Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specific Activation of A3, A2A and A1 Adenosine Receptors in CD73-Knockout Mice Affects B16F10 Melanoma Growth, Neovascularization, Angiogenesis and Macrophage Infiltration

CD73 (ecto-5'-nucleotidase), a cell surface enzyme hydrolyzing AMP to adenosine, was lately demonstrated to play a direct role in tumor progression including regulation of tumor vascularization. It was also shown to stimulate tumor macrophage infiltration. Interstitial adenosine, accumulating in solid tumors due to CD73 enzymatic activity, is recognized as a main mediator regulating the production of pro- and anti-angiogenic factors, but the engagement of specific adenosine receptors in tumor progression in vivo is still poorly researched. We have analyzed the role of high affinity adenosine receptors A1, A2A, and A3 in B16F10 melanoma progression using specific agonists (CCPA, CGS-21680 and IB-MECA, respectively). We limited endogenous extracellular adenosine background using CD73 knockout mice treated with CD73 chemical inhibitor, AOPCP (adenosine α,β-methylene 5’-diphosphate). Activation of any adenosine receptor significantly inhibited B16F10 melanoma growth but only at its early stage. At 14th day of growth, the decrease in tumor neovascularization and MAPK pathway activation induced by CD73 depletion was reversed by all agonists. Activation of A1AR primarily increased angiogenic activation measured by expression of VEGF-R2 on tumor blood vessels. However, mainly A3AR activation increased both the microvessel density and expression of pro-angiogenic factors. All agonists induced significant increase in macrophage tumor infiltration, with IB-MECA being most effective. This effect was accompanied by substantial changes in cytokines regulating macrophage polarization between pro-inflammatory and pro-angiogenic phenotype. Our results demonstrate an evidence that each of the analyzed receptors has a specific role in the stimulation of tumor angiogenesis and confirm significantly more multifaceted role of adenosine in its regulation than was already observed. They also reveal previously unexplored consequences to extracellular adenosine signaling depletion in recently proposed anti-CD73 cancer therapy.
Concurrent administration of donepezil HCl and theophylline: assessment of pharmacokinetic changes following multiple-dose administration in healthy volunteers.

AIM The aim of the study was to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of theophylline administered alone, and in combination with donepezil HCl, following multiple-dose administration of both drugs in healthy volunteers. METHODS This was an open-label, randomized, two-period crossover study in healthy male volunteers (n=12). During each treatment period, subjects received either titrated-dose theophylline alone, or in combination with donepezil (5 mg, once daily) for 10 consecutive days. On day 10 of each treatment period, serial blood samples for the determination of theophylline concentrations in plasma were measured up to 24 h. Treatment periods were separated by a 3-week, drug-free washout. Plasma concentrations of theophylline were determined by HPLC with UV detection. RESULTS No statistically significant differences in theophylline pharmacokinetics (Cmax, AUC or tmax) were observed between theophylline administered alone and in combination with donepezil. No clinically significant changes in vital signs, ECG parameters or clinical laboratory tests were observed in any subject during any treatment period. CONCLUSIONS Concurrent administration of donepezil HCl does not alter the pharmacokinetic profile of theophylline following multiple-dose administration of both drugs in healthy volunteers. These findings suggest that donepezil may be safely co-administered with theophylline without a need for dose modification or additional monitoring procedures.
Spatio-Temporal Variation of Core and Satellite Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus Communities in Miscanthus giganteus

