Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CFTR Is a Negative Regulator of NFκB Mediated Innate Immune Response

Background Dysfunctional CFTR in the airways is associated with elevated levels of NFκB mediated IL-8 signaling leading to neutrophil chemotaxis and chronic lung inflammation in cystic fibrosis. The mechanism(s) by which CFTR mediates inflammatory signaling is under debate. Methodology/Principal Findings We tested the hypothesis that wt-CFTR down-regulates NFκB mediated IL-8 secretion. We transiently co-expressed wt-CFTR and IL-8 or NFκB promoters driving luciferase expression in HEK293 cells. Wt-CFTR expression in HEK293 cells suppresses both basal and IL1β induced IL-8, and NFκB promoter activities as compared to the control cells transfected with empty vector (p<0.05). We also confirmed these results using CFBE41o- cells and observed that cells stably transduced with wt-CFTR secrete significantly lower amounts of IL-8 chemokine as compared to non-transfected control cells. To test the hypothesis that CFTR must be localized to cell surface lipid rafts in polarized airway epithelial cells in order to mediate the inflammatory response, we treated CFBE41o- cells that had been stably transduced with wt-CFTR with methyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD). At baseline, CD significantly (p<0.05) induced IL-8 and NFκB reporter activities as compared to control cells suggesting a negative regulation of NFκB mediated IL-8 signaling by CFTR in cholesterol-rich lipid rafts. Untreated cells exposed to the CFTR channel blocker CFTR-172 inhibitor developed a similar increase in IL-8 and NFκB reporter activities suggesting that not only must CFTR be present on the cell surface but it must be functional. We verified these results in vivo by comparing survival, body weight and pro-inflammatory cytokine response to P. aeruginosa LPS in CFTR knock out (CFKO) mice as compared to wild type controls. There was a significant (p<0.05) decrease in survival and body weight, an elevation in IL-1β in whole lung extract (p<0.01), as well as a significant increase in phosphorylated IκB, an inducer of NFκB mediated signaling in the CFKO mice. Conclusions/Significance Our data suggest that CFTR is a negative regulator of NFκB mediated innate immune response and its localization to lipid rafts is involved in control of inflammation.
Dual start motif in two lambdoid S genes unrelated to lambda S

The lysis gene region of phage 21 contains three overlapping reading frames, designated S21, R21, and Rz21 on the basis of the analogy with the SRRz gene cluster of phage lambda. The 71-codon S21 gene complements lambda Sam7 for lysis function but shows no detectable homology with S lambda in the amino acid or nucleotide sequence. A highly related DNA sequence from the bacteriophage PA-2 was found by computer search of the GenBank data base. Correction of this sequence by insertion of a single base revealed another 71-codon reading frame, which is accordingly designated the SPA-2 gene and is 85% identical to S21. There are thus two unrelated classes of S genes; class I, consisting of the homologous 107-codon S lambda and 108-codon P22 gene 13, and class II, consisting of the 71-codon S21 and SPA-2 genes. The codon sequence Met-Lys-(X)-Met.begins all four genes. The two Met codons in S lambda and 13 have been shown to serve as translational starts for distinct polypeptide products which have opposing functions: the shorter polypeptide serves as the lethal lysis effector, whereas the longer polypeptide acts as a lysis inhibitor. To test whether this same system exists in the class II S genes, the Met-I and Met-4 codons of S21 were altered in inducible plasmid clones and the resultant lysis profiles were monitored. Elimination of the Met-1 start results in increased toxicity, and lysis, although not complete, begins earlier, which suggests that both starts are used in the scheduling of lysis by S21 and is consistent with the idea that the 71- and 68-residue products act as a lysis inhibitor and a lysis effector, respectively. In addition, the R gene of 21 was shown to be related to P22 gene 19, which encodes a true lysozyme activity, and was also found to be nearly identical to PA-2 ORF2. We infer that the 21 and PA-2 R genes both encode lysozymes in the T4 e gene family. These three genes form a second class lambdoid R genes, with the lambda R gene being the sole member of the first class. The existence of two interchangeable but unrelated classes of S genes and R genes is discussed in terms of a model of bacteriophage evolution in which the individual gene is the unit of evolution.
Energy level alignment of dipolar interface layer in organic and hybrid perovskite solar cells

