Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insights into the Sigma‐1 receptor Chaperone's cellular functions: A microarray report

We previously demonstrated that Sig‐1Rs are critical regulators in neuronal morphogenesis and development via the regulation of oxidative stress and mitochondrial functions. In the present study, we sought to identify pathways and genes that are affected by Sig‐1R. Gene expression profiles were examined in rat hippocampal neurons that had been cultured for 18 days in vitro (DIV). The cells were transduced with AAV siRNA targeting Sig‐1R on DIV 10 for 7 days, followed by gene expression analysis using a rat genome cDNA array. The gene array results indicated that Sig‐1R knockdown hampered cellular functions including steroid biogenesis, protein ubiquitination, actin cytoskeleton network, and Nrf‐2 mediated oxidative stress. Many of the cellular components important for actin polymerization and synapse plasticity, including F‐actin capping protein and neurofilaments, were significantly changed in AAV‐siSig‐1R neurons. Further, cytochrome c was reduced in AAV‐Sig‐1R neurons whereas free‐radical generating enzymes including cytochrome p450 and cytochrome b‐245 were increased. The microarray results also suggest that Sig‐1Rs may regulate genes that are involved in the pathogenesis of many CNS diseases including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. These data further confirmed that Sig‐1Rs play critical roles in the CNS and thus these findings may aid in future development of therapeutic treatments targeting neurodegenerative disorders. Synapse, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Nonlinear adaptive control of a transcritical Organic Rankine Cycle

This paper presents an adaptive control design for a transcritical Organic Rankine Cycle (TORC) working in both supercritical and subcritical regions. Even though supercritical operation increases the overall efficiency, previous research has focused on developing controls for ORCs working in the subcritical region only. This work first develops a model for TORC suitable for control system design. A decentralized control strategy using three single-input, single-output control loops provides the basis for a stable control, justified using a relative gain array. In simulations, a nonlinear approximate adaptive control utilizing the Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller outperforms a Proportional-Integral control, both in tracking set points changes and in rejecting disturbances due to a fluctuating heat source temperature.
Fostering sustained energy behavior change and increasing energy literacy in a student housing energy challenge

We designed the Kukui Cup challenge to foster energy conservation and increase energy literacy. Based on a review of the literature, the challenge combined a variety of elements into an overall game experience, including: real-time energy feedback, goals, commitments, competition, and prizes. We designed a software system called Makahiki to provide the online portion of the Kukui Cup challenge. Energy use was monitored by smart meters installed on each floor of the Hale Aloha residence halls on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa campus. In October 2011, we ran the UH Kukui Cup challenge for the over 1000 residents of the Hale Aloha towers. To evaluate the Kukui Cup challenge, I conducted three experiments: challenge participation, energy literacy, and energy use. Many residents participated in the challenge, as measured by points earned and actions completed through the challenge website. I measured the energy literacy of a random sample of Hale Aloha residents using an online energy literacy questionnaire administered before and after the challenge. I found that challenge participants’ energy knowledge increased significantly compared to non-challenge participants. Positive self-reported energy behaviors increased after the challenge for both challenge participants and non-participants, leading to the possibility of passive participation by the non-challenge participants. I found that energy use varied substantially between and within lounges over time. Variations in energy use over time complicated the selection of a baseline of energy use to compare the levels during and after the challenge. The best team reduced its energy use during the challenge by 16%. However, team energy conservation did not appear to correlate to participation in the challenge, and there was no evidence of sustained energy conservation after the challenge. The problems inherent in assessing energy conservation using a baseline call into question this common practice. My research has generated several contributions, including: a demonstration of increased energy literacy as a result of the challenge, the discovery of fundamental problems with the use of baselines for assessing energy competitions, the creation of two open source software systems, and the creation of an energy literacy assessment instrument.
Multiple Recurrences in Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor of the Orbit: A Case Report and a Review of the Literature