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are a group of obligate plant symbionts which can promote plant nutrition. AMF communities are diverse, but the factors which control their assembly in space and time remain unclear. In this study, the contributions of geographical distance, environmental heterogeneity and time in shaping AMF communities associated with Miscanthus giganteus (a perennial grass originating from south-east Asia) were determined over a 13 months period. In particular, the community was partitioned into core (abundant and persistent taxa) and satellite (taxa with low abundance and persistence) constituents and the drivers of community assembly for each determined. β-diversity was exceptionally low across the 140 m line transects, and there was limited evidence of geographical scaling effects on the composition of the core, satellite or combined communities. However, AMF richness and community composition changed over time associated with fluctuation within both the core and satellite communities. The degree to which AMF community variation was explained by soil properties was consistently higher in the core community than the combined and satellite communities, suggesting that the satellite community had considerable stochasticity associated with it. We suggest that the partitioning of communities into their core and satellite constituents could be employed to enhance the variation explained within microbial community analyses.
Tight Junction Proteins in Gallbladder Epithelium

There is a paucity of information of tight junction (TJ) proteins in gallbladder epithelium, and disturbances in the structure of these proteins may play a role in the pathogenesis of acute acalculous cholecystitis (AAC) and acute calculous cholecystitis (ACC). Using immunohistochemistry, we investigated the expression of TJ proteins claudin-1, −2, −3, and −4, occludin, zonula occludens (ZO-1), and E-cadherin in 9 normal gallbladders, 30 gallbladders with AAC, and 21 gallbladders with ACC. The number of positive epithelial and endothelial cells and the intensity of the immunoreaction were determined. Membrane-bound and cytoplasmic immunoreactivities were separately assessed. We found that TJ proteins were uniformly expressed in normal gallbladder epithelium, with the exception of claudin-2, which was present in less than half of the cells. In AAC, expression of cytoplasmic occludin and claudin-1 were decreased, as compared with normal gallbladder. In ACC, expression of claudin-2 was increased, and expression of claudin-1, −3, and −4, occludin, and ZO-1 were decreased, as compared with normal gallbladder or AAC. We conclude that there are significant differences in expression of TJ proteins in AAC and ACC, supporting the idea that AAC represents a manifestation of systemic inflammatory disease, whereas ACC is a local inflammatory and often infectious disease.
Movements, Activity, and Spacing of Sonoran Mud Turtles (Kinosternon Sonoriense) in Interrupted Mountain Streams

Abstract We quantified movements, spacing, and activity of Sonoran Mud Turtles (Kinosternon sonoriense) in interrupted mountain streams of southern Arizona over an 18-year period using capture–recapture sampling and radiotelemetry. Movement and activity patterns of turtles depended on water availability and varied by their sex and size. Although considered almost entirely aquatic in Arizona, mud turtles estivated terrestrially during periods of extreme drought. After the onset of summer rains, turtles increased the frequency with which they moved between pools and to nesting sites. Movements (average distance moved [AvD] ± SE) of all turtles were shorter during drought years (males = 26 ± 1.3 m, females = 19 ± 1.3 m) than non-drought years (males = 153 ± 1.2 m; females = 41 ± 1.2 m). Adult male turtles made longer movements (93 ± 1.2) and had longer home-range lengths (206 ± 1.2 m) than did adult females (AvD = 38 ± 1.2; home range = 40 ± 1.2 m). Younger adult females (carapace length [CL] 100–118 mm) made longer movements (52 ± 1.2 m) and had longer home ranges (80 ± 1.9 m) than did older females (>118 CL mm; AvD = 38 ± 1.2 m; home range = 26 ± 2.2 m). Males made movements >500 m more frequently (8%) than females (2%) and moved as far as 7.2 km as measured along drainage bottoms. Large turtles used pools exclusively, only rarely sharing pools with other large individuals of the same sex. Degradation and losses of interior wetlands in the southwestern U.S. have reduced the potential for long-distance movements of turtles among disjunct, remnant populations, which has consequences for conservation of turtles and other aquatic species in the region.
Equation Parsing : Mapping Sentences to Grounded Equations

