Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prognostic Value of Ambulatory and Home Blood Pressures Compared With Office Blood Pressure in the General Population: Follow-Up Results From the Pressioni Arteriose Monitorate e Loro Associazioni (PAMELA) Study

Background—Studies in hypertensive patients suggest that ambulatory blood pressure (BP) is prognostically superior to office BP. Much less information is available in the general population, however. Obtaining this information was the purpose of the Pressioni Arteriose Monitorate e Loro Associazioni (PAMELA) study. Methods and Results—Office, home, and 24-hour ambulatory BP values were obtained in 2051 subjects between 25 and 74 years of age who were representative of the general population of Monza (Milan, Italy). Subjects were followed up for an average of 131 months, during which time cardiovascular and noncardiovascular fatal events were recorded (n=186). Office, home, and ambulatory BP values showed a significant exponential direct relationship with risk of cardiovascular or all-cause death. The goodness of fit of the relationship was greater for systolic than for diastolic BP and for night than for day BP, but its overall value was not better for home or ambulatory than for office BP. The slope of the relationship, however, was progressively greater from office to home and ambulatory BP. Home and night BP modestly improved the goodness of fit of the risk model when added to office BP. Conclusions—In the PAMELA population, risk of death increased more with a given increase in home or ambulatory than in office BP. The overall ability to predict death, however, was not greater for home and ambulatory than for office BP, although it was somewhat increased by the combination of office and outside-of-office values. Systolic BP was almost invariably superior to diastolic BP, and night BP was superior to day BP.
ROLE OF CTLA-4 IN XENOTRANPLANTATION

The replacement of diseased organs by transplantation is now an important medical therapy. However, transplantation is limited by organ shortage. One solution to this problem is xenotransplantation, in other words, the use of organs from animal donors. Although the problem of hyperacute rejection is now largely solved, there is evidence that xenografts suffer other forms of rejection, one of them being T cell response. Moreover, evidence suggests that the degree of immunosuppression required to prevent T cell mediated xenograft rejection will be higher than that needed to prevent T cell mediated allograft rejection. Thus, strategies for graft-specific immunosuppression and improved tolerance are needed, and are discussed in this review
Medicinal chemistry, metabolic profiling and drug target discovery: a role for metabolic profiling in reverse pharmacology and chemical genetics.

Comprehensive analysis of the metabolome can contribute to mechanism of action studies for small molecules discovered in phenotypic screens. Examples are presented in this overview of the rapidly developing field of "metabolic profiling. " These examples include the use of NMR in gene function analysis, GC-based studies on the identification of metabolic pathways affected by PPAR-gamma agonists, applications of Fourier-transform MS and the use of stable isotope-based metabolic profiling (SIDMAP) to investigate metabolic adaptive changes induced by effective anticancer agents.
hcnABC Operon Transcription of Pseudomonas putida Under Varying Iron and Oxygen Concentrations and Culture Age

The species Pseudomonas putida produces hydrogen cyanide (HCN) through the transcription of the hcnABC operon. Previous research by Myrna Biswas (2010) demonstrated that microaerobic +FeCl3 cultures had the greatest HCN production, but the effects of varying iron and oxygen levels on HCN production were unclear. Isaac Kim (2011) assessed HCN production of P. putida in sand versus soil using different iron concentrations and found that iron was necessary for HCN production. The purpose of this experiment was to determine how the hcnABC operon is affected by varying levels of iron and oxygen, and the age of bacteria culture. To test this, P. putida was grown under four conditions: the presence of iron, the absence of iron, with aeration, and without aeration. At 8, 18, and 30 hours, the cultures were assessed for HCN production and cell density. HCN production was measured via bioluminescence; light emission occurs whenever HCN is produced because the modified form of P. putida contains the luciferase gene. The cell density was determined using spread plating. Bacterial cultures with iron and minimal aeration had higher bioluminescence levels, suggesting these conditions promote HCN production, but these results were not significant (F(3,2) = 0.561, p = 0.05).
From fish to modern humans – comparative anatomy, homologies and evolution of the head and neck musculature

