Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence that stress and surgical interventions promote tumor development by suppressing natural killer cell activity

Stress and surgery have been suggested to compromise host resistance to infectious and malignant diseases in experimental and clinical settings. Because stress affects numerous physiological systems, the role of the immune system in mediating such effects is unclear. In the current study, we assessed the degree to which stress‐induced alterations in natural killer (NK) cell activity underlie increased susceptibility to tumor development in F344 rats. Two stress paradigms were used: forced swim and abdominal surgery. Host resistance to tumor development was studied using 3 tumor models syngeneic to inbred F344 rats: CRNK‐16 leukemia and the MADB106 mammary adenocarcinoma, both sensitive to NK activity, and the NK‐insensitive C4047 colon cancer. Swim stress increased CRNK‐16‐associated mortality and metastatic development of MADB106 but not metastasis of C4047 cells. In both stress paradigms, stress suppressed NK activity (NKA) for a duration that paralleled its metastasis‐enhancing effects on the MADB106 tumor. In vivo depletion of large granular lymphocyte/NK cells abolished the metastasis‐enhancing effects of swim stress but not of surgical stress. Our findings indicate that stress‐induced suppression of NKA is sufficient to cause enhanced tumor development. Under certain stressful conditions, suppression of NKA is the primary mediator of the tumor‐enhancing effects of stress, while under other conditions, additional factors play a significant role. Clinical circumstances in which surgical stress may induce enhanced metastatic growth are discussed. Int. J. Cancer 80:880–888, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
C-peptide and Central Nervous System Complications in Diabetes

Substantial evidence collected from clinical data and experimental studies has indicated that CNS is not spared from diabetes complications. Impairments in CNS function are well documented in both type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients as well as in various animal models of diabetes, in terms of alterations in cognition, neuropsychology, neurobehavior, electrophysiology, structure, neurochemistry and apoptotic activities. These data suggest that primary diabetic encephalopathy exists as a definable diabetic complication. The mechanisms underlying this CNS complication are not clear. Experimental studies have suggested that neuronal apoptosis may play an important role in neuronal loss and impaired cognitive function. In diabetes multiple factors are responsible for neuronal apoptosis, such as a perturbed IGF system, hyperglycemia and the aging process itself. Recent data suggest that insulin/C-peptide deficiency may exert an eminent role. Administration of C-peptide partially corrects the perturbed IGF system in the brain and prevents neuronal apoptosis in hippocampus of type 1 diabetes. In neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells C-peptide provides a dose-dependent stimulation on cell proliferation and an anti-apoptotic effect as well. These studies provide a basis for administration of C-peptide as a potentially effective therapy for type 1 diabetes.
Soft-constraint based satisfactory fault-tolerant control for discrete-time systems

The active fault-tolerant control (FTC) with multiple performance constraints is investigated for a class of discrete-time systems subject to sensor faults. A satisfactory FTC strategy by way of the online moving horizon control mode is proposed to guarantee the closed-loop stability of the faulty system. The corresponding soft-constraint based FTC controller design method is developed from the predictive control theory to handle the multiobjective requirements including the constraints on relative stability, control input and system output, and the optimized quadratic performance as well. Its main advantage is to avoid the infeasibility of the online FTC controller reconfiguration due to the inconsistent constraints by relaxing soft constraints. The optimization calculation in the design can be executed by various nonlinear programming algorithms to solve the intrinsic nonlinear and non-convex constraints, which is an obstacle for conventional linear- and convex-based algorithms. Finally, an example is presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed satisfactory FTC method.
Secreted caveolin-1 stimulates cell survival/clonal growth and contributes to metastasis in androgen-insensitive prostate cancer.