Identifying mathematical relations expressed in text is essential to understanding a broad range of natural language text from election reports, to financial news, to sport commentaries to mathematical word problems. This paper focuses on identifying and understanding mathematical relations described within a single sentence. We introduce the problem of Equation Parsing -- given a sentence, identify noun phrases which represent variables, and generate the mathematical equation expressing the relation described in the sentence. We introduce the notion of projective equation parsing and provide an efficient algorithm to parse text to projective equations. Our system makes use of a high precision lexicon of mathematical expressions and a pipeline of structured predictors, and generates correct equations in $70\%$ of the cases. In $60\%$ of the time, it also identifies the correct noun phrase $\rightarrow$ variables mapping, significantly outperforming baselines. We also release a new annotated dataset for task evaluation.
Specific T-Cell Epitopes for Immunoassay-Based Diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection

ABSTRACT The currently used method for immunological detection of tuberculosis infection, the tuberculin skin test, has low specificity. Antigens specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis to replace purified protein derivative are therefore urgently needed. We have performed a rigorous assessment of the diagnostic potential of four recently identified antigens (Rv2653, Rv2654, Rv3873, and Rv3878) from genomic regions that are lacking from the Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine strains as well as from the most common nontuberculous mycobacteria. The fine specificity of potential epitopes in these molecules was evaluated by sensitive testing of the T-cell responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells derived from M. bovis BCG-vaccinated healthy individuals to synthesized overlapping peptides. Three of the four molecules contained regions with significant specificity problems (Rv2653, Rv3873, and Rv3878). We selected and combined the specific peptide stretches from the four proteins not recognized by M. bovis BCG-vaccinated individuals. These peptide stretches were tested with peripheral blood mononuclear cells obtained from patients with microscopy- or culture-confirmed tuberculosis and from healthy M. bovis BCG-vaccinated controls. The combination of the most promising stretches from this analysis showed a sensitivity level (57%) comparable to the level found with the two well-known M. tuberculosis-specific proteins ESAT-6 and CFP-10 (75 and 66%, respectively). The combination of ESAT-6, CFP-10, and the novel specific peptide stretches gave an overall sensitivity of 84% at a specificity of 97%. In a validation experiment with new experimental groups, the sensitivities obtained were 57% for the combination of peptides and 90% for the combination of the peptides, ESAT-6, and CFP-10. This combination gave a specificity of 95%.
Entropy-based Sentence Selection with Roget's Thesaurus

This year at the University of Ottawa we submitted two systems to the Guided Summarization challenge. In our submissions we tested how well an entropy-based measure of sentence selection worked against a baseline system. The entropybased sentence selector showed improvement over the baseline: it increased the number of unique Summary Content Units selected, and reduced the number of redundant Summary Content Units. Our Submission to AESOP consisted of a system that ranks a summary based on how many other peer summaries contained the same sentences it selected. Three versions of this system were submitted.
The ageing eyewitness

This book brings together a team of experts in the field of forensic psychology to demonstrate the scope of the discipline and the techniques employed in key areas of research, policy and practice. Its aim is to go beyond the introductory texts on the subject to challenge perceptions, to raise questions for research, to pose problems for practice, and to inspire and stimulate, demonstrating the ways in which forensic psychology can aid the practice of criminal justice. It will be essential reading for students, academics and practitioners. The book is divided into seven sections, addressing key topics with which the discipline is concerned − its broader context, investigation and prosecution, testimony and evidence, correlates of criminality, persistent offending, intervention and prevention and punishment and corrections. The contributors include both academics and practitioners, and are drawn from the UK, the USA and Australasia.
Discerning Differences among Producer Groups and Organic Adoption Barriers in Texas

While nationwide growth in the production of organic agricultural products has seen rapid expansion, the number of certifi ed organic operations in Texas has remained relatively stagnant. Evidence shows a shift in consumer’s demands toward organic products, yet Texas producers have been comparatively slow to respond to this shift. A survey was distributed to a random sample of 4,006 Texas producers as a means of understanding the perceived barriers of adoption of organic production practices in Texas,. Emphasis was placed on perceived production and market barriers to organic production and differences in perceived barriers among producer groups. The results provide guidance about the types of policy approaches that will be effective in overcoming the barriers to organic adoption.
Los Twindignados: The Rise of the Indignados Movement on Twitter