In a recent paper Diogo (2008) reported the results of the first part of an investigation of the comparative anatomy, homologies and evolution of the head and neck muscles of osteichthyans (bony fish + tetrapods). That report mainly focused on actinopterygian fish, but also compared these fish with certain non‐mammalian sarcopterygians. The present paper focuses mainly on sarcopterygians, and particularly on how the head and neck muscles have evolved during the transitions from sarcopterygian fish and non‐mammalian tetrapods to monotreme and therian mammals, including modern humans. The data obtained from our dissections of the head and neck muscles of representative members of sarcopterygian fish, amphibians, reptiles, monotremes and therian mammals, such as rodents, tree‐shrews, colugos and primates, including modern humans, are compared with the information available in the literature. Our observations and comparisons indicate that the number of mandibular and true branchial muscles (sensu this work) present in modern humans is smaller than that found in mammals such as tree‐shrews, rats and monotremes, as well as in reptiles such as lizards. Regarding the pharyngeal musculature, there is an increase in the number of muscles at the time of the evolutionary transition leading to therian mammals, but there was no significant increase during the transition leading to the emergence of higher primates and modern humans. The number of hypobranchial muscles is relatively constant within the therian mammals we examined, although in this case modern humans have more muscles than other mammals. The number of laryngeal and facial muscles in modern humans is greater than that found in most other therian taxa. Interestingly, modern humans possess peculiar laryngeal and facial muscles that are not present in the majority of the other mammalian taxa; this seems to corroborate the crucial role played by vocal communication and by facial expressions in primate and especially in human evolution. It is hoped that by compiling, in one paper, data about the head and neck muscles of a wide range of sarcopterygians, the present work could be useful to comparative anatomists, evolutionary biologists and functional morphologists and to researchers working in other fields such as developmental biology, genetics and/or evolutionary developmental biology.
11 The Last Common Ancestor of Modern Cells

All living beings share a number of essential features pertaining to their biochemistry and fundamental processes. Some of these features are so complex (an outstanding example is the genetic code) that their probability to have appeared several times independently is almost negligible. This authorizes the concept of a common ancestor to all living beings that possessed these traits, and from which diversification occurred, leading to the emergence of the three domains of life that we recognize today, Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. Nevertheless, the concept of a common ancestor was born well before these universal features were even identified, mostly on the basis of purely philosophical and theoretical considerations.
Laboratory characterisation of the fatigue behaviour of a glass fibre grid-reinforced asphalt concrete using 4PB tests

This paper presents a complete experimental study of the fatigue behaviour of a glass-fibre-reinforced asphalt concrete, respecting EN 12697-24:2012, Annex D. The study is based on 38 four point bending tests, performed on 18 non-reinforced asphalt specimens and 20 geogrid-reinforced asphalt specimens. Both non-reinforced and reinforced asphalt specimens are tri-layered beams. The reinforced specimens contain two glass fibre grids, each one placed at the interface between two asphalt concrete layers. The objectives of the study were: (1) to characterise the fatigue behaviour of reinforced asphalt concrete, and to determine fatigue parameters, which can be used for pavement design, following the French pavement design method, (2) to show that glass fibre grid delays fatigue crack propagation and (3) to estimate the gain in fatigue due to the geogrid. The comparison of the fatigue curves of non-reinforced and reinforced asphalt concrete indicates that the geogrid increases fatigue life for the testing conditions, which were: fully reverse loading, displacement control, sinusoidal waveform, T = 10°C and f = 25 Hz.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Cloning and expression of porcine Colony Stimulating Factor-1 (CSF-1) and Colony Stimulating Factor-1 Receptor (CSF-1R) and analysis of the species specificity of stimulation by CSF-1 and Interleukin 34

Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (CSF-1) controls the survival, differentiation and proliferation of cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system. A second ligand for the CSF-1R, Interleukin 34 (IL-34), has been described, but its physiological role is not yet known. The domestic pig provides an alternative to traditional rodent models for evaluating potential therapeutic applications of CSF-1R agonists and antagonists. To enable such studies, we cloned and expressed active pig CSF-1. To provide a bioassay, pig CSF-1R was expressed in the factor-dependent Ba/F3 cell line. On this transfected cell line, recombinant porcine CSF-1 and human CSF-1 had identical activity. Mouse CSF-1 does not interact with the human CSF-1 receptor but was active on pig. By contrast, porcine CSF-1 was active on mouse, human, cat and dog cells. IL-34 was previously shown to be species-speciﬁc, with mouse and human proteins demon- strating limited cross-species activity. The pig CSF-1R was equally responsive to both mouse and human IL-34. Based upon the published crystal structures of CSF-1/CSF-1R and IL34/CSF-1R complexes, we discuss the molecular basis for the species speciﬁcity.
Unsupported inferences of high-severity fire in historical dry forests of the western United States: Response to Williams and Baker