Caveolin-1 is an integral protein of caveolae, known to play important roles in signal transduction and lipid transport. We demonstrate that caveolin-1 expression is significantly increased in primary and metastatic human prostate cancer after androgen ablation therapy. We also show that caveolin-1 is secreted by androgen-insensitive prostate cancer cells, and that this secretion is regulated by steroid hormones. Significantly, caveolin-1 was detected in the MDL(3) fraction of serum specimens from patients with advanced prostate cancer and to a lesser extent in normal subjects. Conditioned media from high passage caveolin-1 secreting, androgen-insensitive, LNCaP cells stimulated increased viability and clonal growth of low passage, caveolin-1-negative, androgen-sensitive, LNCaP cells in vitro, and this effect was blocked by treating the media with caveolin-1 antibody. i.p. injections of caveolin-1 antibody suppressed the orthotopic growth and spontaneous metastasis of highly metastatic, androgen-insensitive caveolin-1-secreting mouse prostate cancer. Overall, our results establish caveolin-1 as an autocrine/paracrine factor that is associated with androgen-insensitive prostate cancer. We demonstrate the potential for caveolin-1 as a therapeutic target for this important malignancy.
Source apportionment of methane and nitrous oxide in California's San Joaquin Valley at CalNex 2010 via positive matrix factorization

Abstract. Sources of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) were investigated using measurements from a site in southeast Bakersfield as part of the CalNex (California at the Nexus of Air Quality and Climate Change) experiment from mid-May to the end of June 2010. Typical daily minimum mixing ratios of CH4 and N2O were higher than daily minima that were simultaneously observed at a mid-oceanic background station (NOAA, Mauna Loa) by approximately 70 ppb and 0.5 ppb, respectively. Substantial enhancements of CH4 and N2O (hourly averages > 500 and > 7 ppb, respectively) were routinely observed, suggesting the presence of large regional sources. Collocated measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) and a range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) (e.g., straight-chain and branched alkanes, cycloalkanes, chlorinated alkanes, aromatics, alcohols, isoprene, terpenes and ketones) were used with a positive matrix factorization (PMF) source apportionment method to estimate the contribution of regional sources to observed enhancements of CH4 and N2O. The PMF technique provided a "top-down" deconstruction of ambient gas-phase observations into broad source categories, yielding a seven-factor solution. We identified these emission source factors as follows: evaporative and fugitive; motor vehicles; livestock and dairy; agricultural and soil management; daytime light and temperature driven; non-vehicular urban; and nighttime terpene biogenics and anthropogenics. The dairy and livestock factor accounted for the majority of the CH4 (70–90 %) enhancements during the duration of experiments. The dairy and livestock factor was also a principal contributor to the daily enhancements of N2O (60–70 %). Agriculture and soil management accounted for ~ 20–25 % of N2O enhancements over a 24 h cycle, which is not surprising given that organic and synthetic fertilizers are known to be a major source of N2O. The N2O attribution to the agriculture and soil management factor had a high uncertainty in the conducted bootstrapping analysis. This is most likely due to an asynchronous pattern of soil-mediated N2O emissions from fertilizer usage and collocated biogenic emissions from crops from the surrounding agricultural operations that is difficult to apportion statistically when using PMF. The evaporative/fugitive source profile, which resembled a mix of petroleum operation and non-tailpipe evaporative gasoline sources, did not include a PMF resolved-CH4 contribution that was significant (
Myomegalin is necessary for the formation of centrosomal and Golgi-derived microtubules

Summary The generation of cellular microtubules is initiated at specific sites such as the centrosome and the Golgi apparatus that contain nucleation complexes rich in &ggr;-tubulin. The microtubule growing plus-ends are stabilized by plus-end tracking proteins (+TIPs), mainly EB1 and associated proteins. Myomegalin was identified as a centrosome/Golgi protein associated with cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase. We show here that Myomegalin exists as several isoforms. We characterize two of them. One isoform, CM-MMG, harbors a conserved domain (CM1), recently described as a nucleation activator, and is related to a family of &ggr;-tubulin binding proteins, which includes Drosophila centrosomin. It localizes at the centrosome and at the cis-Golgi in an AKAP450-dependent manner. It recruits &ggr;-tubulin nucleating complexes and promotes microtubule nucleation. The second isoform, EB-MMG, is devoid of CM1 domain and has a unique N-terminus with potential EB1-binding sites. It localizes at the cis-Golgi and can localize to microtubule plus-ends. EB-MMG binds EB1 and affects its loading on microtubules and microtubule growth. Depletion of Myomegalin by small interfering RNA delays microtubule growth from the centrosome and Golgi apparatus, and decreases directional migration of RPE1 cells. In conclusion, the Myomegalin gene encodes different isoforms that regulate microtubules. At least two of these have different roles, demonstrating a previously unknown mechanism to control microtubules in vertebrate cells.
Bocavirus Episome in Infected Human Tissue Contains Non-Identical Termini

