Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potentiation of neurite outgrowth and reduction of apoptosis by immunosuppressive agents: implications for neuronal injury and transplantation.

OBJECT Immunosuppressive agents are believed to play a role in recovery from spinal cord injury, but the underlying mechanisms by which neuronal function is improved by these agents are poorly understood. In this study, the authors evaluate the effect of immunosuppressive medications on neurite outgrowth and cell survival after a pharmacologically induced injury. METHODS Differentiated human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells were injured using the calcium agonist thapsigargin. After cellular injury, neurite outgrowth in the presence or absence of immunosuppressive agents was measured. Apoptosis was quantified with the aid of a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick-end labeling assay. Neurite outgrowth was severely restricted following thapsigargin injury. Outgrowth was potentiated, however, by the addition of concentrations of 1 and 10 mM cyclosporin A in a dose-dependent fashion. Similarly, addition of 10 nM FK506 increased the percentage of neurites in the 20- to 40-micron range. A low dose (1 mM) of dexamethasone did not have a significant effect on neurite outgrowth, but a higher dose (10 mM) increased the percentage of neurites in the 10- to 45-micron range. These agents also lessened the degree of thapsigargin-induced apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS Immunosuppressive agents such as cyclosporin A, FK506, and dexamethasone can potentiate neurite outgrowth and protect against apoptotic cell death in a human postmitotic neuronal cell line. Such effects may have implications for lessening neuronal injury after neurotrauma, stroke, or neurodegeneration.
Conditions Affecting the Responses of Human Platelets to Epinephrine

Summary Conditions affecting the responses of human platelets to epinephrine were examined. In platelet-rich plasma prepared from blood anticoagulated with hirudin or PPACK (D-pheny- lalanyl-L-prolyl-L-arginine chloromethyl ketone), epinephrine did not cause shape change or aggregation. In a Tyrode-albumin- apyrase solution containing a concentration of Ca2+ in the physiological range, and fibrinogen, epinephrine in concentrations as high as 40 μM did not induce platelet shape change, caused either no primary aggregation or very slight primary aggregation, and did not induce thromboxane formation, release of dense granule contents, or secondary aggregation. In contrast, in citrated platelet-rich plasma, epinephrine induced two phases of aggregation. This is not attributable to the generation of traces of thrombin since the same effects were evident when blood was taken into a combined citrate-hirudin anticoagulant or a combined citrate-PPACK anticoagulant. In a modified Tyrode-albu- min-apyrase solution containing approximately 20 μM Ca2+, 1 mM Mg2+, and fibrinogen, epinephrine induced extensive aggregation after a lag phase, but no primary phase was evident; thromboxane formation and release of dense granule contents accompanied the aggregation response. These responses were also observed when PPACK was included with the acid-citrate- dextrose anticoagulant, and in the washing and resuspending fluids. In the presence of aspirin or the thromboxane receptor blocker BM 13.177 a few small aggregates were detected by particle counting and by scanning electron microscopy; with the latter inhibitor, the platelets in the aggregates retained their disc shape; secondary aggregation and the responses associated with it did not occur. Thus thromboxane A2 formation is not necessary for the formation of these small aggregates, but is required for extensive aggregation and release. As with other weak agonists, the close platelet-to-platelet contact in the low Ca2+ medium appears to be necessary for full secondary aggregation. Omission of fibrinogen from the low Ca2+ medium prevented both primary and secondary aggregation in response to epinephrine. An antibody (10E5) to the glycoprotein Ilb/IIIa complex was completely inhibitory in the presence of fibrinogen. Thus the response of human platelets to epinephrine is influenced by the concentration of Ca2+ and the presence of fibrinogen in the medium in which they are suspended.
Original report. Mucocele-like tumors of the breast: mammographic and sonographic appearances.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to describe the mammographic and sonographic appearances of the mucocele-like tumor of the breast. CONCLUSION The mucocele-like tumor is a rare lesion of the breast, the benign form of which has a nonspecific mammographic appearance. The tumor can present as indeterminate microcalcifications or as a nodule, often containing calcifications. The sonographic findings are of multiple well-defined hypoechoic oval or tubular structures with low-level internal echoes resembling complex cysts. Mucocele-like tumors of the breast can be associated with atypical hyperplasia or carcinoma. If a mucocele-like tumor is diagnosed at core needle biopsy, complete surgical excision is recommended, with careful evaluation of the entire specimen to exclude the presence of atypia or carcinoma.
Mining the Web for learning ontologies: State of art and critical review