Reconstructions of dry western US forests in the late 19th century in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon based on General Land Office records were used by Williams & Baker (2012; Global Ecology and Biogeography, 21, 1042-1052; hereafter W&B) to infer past fire regimes with substantial moderate and high-severity burning. The authors concluded that present-day large, high-severity fires are not distinguishable from historical patterns. We present evidence of important errors in their study. First, the use of tree size distributions to reconstruct past fire severity and extent is not supported by empirical age-size relationships nor by studies that directly quantified disturbance history in these forests. Second, the fire severity classification of W&B is qualitatively different from most modern classification schemes, and is based on different types of data, leading to an inappropriate comparison. Third, we note that while W&B asserted ‘surprising’ heterogeneity in their reconstructions of stand density and species composition, their data are not substantially different from many previous studies which reached very different conclusions about subsequent forest and fire behaviour changes. Contrary to the conclusions of W&B, the preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that conservation of dry forest ecosystems in the western United States and their ecological, social and economic value is not consistent with a present-day disturbance regime of large, high-severity fires, especially under changing climate.
Cloud outsourcing computing security protocol of matrix multiplication computation based on similarity transformation

With the emergence of the cloud computing paradigm in scientific and business applications, computation outsourcing to the cloud has become a popular application in the age of cloud computing. However, this computing paradigm brings in some new security concerns and challenges, such as input/output privacy and result verifiability. In this paper we use similar transformation of matrix to design secure verifiable and practical outsourcing protocol for matrix multiplication calculation. Compared with those existing outsourcing protocols, our protocol has obvious improvement concerning both efficiency and security. In order to check the correctness of the result returned from the cloud, an efficient verification algorithm is employed. Computational complexity analysis shows that our protocol is highly efficient.
BOK displays cell death‐independent tumor suppressor activity in non‐small‐cell lung carcinoma

As the genomic region containing the Bcl‐2‐related ovarian killer (BOK) locus is frequently deleted in certain human cancers, BOK is hypothesized to have a tumor suppressor function. In the present study, we analyzed primary non‐small‐cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) tumors and matched lung tissues from 102 surgically treated patients. We show that BOK protein levels are significantly downregulated in NSCLC tumors as compared to lung tissues (p < 0.001). In particular, we found BOK downregulation in NSCLC tumors of grades two (p = 0.004, n = 35) and three (p = 0.031, n = 39) as well as in tumors with metastases to hilar (pN1) (p = 0.047, n = 31) and mediastinal/subcarinal lymph nodes (pN2) (p = 0.021, n = 18) as opposed to grade one tumors (p = 0.688, n = 7) and tumors without lymph node metastases (p = 0.112, n = 51). Importantly, in lymph node‐positive patients, BOK expression greater than the median value was associated with longer survival (p = 0.002, Mantel test). Using in vitro approaches, we provide evidence that BOK overexpression is inefficient in inducing apoptosis but that it inhibits TGFβ‐induced migration and epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in lung adenocarcinoma‐derived A549 cells. We have identified epigenetic mechanisms, in particular BOK promoter methylation, as an important means to silence BOK expression in NSCLC cells. Taken together, our data point toward a novel mechanism by which BOK acts as a tumor suppressor in NSCLC by inhibiting EMT. Consequently, the restoration of BOK levels in low‐BOK‐expressing tumors might favor the overall survival of NSCLC patients.
Proliferation of primary human hepatocytes and prevention of hepatitis B virus reinfection efficiently deplete nuclear cccDNA in vivo

Objective The stability of the covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in nuclei of non-dividing hepatocytes represents a key determinant of HBV persistence. Contrarily, studies with animal hepadnaviruses indicated that hepatocyte turnover can reduce cccDNA loads but knowledge on the proliferative capacity of HBV-infected primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) in vivo and the fate of cccDNA in dividing PHHs is still lacking. This study aimed to determine the impact of human hepatocyte division on cccDNA stability in vivo. Methods PHH proliferation was triggered by serially transplanting hepatocytes from HBV-infected humanised mice into naïve recipients. Cell proliferation and virological changes were assessed by quantitative PCR, immunofluorescence and RNA in situ hybridisation. Viral integrations were analysed by gel separation and deep sequencing. Results PHH proliferation strongly reduced all infection markers, including cccDNA (median 2.4 log/PHH). Remarkably, cell division appeared to cause cccDNA dilution among daughter cells and intrahepatic cccDNA loss. Nevertheless, HBV survived in sporadic non-proliferating human hepatocytes, so that virological markers rebounded as hepatocyte expansion relented. This was due to reinfection of quiescent PHHs since treatment with the entry inhibitor myrcludex-B or nucleoside analogues blocked viral spread and intrahepatic cccDNA accumulation. Viral integrations were detected both in donors and recipient mice but did not appear to contribute to antigen production. Conclusions We demonstrate that human hepatocyte division even without involvement of cytolytic mechanisms triggers substantial cccDNA loss. This process may be fundamental to resolve self-limiting acute infection and should be considered in future therapeutic interventions along with entry inhibition strategies.
Ferroelectric Ceramics: A Novel Efficient and Robust Photocathode