Human bocaviruses (HBoV) are highly prevalent human infections whose pathogenic potential remains unknown. Recent identification of the first non-human primate bocavirus [1] in captive gorillas raised the possibility of the persistent nature of bocavirus infection. To characterize bocavirus infection in humans, we tested intestinal biopsies from 22 children with gastrointestinal disease for the presence of HBoV DNA. Four HBoV-positive tissue samples were analyzed to determine whether viral DNA was present in the linear genomic, the episomal closed circular or the host genome-integrated form. Whereas one tissue sample positive for HBoV3 contained the episomal form (HBoV3-E1), none had the genome-integrated form. The complete genome sequence of HBoV3-E1 contains 5319 nucleotides of which 513 represent the non-coding terminal sequence. The secondary structure of HBoV3-E1 termini suggests several conserved and variable features among human and animal bocaviruses. Our observation that HBoV genome exists as head-to-tail monomer in infected tissue either reflects the likely evolution of alternative replication mechanism in primate bocaviruses or a mechanism of viral persistence in their host. Moreover, we identified the HBoV genomic terminal sequences that will be helpful in developing reverse genetic systems for these widely prevalent parvoviruses. Significance HBoV have been found in healthy human controls as well as individuals with respiratory or gastrointestinal disease. Our findings suggest that HBoV DNA can exist as episomes in infected human tissues and therefore can likely establish persistent infection in the host. Previous efforts to grow HBoV in cell culture and to develop reverse genetic systems have been unsuccessful. Complete genomic sequence of the HBoV3 episome and its genomic termini will improve our understanding of HBoV replication mechanism and its pathogenesis.
IMPROVEMENT OF THE STABILITY SOLVING RATIONAL POLYNOMIAL COEFFICIENTS

The rational function model (RFM) utilized for high resolution satellite imagery (HRSI) provides a transformation from image to object space coordinates in a geographic reference system. Compared with the rigorous model based on the collinearity condition equation or the affine model, the RFM with 80 coefficients would be over parameterized. That would result in an ill-conditioned normal equation. Tikhonov regularization is often used to resolve this problem, and many applications have verified its serviceability. This paper will detail the method for regularization parameter selection. However, Tikhonov regularization makes the two sides of equation unequal, resulting in a biased solution. An unbiased method The Iteration by Correcting Characteristic Value (ICCV) was introduced, and a strategy to resolve the ill-conditioned problem for solving rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) was discussed in this paper. The tests with SPOT-5 and QuickBird imagery were accomplished. The empirical results have shown that our methodology can effectively improve the condition of the normal equations.
Disagreement and Stock Prices in the JASDAQ: An Empirical Investigation Using Market Survey Data

This article empirically examines “disagreement” models using JASDAQ market data by exploiting institutional investors’ forecasts of future stock prices. We use the standard deviations of the one-month ahead forecasts of stock prices in the QSS Equity Survey as the measure of disagreement in the market. The results indicate that an increase in disagreement is associated with an increase in contemporaneous stock returns and lower average expected returns. In terms of the latter, while the survey data provides an average assessment of marketwide expectations, when disagreement is high the current market price tends to reflect the opinions of more optimistic market participants. These results contrast with comparable findings using TOPIX data (representing larger firms on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section) that contradict the predictions of disagreement models. One reason posited is that firms on the JASDAQ market are much smaller and the number of market participants more limited. Accordingly, institutional “limits of arbitrage”, such as short-sale and liquidity constraints, are more binding and their influence on stock prices is thereby greater. JEL classification: G10; G14
Developing Preschoolers’ Social Skills: The Effectiveness of Two Educational Methods