Twitter has already become an important facet of the social Web, allowing users and organizations to share their ideas and subscribe to others' updates. Notably, it has been actively used during political events such as the recent elections in Iran, Spain and the USA, or the uprisings in the Middle East, to the extent that it is claimed that revolutions will be tweeted. However such claims are yet to be empirically established. In this work we study an extensive set of millions of tweets themed around the 2011 regional and local elections in Spain and their accompanying civil unrest. Our analysis shows that mainstream political entities were overshadowed on Twitter by grassroots movements discussing alternative points of view, at both regional and national levels. By tracking temporal trends we discover an explosion of interest in the Spanish protests following the establishment of the first protest camps in Madrid. The subsequent spontaneous setting up of similar camps in almost every town in Spain was widely reported at the time, and our spatial analysis quantitatively attests that the protests were indeed widely discussed in all parts of the country. Our results suggest that online social networks serve more as media for interactive engagement between grassroots peers, rather than as platforms for politicians to attract mass attention.
A modified linear dispersion codes transmission scheme for MIMO systems

Multiple-input multiple-out (MIMO) wireless transmission has been proved to be a promising technique to support high data rate transmission. Among proposed schemes, space-time codes are designed to improve transmission reliability, while BLAST architectures are proposed to improve spectrum efficiency. To optimize both channel capacity and error probability, linear dispersion codes (LDCs) were proposed. However, original LDCs are designed for quasi-static fading channels, which don't guarantee optimal error probability in fast fading channels. In this paper, we discuss performance of LDCs both in quasi-static and fast fading channels. And we propose a modified LDCs transmission scheme, in which we introduce an interleaver in each antenna branch to turn quasi-static channels into equivalent fast fading channels. Then we present codes optimization criterion to search for LDCs which optimal both in quasi-static and fast fading channels. Computer simulations show that the performance of proposed LDCs design method is better than original LDCs.
Local aspects of UK renewable energy development: exploring public beliefs and policy implications

Despite several recent UK initiatives to promote renewable energy development at the local level, little research has been carried out to investigate public beliefs about aspects of local renewable energy development. This research attempted to address this gap. Empirical data were collected at the Awel Aman Tawe development in South Wales immediately before and after a public participation process. The results indicate that support for specific aspects of local energy development (partnership with local communities, local use of generated energy and profits put back into the local community) was consistently high across time, with support for local ownership at a slightly lower level, yet still high. Secondly, socio-demographical analyses indicated that personal factors such as respondents' age, gender and employment status were important in shaping several of these beliefs. Since UK renewable energy development has often been controversial and subject to delay, results suggest that the adoption of a locally embedded development approach by public and private sector stakeholders will be strongly supported by local people. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to existing industry best practice guidelines and recent policy initiatives.
Distributed under Creative Commons Cc-by 4.0 in Four Shallow and Mesophotic Tropical Reef Sponges from Guam the Microbial Community Largely Depends on Host Identity

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are important members of almost all aquatic ecosystems, and are renowned for hosting often dense and diverse microbial communities. While the specificity of the sponge microbiota seems to be closely related to host phylogeny, the environmental factors that could shape differences within local sponge-specific communities remain less understood. On tropical coral reefs, sponge habitats can span from shallow areas to deeper, mesophotic sites. These habitats differ in terms of environmental factors such as light, temperature, and food availability, as well as anthropogenic impact. In order to study the host specificity and potential influence of varying habitats on the sponge microbiota within a local area, four tropical reef sponges, Rhabdastrella globostellata, Callyspongia sp. , Rhaphoxya sp. , and Acanthella cavernosa, were collected from exposed shallow reef slopes and a deep reef drop-off. Based on 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing profiles, beta diversity analyses revealed that each sponge species possessed a specific microbiota that was significantly different to those of the other species and exhibited attributes that are characteristic of high-and/or low-microbial-abundance sponges. These findings emphasize the influence of host identity on the associated microbiota. Dominant sponge-and seawater-associated bacterial phyla were Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria, and Proteobacteria. Comparison of individual sponge taxa and seawater samples between shallow and deep reef sites revealed no significant variation in alpha diversity estimates, while differences in microbial beta diversity (variation in community composition) were significant for Callyspongia sp. sponges and seawater samples. Overall, the sponge-associated microbiota is significantly shaped by host identity across all samples, while the effect of habitat differentiation seems to be less predominant in tropical reef sponges. How to cite this article Steinert et al. (2016), In four shallow and mesophotic tropical reef sponges from Guam the microbial community largely depends on host identity.
Overhauling and Regulating Schools Set Up by Migrants