The dipole moment of interface materials has played the key role in efficient charge extraction in organic and hybrid perovskite solar cells, but the mechanisms of the interaction at the interface and of the resulting energy level alignment have not been well established. In this review, the decoupled dipole moments at the interface are investigated and clarified by using both the theoretical and experimental findings, with particular focus on dipolar interface materials and the consequent energy level alignment in organic and hybrid perovskite solar cells. The mechanisms of interface dipole moments in the interface layer are evaluated by using spontaneously and nonspontaneously aligned dipolar molecules, thereby the energy-level adjustment of the dipolar interface layer in the devices are elucidated. The diverse dipolar interface materials (e.g., self-assembled monolayers, conjugated or nonconjugated polymer, neutral molecules or electrolytes, zwitterion based molecules, electrolyte grafted copolymer) are introduced and classified according to their working mechanisms of decoupled dipole moments at the interface. We conclude that an efficient interface material and its particular treatment can be designed and developed by exploring the underlying mechanisms of the decoupled dipole moments. Therefore, device characteristics may be advanced by the insights provided in this review.
Extragenomic double-stranded DNA circles in yeast with linear mitochondrial genomes: potential involvement in telomere maintenance.

Although the typical mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is portrayed as a circular molecule, a large number of organisms contain linear mitochondrial genomes classified by their telomere structure. The class of mitochondrial telomeres identified in three yeast species, Candida parapsilosis, Pichia philodendra and Candida salmanticensis, is characterized by inverted terminal repeats each consisting of several tandemly repeating units and a 5' single-stranded extension. The molecular mechanisms of the origin, replication and maintenance of this type of mitochondrial telomere remain unknown. While studying the replication of linear mtDNA of C.parapsilosis by 2-D gel electrophoresis distinct DNA fragments composed solely of mitochondrial telomeric sequences were detected and their properties were suggestive of a circular conformation. Electron microscopic analysis of these DNAs revealed the presence of highly supertwisted circular molecules which could be relaxed by DNase I. The minicircles fell into distinct categories based on length, corresponding to n x 0.75 kb (n = 1-7). Similar results were obtained with two other yeast species (P.philodendra and C. salmanticensis) which possess analogous telomeric structure.
Innovating ICT innovation: Trentino as a lab

In this paper, we describe the Living Lab PPPP (Public/Private/People Partnership) pursued by 'Trentino as a Lab' (TasLab), an initiative promoted by the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, whereby the creation of new ICT services, products and social infrastructures is enhanced by user-driven, open innovation principles and practices. Since 2007, TasLab has been a partner of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), promoting the cooperation of ICT companies and research centers with the local end users since the early stages of the innovation value chain. More recently, TasLab has developed a participatory model of innovation, driven by public sector demand, and supported by an electronic portal and a Web 2.0 collaboration platform. This has introduced a mechanism of bottom-up 'smart specialization', whereby regional priorities can be determined by the willingness of local actors to join forces and strive for common goals.
Memory for Category Information Is Idealized Through Contrast With Competing Options

We suggest that human category formation relies on contrastive learning mechanisms that seek to reduce prediction error. In keeping with this view, manipulating category contrast leads to systematic distortions in people’s memory for category information. Simply by changing the basis of comparison (i.e., the available response options), we can systematically distort people’s perceptions of novel, energy-source, and political categories. Our proposal explains perceived variations in category members’ typicality, including cases in which average items are judged as highly typical and cases in which extreme or ideal members are judged as highly typical of the category. Although straightforward, our account spans findings from studies in goal-derived, cross-cultural, and object-based categorization and suggests ways in which society’s perception of key issues is distorted by political discourse.
Helsinki model cut stroke thrombolysis delays to 25 minutes in Melbourne in only 4 months