The aim of the paper is to investigate and present the subject of building ontologies using the Semantic Web Mining that is defined as the combination of the two fast-developing research areas Semantic Web and Web Mining. Web mining is the application of data mining techniques to the content, structure, and usage of Web resources and The Semantic Web is the second-generation WWW, enriched by machine-processable information which supports the user in his tasks. This can help to discover global as well as local structure “models” or “patterns” within and between Web pages and ontology extraction witch is the automatic or semi-automatic creation of ontologies, including extracting the corresponding domain's terms and the relationships between those concepts, and encoding them with an ontology language for easy retrieval. As building ontologies manually is extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming, there is great motivation to automate the process. This paper gives an overview of where the two areas meet today, and discuss ways of how a closer integration could be profitable.
OCDN: Oblivious Content Distribution Networks

As publishers increasingly use Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) to distribute content across geographically diverse networks, CDNs themselves are becoming unwitting targets of requests for both access to user data and content takedown. From copyright infringement to moderation of online speech, CDNs have found themselves at the forefront of many recent legal quandaries. At the heart of the tension, however, is the fact that CDNs have rich information both about the content they are serving and the users who are requesting that content. This paper offers a technical contribution that is relevant to this ongoing tension with the design of an Oblivious CDN (OCDN); the system is both compatible with the existing Web ecosystem of publishers and clients and hides from the CDN both the content it is serving and the users who are requesting that content. OCDN is compatible with the way that publishers currently host content on CDNs. Using OCDN, publishers can use multiple CDNs to publish content; clients retrieve content through a peer-to-peer anonymizing network of proxies. Our prototype implementation and evaluation of OCDN show that the system can obfuscate both content and clients from the CDN operator while still delivering content with good performance.
Learning with FIRST LEGO League

Robotics is a valuable tool for engaging students in the hands-on application of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. Robotics competitions such as FIRST LEGO League (FLL) can increase students’ interest in the STEM subjects and can foster their problem solving and teamwork skills. This paper reports on a study investigating students’ perceptions on the influence of participating in a FLL competition on their learning. The students completed questionnaires regarding their perceptions of their learning during the FLL challenge and were also interviewed to gain a deeper understanding of their questionnaire responses. The results show that the students were engaged with the FLL challenge and held positive views regarding their experience. The results also suggest that students involved with the FLL challenge improved their learning about real-world applications, problem solving, engagement, communication, and the application of the technology/engineering cycle.
Problems and competencies reported by parents of Australian and American children.

We compared problems and competencies reported for 2600 randomly selected nonreferred children in Sydney and the U.S.A. Sydney children scored significantly higher on 82 problem items, with a mean total problem score of 31.6 versus 20.1 for the U.S.A. Nevertheless, item scores correlated 0.92 between countries, most differences between competence scores were small, and patterns were similar for sex, age, socioeconomic status, and internalizing versus externalizing problems. Although higher clinical cutoffs may be needed in Sydney, the similarity of patterns in scores permits calibration of the Child Behavior Checklist between Sydney and the U.S.A. Sex differences found in seven cultures were summarized.
Evaluation of biomarkers of inflammation in response to benzalkonium chloride on corneal and conjunctival epithelial cells.