Translation © 2004 M. E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Chinese text. Ding Jianzhong, “Wailai liudong renkou zifa banxue dian de qingli zhengdun yu guifan guanli,” Minban jiaoyu dongtai (Developments in Privately Run Education), no. 12 (2002): 19–27. Ding Jianzhong is at the Education Division of the Shanghai Pudong New District Social Development Bureau. Chinese Education and Society, vol. 37, no. 5, September/October 2004, pp. 10–28. © 2004 M. E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1061–1932 / 2004 $9.50 + 0.00.
Spaces of capital: Towards a critical geography (Book Review)

Although he is not well-known among educators, David Harvey is one of geography's best-known social theorists and one of the most important voices on the academic left in the United States. He is an ardent defender of the Marxist theory of class, whose interdisciplinary work on capitalist accumulation and the production of space and uneven geographical development has genuine implications for those fighting for social justice in urban spaces. A British import, Harvey was a professor of geography at John Hopkins University when he stumbled onto Marxist theory in 1971, after graduate students asked him to help organize a reading group to study Capital. The rest is history, so to speak, particularly as Harvey has now accepted a position in the anthropology program at the City University of New York. Thus, it seems fitting that Harvey has put out his latest book, Spaces of Capital, an assortment of essays written over the past thirty years, which constitute a blistering indictment of contemporary capitalism.
Automated Caching of Behavioral Patterns for Efficient Run-Time Monitoring

Run-time monitoring is a powerful approach for dynamically detecting faults or malicious activity of software systems. However, there are often two obstacles to the implementation of this approach in practice: (1) that developing correct and/or faulty behavioral patterns can be a difficult, labor-intensive process, and (2) that use of such pattern-monitoring must provide rapid turn-around or response time. We present a novel data structure, called extended action graph, and associated algorithms to overcome these drawbacks. At its core, our technique relies on effectively identifying and caching specifications from (correct/faulty) patterns learned via machine-learning algorithm. We describe the design and implementation of our technique and show its practical applicability in the domain of security monitoring of sendmail software
SeDS: Secure Data Sharing Strategy for D2D Communication in LTE-Advanced Networks

Security and availability are two crucial issues in device-to-device (D2D) communication, with its fast development in fourth-generation (4G) Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-Advanced) networks. In this paper, we propose a secure data sharing protocol, which merges the advantages of public key cryptography and symmetric encryption, to achieve data security in D2D communication. Specifically, a public-key-based digital signature, combined with a mutual authentication mechanism of a cellular network, guarantees entity authentication, transmission nonrepudiation, traceability, data authority, and integrity. Meanwhile, symmetric encryption is employed to ensure data confidentiality. A salient feature of the proposed protocol is that it can detect free-riding attack by keeping a record of the current status for user equipment (UE) and realize reception nonrepudiation by key hint transmission between the UE and evolved NodeB, thus improving system availability. Furthermore, various delay models are established in different application scenarios to seek the optimal initial service providers (SPs) for achieving tradeoff between cost and availability. Extensive analysis and simulations demonstrate that the proposed protocol is indeed an efficient and practical solution for a secure data sharing mechanism for D2D communication.