Objective: To test the transferability of the Helsinki stroke thrombolysis model that achieved a median 20-minute door-to-needle time (DNT) to an Australian health care setting. Methods: The existing “code stroke” model at the Royal Melbourne Hospital was evaluated and restructured to include key components of the Helsinki model: 1) ambulance prenotification with patient details alerting the stroke team to meet the patient on arrival; 2) patients transferred directly from triage onto the CT table on the ambulance stretcher; and 3) tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) delivered in CT immediately after imaging. We analyzed our prospective, consecutive tPA registry for effects of these protocol changes on our DNT after implementation during business hours (8 am to 5 pm Monday–Friday) from May 2012. Results: There were 48 patients treated with tPA in the 8 months after the protocol change. Compared with 85 patients treated in 2011, the median (interquartile range) DNT was reduced from 61 (43–75) minutes to 46 (24–79) minutes (p = 0.040). All of the effect came from the change in the in-hours DNT, down from 43 (33–59) to 25 (19–48) minutes (p = 0.009), whereas the out-of-hours delays remain unchanged, from 67 (55–82) to 62 (44–95) minutes (p = 0.835). Conclusion: We demonstrated rapid transferability of an optimized tPA protocol to a different health care setting. With the cooperation of ambulance, emergency, and stroke teams, we succeeded in the absence of a dedicated neurologic emergency department or electronic patient records, which are features of the Finnish system. The next challenge is providing the same service out-of-hours.
Selected mapping applied scheme for PAPR reduction in OFDM communication systems

OFDM applied systems are the candidates for the future wireless communications. However, high peak-to-average ratio (PAPR) degrades the system performance. Applying the signal space expansion into the signal selection scheme, PAPR reduction could be implemented in OFDM systems. In this paper, a selected mapping (SLM) applied scheme using signal space expansion is proposed. In the scheme, a specific rule is designed to scramble the data sequence for PAPR reduction. The data sequence can be completely extracted at the receiver without any side information. Hence, the scheme can be implemented to reduce PAPR and to avoid bit error rate (BER) degradation in the OFDM system. Then, the numerical results are given to evaluate the performance on PAPR reduction and BER in the OFDM system. The result shows BER performance with the proposed SLM applied scheme is better than that with the ordinary SLM scheme.
Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile: Derivation and Validation of a Client-centered Outcome Measure for Hearing Aid Services

The Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile (GHABP) has been derived, optimized, and verified as an instrument suitable for application in the context of the evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of rehabilitative services for hearing-impaired adults. The profile produces scales of preintervention disability, handicap, reported hearing aid use, reported benefit, satisfaction, and residual disability, obtained over a combination of prespecified listening circumstances and those nominated by individual hearing-impaired listeners . A validity criterion for the GHABP and other contenders for use in the evaluation of such services is proposed and justified . The outcome scales from the GHABP are demonstrated to exhibit the power to discriminate between hearing aid fittings, and the instrument is proposed as a suitable candidate for a routine service monitoring indicator as part of a program of quality assurance and standards.
Effect of Ischemia Duration and Protective Interventions on the Temporal Dynamics of Tissue Composition After Myocardial Infarction