Purpose To report the onset of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor of the orbit 8 years after irradiation in a patient with neurofibromatosis type-1. Methods Case report of a young man with neurofibromatosis type-1 who received irradiation for presumed bilateral optic nerve and chiasmal gliomas and in whom a malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor later developed. Exenteration with extirpation of the entire contents of the orbit was performed 6 times. Results Complete recurrence of the tumor occurred after each surgical procedure until the patient died of malignancy. Conclusions Our case underscores the risk of irradiation, especially in children with neurofibromatosis type-1, and emphasizes that radiotherapy should never be given as an empirical therapy. The authors believe that irradiation and neurofibromatosis type-1 may, in combination, pose a significant risk for the development of malignancies. Clear-cut indications and a precise tissue diagnosis are desirable before the initiation of radiotherapy, particularly in the pediatric population. We recommend that if irradiation is necessary in persons with neurofibromatosis type-1, regular follow-up is imperative. In view of the hostile nature of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, early aggressive treatment appears to be the only viable alternative at present.
Costs of Transforming Established Primary Care Practices to Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMHs)

Background: The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) shows promise for improving care and reducing costs. We sought to reduce the uncertainty regarding the time and cost of PCMH transformation by quantifying the direct costs of transforming 57 practices in a medical group to National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)-recognized Level III PCMHs. Methods: We conducted structured interviews with corporate leaders, and with physicians, practice administrators, and office managers from a representative sample of practices regarding time spent on PCMH transformation and NCQA application, and related purchases. We then developed and sent a survey to all primary care practices (practice-level response rate: initial recognition—44.6%, renewal—35.7%). Direct costs were estimated as time spent multiplied by average hourly wage for the relevant job category, plus observed expenditures. Results: We estimated HealthTexas' corporate costs for initial NCQA recognition (2010–2012) at $1,508,503; for renewal (2014–2016), $346,617; the Care Coordination resource costs an additional ongoing $390,790/year. A hypothetical 5-physician HealthTexas practice spent another estimated 239.5 hours ($10,669) obtaining, and 110.5 hours ($4,957) renewing, recognition. Conclusion: Centralized PCMH support reduces the burden on practices; however, overall time and cost remains substantial, and should be weighed against the mixed evidence regarding PCMH's impact on quality and costs of care.
Nucleosome Organization in Human Embryonic Stem Cells

The fundamental repeating unit of eukaryotic chromatin is the nucleosome. Besides being involved in packaging DNA, nucleosome organization plays an important role in transcriptional regulation and cellular identity. Currently, there is much debate about the major determinants of the nucleosome architecture of a genome and its significance with little being known about its role in stem cells. To address these questions, we performed ultra-deep sequencing of nucleosomal DNA in two human embryonic stem cell lines and integrated our data with numerous epigenomic maps. Our analyses have revealed that the genome is a determinant of nucleosome organization with transcriptionally inactive regions characterized by a “ground state” of nucleosome profiles driven by underlying DNA sequences. DNA sequence preferences are associated with heterogeneous chromatin organization around transcription start sites. Transcription, histone modifications, and DNA methylation alter this “ground state” by having distinct effects on both nucleosome positioning and occupancy. As the transcriptional rate increases, nucleosomes become better positioned. Exons transcribed and included in the final spliced mRNA have distinct nucleosome profiles in comparison to exons not included at exon-exon junctions. Genes marked by the active modification H3K4m3 are characterized by lower nucleosome occupancy before the transcription start site compared to genes marked by the inactive modification H3K27m3, while bivalent domains, genes associated with both marks, lie exactly in the middle. Combinatorial patterns of epigenetic marks (chromatin states) are associated with unique nucleosome profiles. Nucleosome organization varies around transcription factor binding in enhancers versus promoters. DNA methylation is associated with increasing nucleosome occupancy and different types of methylations have distinct location preferences within the nucleosome core particle. Finally, computational analysis of nucleosome organization alone is sufficient to elucidate much of the circuitry of pluripotency. Our results, suggest that nucleosome organization is associated with numerous genomic and epigenomic processes and can be used to elucidate cellular identity.
Conjunctival Bacterial Flora in Nasolacrimal Duct Obstruction and Its Changes After Successful Dacryocystorhinostomy Surgery

Purpose: To evaluate the results of conjunctival culture in patients with nasolacrimal duct obstruction (NLDO) and its changes after successful dacryocystorhinostomy surgery. Methods: In this prospective study, 71 adult patients with NLDO and 41 age- and sex-matched controls without NLDO were evaluated. The patients were divided in 2 groups based on clinical examination; group A with purulent regurgitation and group B without purulent regurgitation. Dacryocystorhinostomy surgery was performed, and the silicon tube was inserted in patients with upper lacrimal drainage system stenosis and when the lacrimal sac or nasal mucosal flap was inadequate for suitable anastomosis. Before surgery, microbiologic specimens were taken from the conjunctiva. Postoperative conjunctival sampling was continued weekly until the culture became negative or the colony count reached to the range of the control group. Results: There were 38 and 33 patients in groups A and B, respectively. Silicone tube was inserted for 17 patients (23.9%). The culture was positive for bacterial growth in all cases. The conjunctival culture in the control group was positive in 17 eyes (41.4%). The mean count of colonies in a sample unit was 5274 ± 6300, 1167 ± 1504, and 9.5 ± 1.5 for group A, group B, and controls, respectively. The mean time of normalization of specimens was 3.3 ± 1.3 weeks (range 1–7). Pathogenic bacterial growth, higher colony counts, the presence of silicone tube, and purulent regurgitation were significantly associated with longer normalization time (p = 0.007, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001, and p = 0.01, respectively). Conclusions: This study suggests that after successful dacryocystorhinostomy surgery, a waiting period of 7 weeks is enough for conjunctival bacterial cultures to become negative or reach the level of the normal eyes.
The Janus Face of VEGF in Stroke

The family of vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs) are known for their regulation of vascularization. In the brain, VEGFs are important regulators of angiogenesis, neuroprotection and neurogenesis. Dysregulation of VEGFs is involved in a large number of neurodegenerative diseases and acute neurological insults, including stroke. Stroke is the main cause of acquired disabilities, and normally results from an occlusion of a cerebral artery or a hemorrhage, both leading to focal ischemia. Neurons in the ischemic core rapidly undergo necrosis. Cells in the penumbra are exposed to ischemia, but may be rescued if adequate perfusion is restored in time. The neuroprotective and angiogenic effects of VEGFs would theoretically make VEGFs ideal candidates for drug therapy in stroke. However, contradictory to what one might expect, endogenously upregulated levels of VEGF as well as the administration of exogenous VEGF is detrimental in acute stroke. This is probably due to VEGF-mediated blood–brain-barrier breakdown and vascular leakage, leading to edema and increased intracranial pressure as well as neuroinflammation. The key to understanding this Janus face of VEGF function in stroke may lie in the timing; the harmful effect of VEGFs on vessel integrity is transient, as both VEGF preconditioning and increased VEGF after the acute phase has a neuroprotective effect. The present review discusses the multifaceted action of VEGFs in stroke prevention and therapy.
Disambiguating named entities with deep supervised learning via crowd labels

Named entity disambiguation (NED) is the task of linking mentions of ambiguous entities to their referenced entities in a knowledge base such as Wikipedia. We propose an approach to effectively disentangle the discriminative features in the manner of collaborative utilization of collective wisdom (via human-labeled crowd labels) and deep learning (via human-generated data) for the NED task. In particular, we devise a crowd model to elicit the underlying features (crowd features) from crowd labels that indicate a matching candidate for each mention, and then use the crowd features to fine-tune a dynamic convolutional neural network (DCNN). The learned DCNN is employed to obtain deep crowd features to enhance traditional hand-crafted features for the NED task. The proposed method substantially benefits from the utilization of crowd knowledge (via crowd labels) into a generic deep learning for the NED task. Experimental analysis demonstrates that the proposed approach is superior to the traditional hand-crafted features when enough crowd labels are gathered.
Easy-to-learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation training programme: a randomised controlled trial on laypeople's resuscitation performance.