PURPOSE Most eye drops contain preservatives; benzalkonium chloride (BAK) is most common. Recent data demonstrated BAK adding to toxicity. BAK is degraded into hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)), which in even small amounts is known to be an irritant. Increased toxicity should cause localized inflammation with increased elaboration of inflammatory biomarkers. To evaluate the inflammation BAK causes to the ocular surface, enzyme linked immunosorbant assays (ELISAs) were utilized to quantify the levels of inflammatory biomarkers in response to BAK and/or H(2)O(2). METHODS Immortalized human conjunctival and corneal epithelial cells were exposed to: BAK (0.001%-0.1%), hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) (0.01%-0.1%), and cell media for 1 h. Cytokine quantification was performed via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays [ELISAs]). Additional experimentation was performed in which testing solutions were replaced with media after 1 h and the resulting supernatants quantified after 24 h. RESULTS BAK induced significant amounts of interleukin (IL-) 1 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), but only moderate amounts of C-reactive protein (CRP), IL- 10 and 12, and H(2)O(2). Lower concentrations of BAK induced proportionally less elaboration. Replacing the test solutions with media and providing 23 h for cytokine elaboration significantly increased TNF, but not IL-1. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) positive controls induced substantial elaboration/release of both IL-1 and TNF as did in increasing the exposure to the full 24 h. CONCLUSIONS After 1 h of exposure, BAK increased quantities of all biomarkers. The biomarkers in decreasing order of induction/upregulation were: TNF > or = IL-1 > or = IL-12 > or = IL-10 > or = CRP. Even low concentrations caused some degree of inflammation. Replacing the testing solution with media and providing 23 h for cytokine elaboration, significantly increased the elaboration/release of TNF, but not IL-1, as compared to the 1-h BAK exposure. Whereas increasing the exposure to the full 24 h by not removing the testing solution at the 1-h time point significantly increased the elaboration/release of both IL-1 and TNF.
On the study and deployment of mobile edge cloud for tactile Internet using a 5G gaming application

Future applications such as driverless cars, industrial Internet and smart grids will demand high bandwidth, resilience, security and low latency communication at the same time. Those technical requirements will be met by the 5G communication system, which is not only focusing on the future air interface but also the deployment in the core network. The paradigm shift from agnostic store-and-forward towards intelligent networks paves the ground for the mobile edge cloud — a concept to not only place cloud computing in close proximity to the users or things, such as in the base stations or even in access points in the houses, but also move the cloud with the user as the device moves along the network. This would enable minimum latency services, which require advanced migration techniques that facilitate not just quick but very frequent migrations. In this paper, we study and compare the state of the art migration techniques offered by virtualization tools like docker and KVM and propose an application level migration protocol that eliminates the drawbacks of the former. We also present the implementation of the proposed protocol in a latency sensitive gaming application, where the server is migrated live during the gameplay between hosts, transparently to the users, as a proof of concept and study the handover in detail.
The Rel Family Member P50 Mediates Cytokine-Induced C-Reactive Protein Expression by a Novel Mechanism1

Transcription of C-reactive protein (CRP) in Hep 3B cells is induced by IL-6, acting through C/EBP isoforms and STAT3. IL-1β, which alone has no effect, greatly enhances IL-6-induced transcription by unknown mechanisms. Because IL-1β activates the NF-κB system, we explored the effects of overexpressed Rel family members on CRP expression. Unexpectedly, transactivation assays in transiently transfected Hep 3B cells showed p50 overexpression to markedly induce CRP transcription, acting in a region 3′ to −86. In the presence of overexpressed p50, IL-1β induced a 3-fold increase in CRP expression, and responses to IL-6 and to IL-6 plus IL-1β were 4-fold greater than seen in cells without p50 overexpression. In contrast, overexpressed p65 abolished CRP induction by p50 and by cytokines. EMSA studies demonstrated that recombinant p50 bound to a nonconsensus κB site overlapping the proximal C/EBP binding site on the CRP promoter. Mutation of a polypyrimidine tract in the p50-binding site inhibited the transactivating effect of cytokines. P50- but not p65-containing dimers were found in nuclei of Hep 3B cells 18 h after stimulation with IL-1β, when C/EBPβ is greatly activated, in the presence or absence of IL-6. These findings suggest that IL-1β induces nuclear translocation of p50-containing dimers and that p50 interacts with C/EBPβ activated by both IL-6 and IL-1β to induce CRP expression.
Prognostic importance of weight change on short-term functional outcome in acute ischemic stroke

