Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epigenetic Alteration by DNA Promoter Hypermethylation of Genes Related to Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) Signaling in Cancer

Epigenetic alterations in cancer, especially DNA methylation and histone modification, exert a significant effect on the deregulated expression of cancer-related genes and lay an epigenetic pathway to carcinogenesis and tumor progression. Global hypomethylation and local hypermethylation of CpG islands in the promoter region, which result in silencing tumor suppressor genes, constitute general and major epigenetic modification, the hallmark of the neoplastic epigenome. Additionally, methylation-induced gene silencing commonly affects a number of genes and increases with cancer progression. Indeed, cancers with a high degree of methylation (CpG island methylator phenotype/CIMP) do exist and represent a distinct subset of certain cancers including colorectal, bladder and kidney. On the other hand, signals from the microenvironment, especially those from transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), induce targeted de novo epigenetic alterations of cancer-related genes. While TGF-β signaling has been implicated in two opposite roles in cancer, namely tumor suppression and tumor promotion, its deregulation is also partly induced by epigenetic alteration itself. Although the epigenetic pathway to carcinogenesis and cancer progression has such reciprocal complexity, the important issue is to identify genes or signaling pathways that are commonly silenced in various cancers in order to find early diagnostic and therapeutic targets. In this review, we focus on the epigenetic alteration by DNA methylation and its role in molecular modulations of the TGF-β signaling pathway that cause or underlie altered cancer-related gene expression in both phases of early carcinogenesis and late cancer progression.
Influence of boundary removal on the spatial representations of the medial entorhinal cortex

The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is thought to create and update a dynamical representation of the animal's spatial location. Most suggestive of this process are grid cells, whose firing locations occur periodically in space. Prior studies in small environments were ambiguous as to whether all spatially modulated cells in MEC were variants of grid cells or whether a subset resembled classic place cells of the hippocampus. Recordings from the dorsal and ventral MEC were performed as four rats foraged in a small square box centered inside a larger one. After 6 min, without removing the rat from the enclosure, the walls of the small box were quickly removed, leaving the rat free to continue foraging in the whole area enclosed by the larger box. The rate‐responses of most recorded cells (70 out of 93 cells, including 15 of 16 putative interneurons) were considered spatially modulated based on information‐theoretic analysis. A number of cells that resembled classic hippocampal place cells in the small box were revealed to be grid cells in the larger box. In contrast, other cells that fired along the boundaries or corners of the small box did not show grid‐cell firing in the large box, but instead fired along the corresponding locations of the large box. Remapping of the spatial response in the area corresponding to the small box after the removal of its walls was prominent in most spatially modulated cells. These results show that manipulation of local boundaries can exert a powerful influence on the spatial firing patterns of MEC cells even when the manipulations leave global cues unchanged and allow uninterrupted, self‐motion‐based localization. Further, they suggest the presence of landmark‐related information in MEC, which might prevent cumulative drift of the spatial representation or might reset it to a previously learned configuration in a familiar environment. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
New Perspectives on the X-Ray Emission of HD 104237 and Other Nearby Herbig Ae/Be Stars from XMM-Newton and Chandra