Abstract This study tested whether and how methods called ‘Play Time/Social Time’ and ‘I Can Problem Solve’ contribute to the improvement of social skills and the development of theory of mind (ToM) in children. The participants in the experiment were nearly 200 (N = 196) preschool children with low social functioning, with and without disabilities. The study showed that social skills and the level of ToM in children attending the lessons improved more than those of children from the control group. Both methods turned out to be effective in the case of social skills and ToM development among children with and without disabilities. It is worthwhile to popularise these methods among preschool teachers.
Development of a Wearable Braille Sensor with a Robust Recognition System

This paper is a study on the development of a wearable sensor system for reading Braille. The study is intended to develop a compact tactile sensor system which uses a PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) film for the sensory receptor. The sensor is mounted onto a fingertip and moved over Braille manually to obtain the output. Since the unsteady movements yield variations in the waveforms, a robust recognition system is required. The performance of the recognition system is highly affected by the transformation method and the classification method. As the investigation of the transformation method, feature vectors of some different forms are extracted and effective forms are explored. In the classification, two methods based on MLPs (multi-layered perceptrons) are examined. The first method uses plural classifiers, each of which uses the different form of vectors. The next method uses MLPs in the form of dichotomizers to enhance the training quality. The performance of each method is evaluated using test signals. The obtained results show that the robust recognition is achieved appropriately
Performance analysis of broadcast protocols in VANETs with Poisson vehicle distribution

In this paper, we propose a general framework for performance analysis of broadcast protocols in vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) with vehicles' positions modeled as Poisson points. In fact, in this specific configuration, it can be shown that the positions of a finite number of nodes falling in a finite segment have equally spaced average values. On the basis of this result, it is possible to derive a tractable analytical framework suitable for average (from a topology viewpoint) performance evaluation of a large number of broadcasting algorithms in VANETs. In this work, the proposed analytical framework is applied to the class of probabilistic broadcast multihop protocols with silencing, with focus on a novel polynomial broadcasting algorithm. The validity of the proposed analytical approach is assessed by means of realistic (ns-2) numerical simulations.
Is Cloned Code more stable than Non-Cloned Code?

This paper presents a study on the stability of cloned code. The results from an analysis of 200 weeks of evolution of five software system show that the stability as measured by changes to the system is dominated by the deletion of code clones. It can also be observed that additions to a systems are more often additions to non-cloned code than additions to cloned code. If the dominating factor of deletions is eliminated, it can generally be concluded that cloned code is more stable than non-cloned code.
Terrestrial Planet Formation around Individual Stars within Binary Star Systems

We calculate herein the late stages of terrestrial planet accumulation around a solar-type star that has a binary companion with semimajor axis larger than the terrestrial planet region. We perform more than 100 simulations to survey binary parameter space and to account for sensitive dependence on initial conditions in these dynamical systems. As expected, sufficiently wide binaries leave the planet formation process largely unaffected. As a rough approximation, binary stars with periastron qB > 10 AU have a minimal effect on terrestrial planet formation within ~2 AU of the primary, whereas binary stars with qB ≲ 5 AU restrict terrestrial planet formation to within ~1 AU of the primary star. Given the observed distribution of binary orbital elements for solar-type primaries, we estimate that about 40%-50% of the binary population is wide enough to allow terrestrial planet formation to take place unimpeded. The large number of simulations allows us to determine the distribution of results—the distribution of plausible terrestrial planet systems—for effectively equivalent starting conditions. We present (rough) distributions for the number of planets, their masses, and their orbital elements.
An Improved Semantic Smoothing Model for Model-Based Document Clustering