INTRODUCTION Simplifying the learning of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is advocated to improve skill acquisition and retention. A simplified CPR training programme focusing on continuous chest compression, with a simple landmark tracing technique, was introduced to laypeople. The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the simplified CPR training in improving lay rescuers' CPR performance as compared to standard CPR. METHODS A total of 85 laypeople (aged 21-60 years) were recruited and randomly assigned to undertake either a two-hour simplified or standard CPR training session. They were tested two months after the training on a simulated cardiac arrest scenario. Participants' performance on the sequence of CPR steps was observed and evaluated using a validated CPR algorithm checklist. The quality of chest compression and ventilation was assessed from the recording manikins. RESULTS The simplified CPR group performed significantly better on the CPR algorithm when compared to the standard CPR group (p < 0.01). No significant difference was found between the groups in time taken to initiate CPR. However, a significantly higher number of compressions and proportion of adequate compressions was demonstrated by the simplified group than the standard group (p < 0.01). Hands-off time was significantly shorter in the simplified CPR group than in the standard CPR group (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Simplifying the learning of CPR by focusing on continuous chest compressions, with simple hand placement for chest compression, could lead to better acquisition and retention of CPR algorithms, and better quality of chest compressions than standard CPR.
MEGAN: Mixture of Experts of Generative Adversarial Networks for Multimodal Image Generation

Recently, generative adversarial networks (GANs) have shown promising performance in generating realistic images. However, they often struggle in learning complex underlying modalities in a given dataset, resulting in poor-quality generated images. To mitigate this problem, we present a novel approach called mixture of experts GAN (MEGAN), an ensemble approach of multiple generator networks. Each generator network in MEGAN specializes in generating images with a particular subset of modalities, e.g., an image class. Instead of incorporating a separate step of handcrafted clustering of multiple modalities, our proposed model is trained through an end-to-end learning of multiple generators via gating networks, which is responsible for choosing the appropriate generator network for a given condition. We adopt the categorical reparameterization trick for a categorical decision to be made in selecting a generator while maintaining the flow of the gradients. We demonstrate that individual generators learn different and salient subparts of the data and achieve a multiscale structural similarity (MS-SSIM) score of 0.2470 for CelebA and a competitive unsupervised inception score of 8.33 in CIFAR-10.
American Institute for Cancer Research 11th Annual Research Conference on Diet, Nutrition and Cancer Insulin, Insulin-Like Growth Factors and Colon Cancer: A Review of the Evidence

Insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axes are major determinants of proliferation and apoptosis and thus may influence carcinogenesis. In various animal models, modulation of insulin and IGF-1 levels through various means, including direct infusion, energy excess or restriction, genetically induced obesity, dietary quality including fatty acid and sucrose content, inhibition of normal insulin secretion and pharmacologic inhibition of IGF-1, influences colonic carcinogenesis. Human evidence also associates high levels of insulin and IGF-1 with increased risk of colon cancer. Clinical conditions associated with high levels of insulin (noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and hypertriglyceridemia) and IGF-1 (acromegaly) are related to increased risk of colon cancer, and increased circulating concentrations of insulin and IGF-1 are related to a higher risk of colonic neoplasia. Determinants and markers of hyperinsulinemia (physical inactivity, high body mass index, central adiposity) and high IGF-1 levels (tall stature) are also related to higher risk. Many studies indicate that dietary patterns that stimulate insulin resistance or secretion, including high consumption of sucrose, various sources of starch, a high glycemic index and high saturated fatty acid intake, are associated with a higher risk of colon cancer. Although additional environmental and genetic factors affect colon cancer, the incidence of this malignancy was invariably low before the technological advances that rendered sedentary lifestyles and obesity common, and increased availability of highly processed carbohydrates and saturated fatty acids. Efforts to counter these patterns are likely to have the most potential to reduce colon cancer incidence, as well as cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. J. Nutr. 131: 3109S–3120S, 2001.
Effect Mechanism of Parenting Style on College Students Subjective Well-Being