Rationale: The impact of cardioprotective strategies and ischemia duration on postischemia/reperfusion (I/R) myocardial tissue composition (edema, myocardium at risk, infarct size, salvage, intramyocardial hemorrhage, and microvascular obstruction) is not well understood. Objective: To study the effect of ischemia duration and protective interventions on the temporal dynamics of myocardial tissue composition in a translational animal model of I/R by the use of state-of-the-art imaging technology. Methods and Results: Four 5-pig groups underwent different I/R protocols: 40-minute I/R (prolonged ischemia, controls), 20-minute I/R (short-duration ischemia), prolonged ischemia preceded by preconditioning, or prolonged ischemia followed by postconditioning. Serial cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR)-based tissue characterization was done in all pigs at baseline and at 120 minutes, day 1, day 4, and day 7 after I/R. Reference myocardium at risk was assessed by multidetector computed tomography during the index coronary occlusion. After the final CMR, hearts were excised and processed for water content quantification and histology. Five additional healthy pigs were euthanized after baseline CMR as reference. Edema formation followed a bimodal pattern in all 40-minute I/R pigs, regardless of cardioprotective strategy and the degree of intramyocardial hemorrhage or microvascular obstruction. The hyperacute edematous wave was ameliorated only in pigs showing cardioprotection (ie, those undergoing short-duration ischemia or preconditioning). In all groups, CMR-measured edema was barely detectable at 24 hours postreperfusion. The deferred healing-related edematous wave was blunted or absent in pigs undergoing preconditioning or short-duration ischemia, respectively. CMR-measured infarct size declined progressively after reperfusion in all groups. CMR-measured myocardial salvage, and the extent of intramyocardial hemorrhage and microvascular obstruction varied dramatically according to CMR timing, ischemia duration, and cardioprotective strategy. Conclusions: Cardioprotective therapies, duration of index ischemia, and the interplay between these greatly influence temporal dynamics and extent of tissue composition changes after I/R. Consequently, imaging techniques and protocols for assessing edema, myocardium at risk, infarct size, salvage, intramyocardial hemorrhage, and microvascular obstruction should be standardized accordingly.
Inflammatory Cytokine-Induced Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 and Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 in Mesenchymal Stem Cells Are Critical for Immunosuppression

Cell–cell adhesion mediated by ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 is critical for T cell activation and leukocyte recruitment to the inflammation site and, therefore, plays an important role in evoking effective immune responses. However, we found that ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 were critical for mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-mediated immunosuppression. When MSCs were cocultured with T cells in the presence of T cell Ag receptor activation, they significantly upregulated the adhesive capability of T cells due to the increased expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1. By comparing the immunosuppressive effect of MSCs toward various subtypes of T cells and the expression of these adhesion molecules, we found that the greater expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 by MSCs, the greater the immunosuppressive capacity that they exhibited. Furthermore, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 were found to be inducible by the concomitant presence of IFN-γ and inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α or IL-1). Finally, MSC-mediated immunosuppression was significantly reversed in vitro and in vivo when the adhesion molecules were genetically deleted or functionally blocked, which corroborated the importance of cell–cell contact in immunosuppression by MSCs. Taken together, these findings reveal a novel function of adhesion molecules in immunoregulation by MSCs and provide new insights for the clinical studies of antiadhesion therapies in various immune disorders.
Inactivation of G1ucose‐6‐Phosphate Dehydrogenase Isozymes from Human and Pig Brain by Aluminum

Abstract: Prolonged intake of low levels of aluminum from the drinking water has been found to increase the aluminum content in rat brain homogenates and to reduce the activity of hexokinase and glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD). To determine the interaction of G6PD with aluminum in the brain, we have recently purified two isozymes of G6PD (isozymes I and II) from human and pig brain. Unlike isozyme I, isozyme II also had 6‐phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6‐PGD) activity. We report here that G6PD isozymes I and II from human and pig brain purified to apparent homogeneity are inactivated by aluminum. Aluminum did not affect the 6‐PGD activity of isozyme II. The aluminum‐inactivated enzyme contained 1 mol of aluminum/mol of enzyme subunit. The protein‐bound metal ion was not dissociated by exhaustive dialysis at 4°C against 10 mM Tris‐HCI (pH 7.0) containing 0.2 mM EDTA. Preincubation of aluminum with citrate, NADP+, EDTA, NaF, ATP. and apotransferrin protected the G6PD isozymes against aluminum inactivation. However, when the G6PD isozymes were completely inactivated by aluminum, only citrate, NaF, and apotransferrin restored the enzyme activity. The dissociation constants for the enzyme‐aluminum complex of the isozymes varied from 2 to 4 μM, as measured by using NaF, a known chelator for aluminum. Inhibition of G6PD by low levels of aluminum further strengthens the suggested role of aluminum toxicity in the energy metabolism of the brain.
Cosmic optical activity in a Randall–Sundrum braneworld with bulk Kalb–Ramond field