The origin of the X-ray emission from Herbig Ae/Be stars is not yet known. These intermediate-mass pre-main-sequence stars lie on radiative tracks and are not expected to emit X-rays via solar-like magnetic processes, nor are their winds powerful enough to produce X-rays by radiative wind shocks as in more massive O-type stars. The emission could originate in unseen low-mass companions, or it may be intrinsic to the Herbig stars themselves if they still have primordial magnetic fields or can sustain magnetic activity via a nonsolar dynamo. We present new X-ray observations of the nearby Herbig Ae star HD 104237 (=DX Cha) with XMM-Newton, whose objective is to clarify the origin of the emission. Several X-ray emission lines are clearly visible in the CCD spectra, including the high-temperature Fe Kα complex. The emission can be accurately modeled as a multitemperature thermal plasma with cool (kT < 1 keV) and hot (kT ≳ 3 keV) components. The presence of a hot component is compelling evidence that the X-rays originate in magnetically confined plasma, either in the Herbig star itself or in the corona of an as yet unseen late-type companion. The X-ray temperatures and luminosity (log LX = 30.5 ergs s-1) are within the range expected for a T Tauri companion, but high-resolution Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope images constrain the separation of a putative companion to less than 1''. We place these new results into broader context by comparing the X-ray and bolometric luminosities of a sample of nearby Herbig stars with those of T Tauri stars and classical main-sequence Be stars. We also test the predictions of a model that attributes the X-ray emission of Herbig stars to magnetic activity that is sustained by a shear-powered dynamo.
Similarity space projection for web image search and annotation

Web image search has been explored and developed in academic as well as commercial areas for over a decade. To measure the similarity between Web images and user queries, most of the existing Web image search systems try to convert an image to textual keywords by analyzing the textual information available (such as surrounding text and image filename) with or without leveraging image visual features (such as color, texture, shape). In this way, the existing systems transform "Web images" to the "query (text)" space so as to compare the relevance of images to the query. In this paper, we present a novel solution to Web image search - similarity space projection (SSP). This algorithm takes images and queries as two heterogeneous object peers, and projects them into a third Euclidean "similarity space" in which their similarity can be directly measured. The rule of projection guarantees that in the new space the relevant images are kept close to the corresponding query and those irrelevant ones are away from it. Experiments on real-world Web image collections showed that the proposed algorithm significantly outperformed traditional information retrieval models (such as vector space model) in the application of image search. Besides Web image search, we demonstrate that this algorithm can also be applied to image annotation scenario, and has promising performance. Thus, this algorithm unifies Web image search and image annotation into same framework.
An investigation into social work students’ attitudes towards people with mental illness in Greece

ABSTRACT Bachelor level social work students in Greece were surveyed to assess their attitudes towards the mentally ill in relation to their level of familiarity with mental illness, their demographics and study-related characteristics. The research sample included 370 students who completed a self-report questionnaire including sociodemographic data, the 40-item Community Attitudes towards the Mentally Ill scale (CAMI) and the 11-item Level of Familiarity Questionnaire. Results from analyses showed that the mean Familiarity index was significantly greater in third- and fourth-year students than in those attending the first and second years. Also, scores on Authoritarianism and Social restrictiveness decreased as the year of study increased. Familiarity index was significantly negatively correlated with both the Authoritarianism and Social restrictiveness dimensions. Increased age and year of studies were found to be positively correlated with Benevolence and Community mental health ideology scores. Furthermore, the Familiarity index was positively correlated with both Benevolence and Community mental health ideology dimensions. The results indicate that the year of studies and level of familiarity play a crucial role in students’ attitudes towards people with mental illness. Implications for additional research and education of bachelor level social work students are discussed.
Characterization of the Early Lesion of ‘Degenerative’ Valvular Aortic Stenosis: Histological and Immunohistochemical Studies