Recently, semantic smoothing is proposed as an efficient solution for the improvement of document cluster quality. However, the existing semantic smoothing model is not effective for partitional clustering to enhance the document clustering quality. In this paper, inspired by the TF*IDF schema and background elimination strategy, we first introduce an improved semantic smoothing model, which is suitable for both agglomerative and partitional clustering. Based on the improved semantic smoothing model, two model-document clustering algorithms, the partitional clustering algorithm and the agglomerative clustering algorithm, are also presented. The experimental results show our algorithms are more effective than the previous methods to improve the cluster quality.
The role of ELOVL1 in very long-chain fatty acid homeostasis and X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy

X‐linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X‐ALD) is caused by mutations in the ABCD1 gene encoding the peroxisomal ABC transporter adrenoleukodystrophy protein (ALDP). X‐ALD is characterized by the accumulation of very long‐chain fatty acids (VLCFA; ≥C24) in plasma and tissues. In this manuscript we provide insight into the pathway underlying the elevated levels of C26:0 in X‐ALD. ALDP transports VLCFacyl‐CoA across the peroxisomal membrane. A deficiency in ALDP impairs peroxisomal β‐oxidation of VLCFA but also raises cytosolic levels of VLCFacyl‐CoA which are substrate for further elongation. We identify ELOVL1 (elongation of very‐long‐chain‐fatty acids) as the single elongase catalysing the synthesis of both saturated VLCFA (C26:0) and mono‐unsaturated VLCFA (C26:1). ELOVL1 expression is not increased in X‐ALD fibroblasts suggesting that increased levels of C26:0 result from increased substrate availability due to the primary deficiency in ALDP. Importantly, ELOVL1 knockdown reduces elongation of C22:0 to C26:0 and lowers C26:0 levels in X‐ALD fibroblasts. Given the likely pathogenic effects of high C26:0 levels, our findings highlight the potential of modulating ELOVL1 activity in the treatment of X‐ALD.
Threshold cointegration: overview and implementation in R

Purpose of this paper is twofold. It is first to offer a rough overview on the field of threshold cointegration, from the seminal paper of Balke and Fomby (1997) to the recent developments. Simultaneously, it is to describe the implementation of the main functionalities for the modeling in the open-source package tsDyn. It provides hence a unique way to get an introduction on the threshold cointegration field allowing in the same time to conduct its own analysis. Introduced by Engle and Granger (1987), the concept of cointegration became a indispensable step in the analysis of non stationary time series. The underlying idea is that even if two variables (or more) are non-stationary, there can exist a combination of them which is stationary. This definition leads to interesting interpretations as the variables can then be interpreted to have a stable relationship (a long-run equilibrium), can be represented in an vector error-correction model, and share a common stochastic trend. However, implicit in the definition is the idea that every small deviation from the long-run equilibrium will lead instantaneously to error correction mechanisms. Threshold cointegration extends the linear cointegration case by allowing the adjustment to occur only after the deviation exceed some critical threshold, thus taking into account possibly transaction costs or stickiness of the prices. Furthermore, it allows to capture asymmetries in the adjustment, where positive or negative deviations won’t be corrected in the same manner.
Evidence of parasitic Oomycetes (Peronosporomycetes) infecting the stem cortex of the Carboniferous seed fern Lyginopteris oldhamia

Thin sections of petrified fossils made during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to investigate the internal tissue systems of plants now provide an important new source of information on associated micro-organisms. We report a new heterokont eukaryote (Combresomyces williamsonii sp. nov.) based on exquisitely preserved fossil oogonia, antheridia and hyphae from the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian: Bashkirian stage) of UK. The structure of the oogonia and antheridia and features observed within the hyphae demonstrate a relationship with Oomycetes (Peronosporomycetes). The fossil micro-organism was documented in situ in petrified stem cortex and rootlets of the extinct seed fern Lyginopteris oldhamia (Pteridospermales). The main observed features point towards a pythiaceous Oomycete but links to biotrophic Albuginales or Peronosporaceae cannot be ruled out owing to the observation of a possible haustorium. Our study provides the earliest evidence for parasitism in Oomycetes.