Optical activity of electromagnetic waves in a string inspired Kalb–Ramond cosmological background is studied in the presence of an extra spacetime dimension. The Kalb–Ramond-electromagnetic coupling, which originates from the gauge anomaly cancelling Chern–Simons term in a string inspired model, is explicitly calculated following the Randall–Sundrum braneworld conjecture. It is shown that the Randall–Sundrum scenario leads to an enormous enhancement of the optical rotation of a plane polarized electromagnetic wave propagating on the visible brane. The absence of any experimental support in favour of such a large rotation in astrophysical experiments on distant galactic radio waves indicates an apparent conflict between the Randall–Sundrum braneworld scenario and the presence of the Kalb–Ramond antisymmetric tensor field in the background spacetime.
Crystal structures of two hydrazinecarbothioamide derivatives: (E)-N-ethyl-2-[(4-oxo-4H-chromen-3-yl)methylidene]hydrazinecarbothioamide hemihydrate and (E)-2-[(4-chloro-2H-chromen-3-yl)methylidene]-N-phenylhydrazinecarbothioamide

The title compounds, (I) and (II), are hydrazinecarbothioamide derivatives. In the crystal of (I), two independent molecules are linked by bifurcated N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming two (6) ring motifs, and (10) and (14) ring motifs. In the crystal of (II), molecules are linked by pairs of N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds, forming inversion dimers with an (8) ring motif.
A Probabilistic Account of Logical Metonymy

In this article we investigate logical metonymy, that is, constructions in which the argument of a word in syntax appears to be different from that argument in logical form (e.g., enjoy the book means enjoy reading the book, and easy problem means a problem that is easy to solve). The systematic variation in the interpretation of such constructions suggests a rich and complex theory of composition on the syntax/semantics interface. Linguistic accounts of logical metonymy typically fail to describe exhaustively all the possible interpretations, or they don't rank those interpretations in terms of their likelihood. In view of this, we acquire the meanings of metonymic verbs and adjectives from a large corpus and propose a probabilistic model that provides a ranking on the set of possible interpretations. We identify the interpretations automatically by exploiting the consistent correspondences between surface syntactic cues and meaning. We evaluate our results against paraphrase judgments elicited experimentally from humans and show that the model's ranking of meanings correlates reliably with human intuitions.
Design fast matrix algorithms on high-performance cloud platforms

The low cost and high availability properties of cloud computing make it an attractive solution to not only service-oriented computing, but also to high performance applications. Many of those services and applications entail matrix computations, whose design and performance optimization for cloud platforms haven't been fully studied. Although there is no concrete definition of what a cloud platform should be, especially for high performance purpose, it is believed a heterogeneous computing environment that equips with multicore processors and multiple accelerators is the trend of future high performance cloud architecture. In this paper, a preliminary research on fast matrix multiplication algorithm on multi-GPU is presented, accompanied with a list of future research plans on design fast matrix algorithms on high performance cloud platforms.
Electrode design optimization of a CMOS fringing-field capacitive sensor

The capacitance of a micro-capacitive-sensor is mainly depends on its electrode structures, electrode arrangement and the dielectric strength of its surrounding. This paper presents a novel electrode design to enhance the fringing-field and to increase the capacitance of a CMOS MEMS capacitive sensor. The design optimization process is assisted by COMSOL, a multi-physics finite-element simulation tool. The design goal is to maximize the fringing-field of capacitive sensor. The capacitor has been built with a VLSI Schmitt trigger, and temperature compensator to probe the capacitance. The experiment results show that proposed capacitor can achieve the capacitance to 75.2 pF.