Parental Bonding Instrument,Self-Esteem Scale,General Self-Efficacy Scale,General Trust Scale,Perceived Social Support Scale,Indices of General Affect and Well-Being were used to assess 765 college students,and the possible effect mechanism of parenting style on subjective well-being was explored.The results indicated as follows:College students in China perceived significantly more maternal care than paternal care,and the male perceived significantly more parental overprotection than the female;there were significant correlation between parental rearing patterns and self-esteem,self-efficacy,general trust,perceived social support,and subjective well-being;there were no significant differences between influence of maternal rearing and influence of paternal rearing on general trust,perceived social support,and subjective well-being,but comparing with paternal care,maternal care had significantly greater effects on self-esteem and self-efficacy;compared with self-efficacy and general trust,self-esteem and perceived social support were main influence factors of subjective well-being;self-esteem and perceived social support were mediator factor between paternal and maternal rearing and subjective well-being.
Impact of nondigestible carbohydrates on serum lipoproteins and risk for cardiovascular disease.

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and in most developed countries. Many nutritional factors contribute to risk for ASCVD including total and saturated fat consumption, fruits and vegetables in the diet and dietary fiber intake. This review will focus on the relationship of dietary fiber intake to risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) and ASCVD (which includes, principally, CHD, cerebral vascular disease and peripheral vascular disease). Fiber-rich foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole-grain cereals and legumes are rich sources of nutrients, phytochemicals and antioxidants. For example, most high fiber foods contain soluble and insoluble fiber, minerals, vitamins, other micronutrients and phytochemicals. Cereals and legumes also contain complex carbohydrates and unsaturated fatty acids. Some high fiber foods are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, whereas others provide (n-3) fatty acids. Legumes and certain vegetables provide oligosaccharides. When assessing the health benefits of dietary fiber, one should consider the potential effects of associated nutrients, micronutrients and phytochemicals. These interactions will be reviewed as we discuss relationships of dietary fiber to ASCVD.
Quality Characteristics, Changes in Physiochemical Properties and Functional Properties of Camembert Cheese Containing Red Ginseng Powder

Effects of quality, physicochemical properties and antioxidants in Camembert cheese added with red ginseng powder (RGP) were investigated. Cheese samples were prepared with 0.05%, 0.10%, 0.15% and 0.20% RGP. and then monitored during ripening at 14°C for 28 d. The pH of the RGP amended treatment groups increased during the ripening period relative to the control (p<0.05). Moreover, the 1,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyle (DPPH) was highest in the 0.15% RGP group from 21 d to 28 d. ABTS+ radical scavenging activity was increased just like DPPH as the ripening period passed, 0.10% treatment was highest at from 7 d to 21 d. 0.15% RGP was contents of ginsenosides : 10,999.7 ppm. The Free fatty acids (FFA), controls with 0.15% treatment, while the total fat (TF) and monounsaturated fat (MuSF) were higher in the control than the 0.15% RGP group (p<0.05). The total free amino acid (FAA) was increased in the control, and 0.15% RGP, and control was highest at then 0.15% RGP. The samples had average contents of fat and protein were 29% and 18-20% respectively. Additionally, the L* value decreased, while the a* and b* values increased as the amount of RGP added increased. Sensory evaluation revealed that texture and total acceptability were higher in the control group at 12 d. Although the addition of RGP did not exert a better effect on the ripening of the camembert cheese, but the ripening grade was similar to that of the common camembert cheese, and the additional function of the cheese was reinforced. Functional cheese could be developed.