Background Controversy exists regarding the question of whether weight change decreases or increases the risk of mortality. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic importance of weight change on short-term outcomes in acute ischemic stroke patients. Methods A total of 654 patients with acute ischemic stroke were enrolled in this study from March 2010 to May 2013. We assessed the weight change of each participant between admission and discharge from the Department of Neurology. Weight change was defined as change ≥0.05 kg/baseline body mass index unit. We evaluated the short-term outcomes using a modified Rankin Scale at three-months after the onset of a stroke. Results Among the 654 patients, 35.2% were included in the weight-change group. Weight loss occurred in 24.6% of the participants during the hospital stay following the stroke, which lasted an average of nine-days. Compared with the weight-stable group, the pronounced weight-loss group had a higher risk of unfavorable outcomes (odds ratio 2.43; 95% confidence interval 1.12-5.25). Conclusions Short-term weight loss after stroke appears to be more common than we expected, and our results suggest that it is associated with unfavorable functional outcomes. Therefore, clinical nutrition should be considered as a component of medical treatment and weight loss should be monitored as an indicator of malnutrition.
Characteristics of patients with chronic hepatitis C who develop hepatocellular carcinoma after a sustained response to interferon therapy

Makiyama et al. presented a large, retrospective multicenter study, the main purpose of which was to define relevant predictors of the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) who were treated with interferon monotherapy between 1991–2001. These patients were classified as being sustained responders (SRs) on the basis of a continuous normal alanine aminotransferase level after therapy with interferon. We would like to point out that their definition of “sustained responder” would be more properly termed “biochemical responder. ” In this paper both the end-of-therapy and follow-up HCV RNA assessments are lacking; there are therefore no parameters to allow us to define patients as nonresponders, cases of disease recurrence, or true SRs (with a persistent HCV RNA clearance from the serum). Makiyama et al. provided virologic analysis (serum HCV RNA level using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis) only in those patients who developed HCC, whereas no virologic data were reported for the follow-up of the SRs who did not develop HCC. The number of patients evaluated was large and these data could have great relevance in determining the significance of absent HCV replication in hepatocarcinogenesis. To our knowledge to date, there has been no clear demonstration of any correlation between HCV RNA clearance and long-term clinical outcome in view of HCC development. Three recent studies reported discordant data; no HCC was reported to have developed during the long-term follow-up of 286 European patients who were sustained virologic responders (SVRs). Toyoda et al. reported 9 cases of HCC among 392 patients who were SVRs, whereas a global incidence rate of 11%% was demostrated by Tsuda et al. although their study cohort was small. Liver carcinogenesis is most likely a multistep process. To our knowledge, although much is known regarding the etiopathogenesis of HCC, its exact mechanism remains unknown. We agree with Makiyama et al. that HCV persistence seems to be irrelevant for the development of HCC, but assessment of the virologic status is a mandatory evaluation in those patients treated with interferon. The persistence or disappearance of HCV RNA, in addition to patient age and gender and histologic criteria, could help to tailor the optimal biochemical and instrumental follow-up schedule for those patients who are biochemical responders.
A fully integrated differential CMOS LNA for 3-5-GHz ultrawideband wireless receivers

A fully integrated differential low-power low-noise amplifier (LNA) for ultrawideband (UWB) systems operating in the 3-5-GHz frequency range is presented. A two-section LC ladder input network is exploited to achieve excellent input match in a wideband fashion and to optimize the noise performance. Prototypes fabricated in a digital 0.13-mum complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology show the following performance: 9.5-dB peak power gain, 3.5-dB minimum noise figure, -6-dBm input-referred 1-dB compression point, and -0.8-dBm input-referred third-order intercept point, while drawing 11mA from a 1.5-V supply. The realized LNA is compared with previously reported LNAs tailored for the same frequency range
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET): Understanding the Nigerian Experience.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET): Understanding the Nigerian Experience Victor Ebipuruonwu Dike, Ed.D. Drexel University, December 2013 Chairperson: W. Edward Bureau, Ph.D. The descriptive mixed-methods study explores and describes the challenges and prospects of the growth and development of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) schools and science-based technology education in Nigeria. It is not understood how Nigerians in the United States perceive the impacts of governmental policies on education and the eventual contribution of graduates of TVET schools in Nigeria to the country’s economic growth and development. The purpose of this descriptive mixed-methods study was to discover the opinions and perceptions of Nigerians in the United States regarding the consequences stemming from the Nigerian government’s limited level of support for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) schools and programs. The questions for the descriptive mixed-methods study enable us to understand how the Nigerian government’s limited level of support for TVET relate to the shortage of highly skilled manpower and technological capabilities and the policy interventions that will improve the situation and enhance national development. To provide a practical solution to the problem, my stances and conceptual framework hinged on human-capital development, leadership and governance, and technological capabilities. A triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative methods was utilized for data collection. To collect primary quantitative data for the study, 100 questionnaires were distributed; eight semistructured interviews and focus-group sessions of six individuals were utilized to capture qualitative data. Quantitative data were scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale and qualitative data from the semi-structured questions were systematically examined, analyzed, coded, and integrated into the main data. Simple descriptive statistics of frequency counts and percentages were employed to analyze and describe the data. The results were expected to enable the researcher to better understand the topic, reach a valid conclusion, and recommend possible practical solutions to the problem.
Effects of Murine-Derived Anti-Methamphetamine Monoclonal Antibodies on (+)-Methamphetamine Self-Administration in the Rat

Two murine-derived anti-methamphetamine monoclonal antibodies were studied as potential pharmacokinetic antagonists of (+)-methamphetamine self-administration by rats. Intravenous administration of a 1 g/kg dose of the lower affinity [antibody equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) = 250 nM] monoclonal antibody (mAb) designated mAb6H8, 1 day before the start of several daily 2-h self-administration sessions produced effects that depended on the dose of (+)-methamphetamine. mAb6H8 increased the rate of self-administration of a unit dose of 0.06 mg/kg (+)-methamphetamine, had little effect on the rate of self-administration of a unit dose of 0.03 mg/kg (+)methamphetamine, and lowered the rate of self-administration of a unit dose of 0.01 mg/kg (+)-methamphetamine to a level similar to that after saline substitution. mAb-induced changes in rates of self-administration occurred very early in self-administration sessions and lasted for 3 to 7 days. Intravenous administration of a 1 or a 0.6 g/kg dose of a higher affinity (Kd = 11 nM) mAb designated mAb6H4, 24 h before the first of several self-administration sessions, produced very similar effects to the lower affinity mAb, despite the more than 20-fold greater affinity for (+)-methamphetamine. It is proposed that these anti-methamphetamine antibodies bind some of the self-administered (+)-methamphetamine before it can penetrate into brain, thereby reducing the amount of free drug available to function as a reinforcer. Although neither of these mAb medications are optimal antibodies for treating (+)-methamphetamine abuse, the experiments demonstrate that anti-(+)-methamphetamine monoclonal antibodies can attenuate the self-administration of the drug and suggest the potential of using monoclonal antibodies as pharmacokinetic antagonists of (+)-methamphetamine.