Ferroelectric ceramics of the PLZT type, i.e. lead zirconate titanate lanthanum doped, in form of thin disks have been tested as photocathodes. The disc of material, with the back surface only metallized and held in place by a metallic ring, was set in front of a solid anode. The applied accelerating field reached 20 kV/cm and the light pulse was 25 ps long, 532 nm wavelength and its energy arrived up to 6 mJ on an area of about 10 mm. The vacuum was very poor. The maximum output charge was 1 nC, but it was clearly limited by space charge. A theoretical explanation of the results is only hinted because the material surface structure is very complicated and various emission mechanism concur.
Combination of the symmetrical local threshold and the sobel edge detector for lane feature extraction

In this paper, two of lane feature extractors are combined for better lane feature extraction. Namely; the Symmetrical local threshold (SLT) and the Sobel edge detector. The SLT is found to be one of the most robust lane marking feature extractor. However, it relies on the Dark-Light-Dark feature of the painted lane markings. However, in many cases there is no painted lane marking on one or two sides of the road border. Although, edge detector is not assumed to be as good as the SLT for the lane marking feature extraction, it has more advantage on detecting the road borders. Thus, even though many lane marking feature extractors are proposed in the literature, edge detectors are still popular method for lane detection. In this paper, a new approach to combine two of the feature extractors is proposed. With the proposed approach, while detecting painted lane markings accurately, it is possible to detect road borders and poorly painted road markings as well.
Newborn and paediatric resuscitation 2011

We present the revised guidelines for newborn and paediatric resuscitation for Singapore. The 2010 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation consensus on science as well as the main recommendations from the European Resuscitation Council and American Heart Association were debated and discussed. The final recommendations for the Singapore National Resuscitation Council were derived after carefully reviewing the current available evidence in the literature and balancing the local clinical climate of practice. In addition, much effort was spent on aligning the paediatric and neonatal recommendations with the adult (especially Basic Cardiac Life Support) recommendations.
Exact Distance Oracles Using Hopsets

For fixed $h \geq 2$, we consider the task of adding to a graph $G$ a set of weighted shortcut edges on the same vertex set, such that the length of a shortest $h$-hop path between any pair of vertices in the augmented graph is exactly the same as the original distance between these vertices in $G$. A set of shortcut edges with this property is called an exact $h$-hopset and may be applied in processing distance queries on graph $G$. In particular, a $2$-hopset directly corresponds to a distributed distance oracle known as a hub labeling. In this work, we explore centralized distance oracles based on $3$-hopsets and display their advantages in several practical scenarios. In particular, for graphs of constant highway dimension, and more generally for graphs of constant skeleton dimension, we show that $3$-hopsets require exponentially fewer shortcuts per node than any previously described distance oracle while incurring only a quadratic increase in the query decoding time, and actually offer a speedup when compared to simple oracles based on a direct application of $2$-hopsets. Finally, we consider the problem of computing minimum-size $h$-hopset (for any $h \geq 2$) for a given graph $G$, showing a polylogarithmic-factor approximation for the case of unique shortest path graphs. When $h=3$, for a given bound on the space used by the distance oracle, we provide a construction of hopsets achieving polylog approximation both for space and query time compared to the optimal $3$-hopset oracle given the space bound.
The Soldiers in Societies: Defense, Regulation, and Evolution

The presence of reproductively altruistic castes is one of the primary traits of the eusocial societies. Adaptation and regulation of the sterile caste, to a certain extent, drives the evolution of eusociality. Depending on adaptive functions of the first evolved sterile caste, eusocial societies can be categorized into the worker-first and soldier-first lineages, respectively. The former is marked by a worker caste as the first evolved altruistic caste, whose primary function is housekeeping, and the latter is highlighted by a sterile soldier caste as the first evolved altruistic caste, whose task is predominantly colony defense. The apparent functional differences between these two fundamentally important castes suggest worker-first and soldier-first eusociality are potentially driven by a suite of distinctively different factors. Current studies of eusocial evolution have been focused largely on the worker-first Hymenoptera, whereas understanding of soldier-first lineages including termites, eusocial aphids, gall-dwelling thrips, and snapping shrimp, is greatly lacking. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge on biology, morphology, adaptive functions, and caste regulation of the soldier caste. In addition, we discuss the biological, ecological and genetic factors that might contribute to the evolution of distinct caste systems within eusocial lineages.
Environmental DNA

PIERRE TABERLET,* ERIC COISSAC,* MEHRDAD HAJIBABAEI† and LOREN H. RIESEBERG,‡§ *Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS UMR 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France, †Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada, ‡Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada, §Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA