequivalent. The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) disagrees and opposes generic substitution of branded antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) without physician and patient approval due to the risk of loss of seizure control. Objective: To review the evidence to date surrounding the economic impact of brand-to-generic substitutions of AEDs. Methods: A systematic search of PubMed and MEDLINE was conducted; the bibliographies of key articles obtained from the search were used to identify additional sources. Results/conclusion: Current literature suggests statistically higher overall healthcare costs during periods of generic AED use than during periods when branded AED are used, consistently demonstrated across different countries (Canada and the USA) and in both stable and unstable epilepsy patients, with more pronounced cost increases in patients receiving multiple generic versions. Brand-to-generic substitutions of AEDs do not necessarily reduce overall healthcare costs and may even increase them.
Automatic Segmentation and Measurement of Vasculature in Retinal Fundus Images Using Probabilistic Formulation

The automatic analysis of retinal blood vessels plays an important role in the computer-aided diagnosis. In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic tracking-based method for automatic vessel segmentation in retinal images. We take into account vessel edge detection on the whole retinal image and handle different vessel structures. During the tracking process, a Bayesian method with maximum a posteriori (MAP) as criterion is used to detect vessel edge points. Experimental evaluations of the tracking algorithm are performed on real retinal images from three publicly available databases: STARE (Hoover et al., 2000), DRIVE (Staal et al., 2004), and REVIEW (Al-Diri et al., 2008 and 2009). We got high accuracy in vessel segmentation, width measurements, and vessel structure identification. The sensitivity and specificity on STARE are 0.7248 and 0.9666, respectively. On DRIVE, the sensitivity is 0.6522 and the specificity is up to 0.9710.
Migration of retinal pigment epithelium cells is regulated by protein kinase Cα in vitro.

PURPOSE Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cell migration and proliferation are considered key elements in proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). Downregulation of protein kinase Cα (PKCα) can inhibit RPE cell proliferation. Here, we sought to analyze whether PKCα affects the migration of RPE cells. METHODS Human RPE (hRPE) cells were cultured, confirmed by immunofluorescence staining, and divided into four groups: control, thymeleatoxin, non-small interfering RNA (siRNA), and siRNA-PKCα. Thymeleatoxin was used to activate PKCα, and siRNA-PKCα was used to knock it down. Expression of PKCα was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). Cell migration ability was analyzed by wound healing assay and transwell chamber assay. Expression of zonula occludens (ZO)-1 and occludin was determined by immunofluorescence. RESULTS Pure populations of hRPE cell cultures were observed using light and fluorescence microscopy. The mRNA levels of PKCα were not significantly increased by thymeleatoxin, but were reduced by siRNA-PKCα as determined by qRT-PCR assay. The wound healed faster in the thymeleatoxin group than in the control group at time points 12, 15, and 20 hours. The wound healed more slowly in the siRNA-PKCα group than in the non-siRNA group at the three time points. A similar tendency among the four groups was consistently observed in regard to cell numbers counted in the transwell chamber assay. The expression of ZO-1 was highest in the siRNA-PKCα group, similar in the control and non-siRNA groups, and lowest in the thymeleatoxin group. After migration, the fluorescence intensity of ZO-1 was reduced to similarly weak levels among the four groups. CONCLUSIONS Retinal pigment epithelium cell migration is enhanced by a PKCα agonist and suppressed by a PKCα antagonist. The results suggest that a PKCα-mediated signal transduction pathway plays a crucial role in hRPE cell migration and may be a potential therapeutic target against hRPE cell migration and PVR disease.
The state-of-art and future trends in testing embedded memories

According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS 2001), embedded memories will continue to dominate the increasing system on chips (SoCs) content in the next years, approaching 94% in about 10 years. Therefore the memory yield will have a dramatical impact on the overall defect-per-million (DPM) level, hence on the overall SoC yield. Meeting a high memory yield requires understanding memory designs, modelling their faulty behaviors in the presence of defects, designing adequate tests and diagnosis strategies as well as efficient repair schemes. This paper presents the state of art in memory testing including fault modeling, test design, built-in-self-test (BIST) and built-in-self-repair (BISR). Further research challenges and opportunities are discussed in enabling testing (embedded) memories, which use deep submicron technologies.
With that diet, you will go far: trait-based analysis reveals a link between rapid range expansion and a nitrogen-favoured diet

Recent global change has had a substantial influence on the distribution of organisms, and many species are currently expanding their ranges. To evaluate the underlying processes, long-term data with good geographic resolution are essential. One important but generally overlooked data source is offered by the taxon-specific national catalogues of first provincial records that are kept in many countries. Here, we use such data to quantify trait-based influences on range expansion in Swedish butterflies and moths between 1973 and 2010. Of 282 species meeting pre-defined quality criteria, 170 expanded their northern range margin, with a mean expansion rate of 2.7 km per year. The analyses demonstrate that habitat and diet generalists, forest species and species active during warm conditions have expanded their ranges more rapidly than other species. Notably, range expansion in diet specialists was positively related to a nitrogen-favoured larval diet, an effect not found among oligo- or polyphagous species. In contrast to the general view, this shows that specialist species can undergo rapid range expansion. We suggest that increased areas of nitrogen-rich habitat, and increased availability of a nitrogen-favoured diet, are among the most important drivers of range expansions, potentially having far-reaching consequences for a wide variety of organisms.
On reducing misspeculations in a pipelined scheduler

Pipelining the scheduling logic, which exposes and exploits the instruction level parallelism, degrades processor performance. In a 4-issue processor, our evaluations show that pipelining the scheduling logic over two cycles degrades performance by 10% in SPEC-2000 integer benchmarks. Such a performance degradation is due to sacrificing the ability to execute dependent instructions in consecutive cycles.
Identification and Characterization of Bmi-1-responding Element within the Human p16 Promoter*

Bmi-1, the first functionally identified polycomb gene family member, plays critical roles in cell cycle regulation, cell immortalization, and cell senescence. Bmi-1 is involved in the development and progression of carcinomas and is a potent target for cancer therapy. One important pathway regulated by Bmi-1 is that involving two cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, p16Ink4a and p19Arf, as Bmi-1 represses the INK4a locus on which they are encoded. A close correlation between the up-regulation of Bmi-1 and down-regulation of p16 has been demonstrated in various tumors; however, how Bmi-1 regulates p16 expression is not clear. In this study, we revealed that Bmi-1 regulates the expression of p16 by binding directly to the Bmi-1-responding element (BRE) within the p16 promoter. The BRE resided at bp −821 to −732 upstream of the p16 ATG codon. BRE alone was sufficient to allow Bmi-1-mediated regulation of the CMV promoter. Bmi-1 typically functions by forming a complex with Ring2; however, regulation of p16 was independent of Ring2. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing of Bmi-1-precipitated chromatin DNA revealed that 1536 genes were targeted by Bmi-1, including genes involved in tissue-specific differentiation, cell cycle, and apoptosis. By analyzing the binding sequences of these genes, we found two highly conserved Bmi-1-binding motifs, which were required for Bmi-1-mediated p16 promoter regulation. Taken together, our results revealed the molecular mechanism of Bmi-1-mediated regulation of the p16 gene, thus providing further insights into the functions of Bmi-1 as well as a sensitive high-throughput platform with which to screen Bmi-1-targeted small molecules for cancer therapy.
Inferring appropriate eligibility criteria in clinical trial protocols without labeled data

We consider the user task of designing clinical trial protocols and propose a method that outputs the most appropriate eligibility criteria from a potentially huge set of candidates. Each document d in our collection D is a clinical trial protocol which itself contains a set of eligibility criteria. Given a small set of sample documents D', |D'|<<|D|, a user has initially identified as relevant e.g., via a user query interface, our scoring method automatically suggests eligibility criteria from D by ranking them according to how appropriate they are to the clinical trial protocol currently being designed. We view a document as a mixture of latent topics and our method exploits this by applying a three-step procedure. First, we infer the latent topics in the sample documents using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) [3]. Next, we use logistic regression models to compute the probability that a given candidate criterion belongs to a particular topic. Lastly, we score each criterion by computing its expected value, the probability-weighted sum of the topic proportions inferred from the set of sample documents. Intuitively, the greater the probability that a candidate criterion belongs to the topics that are dominant in the samples, the higher its expected value or score. Results from our experiments indicate that our proposed method is 8 and 9 times better (resp., for inclusion and exclusion criteria) than randomly choosing from a set of candidates obtained from relevant documents. In user simulation experiments, we were able to automatically construct eligibility criteria that are on the average 75% and 70% (resp., for inclusion and exclusion criteria) similar to the correct eligibility criteria.