BackgroundNonrheumatic stenosis of trileaflet aortic valves, often termed senile or calcific valvular aortic stenosis, is considered a “degenerative” process, but little is known about the cellular or molecular factors that mediate its development. Methods and ResultsTo characterize the developing aortic valvular lesion, we performed histological and immunohisto-chemical studies on Formalin-fixed and methanol-Carnoy's-fixed parafflin-embedded aortic valve leaflets or on frozen sections obtained at autopsy from 27 adults (age, 46 to 82 years) with normal leaflets (n=6), mild macroscopic leaflet thickening (n= 15), or clinical aortic stenosis (n=6). Focal areas of thickening (“early lesions”) were characterized by (1) subendothelial thickening on the aortic side of the leaflet, between the basement membrane (PAS-positive) and elastic lamina (Verhoeff–van Gieson), (2) the presence of large amounts of intracellular and extracellular neutral lipids (oil red O) and fine, stippled mineralization (von Kossa), and (3) disruption of the basement membrane overlying the lesion. Regions of the fibrosa adjacent to these lesions were characterized by thickening and by protein, lipid, and calcium accumulation. Control valves showed none of these abnormalities. Immunohistochemical studies were performed using monoclonal antibodies directed against macrophages (anti-CD68 or HAM-56), and contractile proteins of smooth muscle cells or myofibroblasts (anti-α-actin and HHF-35) or rabbit polyclonal antiserum against T lymphocytes (anti-CD3). In normal valves, scattered macrophages were present in the fibrosa and ventricularis, and occasional muscle actin-positive cells were detected in the proximal portion of the ventricularis near the leaflet base, but no T lymphocytes were found. In contrast, early lesions were characterized by the presence of an inflammatory infiltrate composed of non-foam cell and foam cell macrophages, occasional T cells, and rare α-actin-positive cells. In stenotic aortic valves, a similar but more advanced lesion was seen. ConclusionsThe early lesion of “degenerative” aortic stenosis is an active inflammatory process with some similarities (lipid deposition, macrophage and T-cell infiltration, and basement membrane disruption) and some dissimilarities (presence of prominent mineralization and small numbers of smooth muscle cells) to atherosclerosis.
Building a Stochastic Dynamic Model of Application Use

Many intelligent user interfaces employ application and user models to determine the user's preferences, goals and likely future actions. Such models require application analysis, adaptation and expansion. Building and maintaining such models adds a substantial amount of time and labour to the application development cycle. We present a system that observes the interface of an unmodified application and records users' interactions with the application. From a history of such observations we build a coarse state space of observed interface states and actions between them. To refine the space, we hypothesize substates based upon the histories that led users to a given state. We evaluate the information gain of possible state splits, varying the length of the histories considered in such splits. In this way, we automatically produce a stochastic dynamic model of the application and of how it is used. To evaluate our approach, we present models derived from real-world application usage data.
K to pi semileptonic form factor with 2+1 flavor domain wall Fermions on the lattice

We present preliminary results from the RBC and UKQCD collaborations for the Kl3 form factor f0Kπ (0) = f+Kπ (0) with 2+1 flavours of dynamical domain wall quarks. Simulations are performed on 163×32×16 and 243×64×16 lattices with three values of the light quark mass, allowing for an extrapolation to the chiral limit.
Impact of duration on active video testing

There is a growing interest in video performance measurements with emphasis on user experience and several initiatives have been taken to conduct active testing of real video services. A deeper understanding of the variations in media bit rate and its influence on the performance of video playback is needed in order to design better measurements. In this paper, we analyze a dataset of YouTube videos from various genres. We show statistically that most YouTube videos can be represented sufficiently well by the first 1 to 3 minutes of the video. This eliminates the need for running longer tests when network conditions are stable as in the case of fixed networks. We test our observation in an active testing environment that measures video metrics, and recommend based on the results that such tests should run at least for one minute, however, a duration of 3 minutes will help achieve better and more stable results.
Flexible modular formalization of UML sequence diagrams

UML Sequence Diagrams are one of the most commonly used type of UML diagrams in practice. Their semantics is often considered to be straightforward, but a more detailed analysis reveals diverse interpretations. These different choices must be properly supported by verification tools. This paper describes a formal framework for capturing semantic choices in a precise and modular way. The user is then able to select the semantics of interest, mix different interpretations, and analyze diagrams according to the chosen solution. This solution is supported by Corretto, our UML verification environment, to allow the user to play with different semantics and prove properties on Sequence Diagrams, accordingly.
The influence of brand equity on customer intention to pay premium price of the fashion house brand

Article history: Received: July 25, 2018 Received in revised format: August 29, 2018 Accepted: September 22, 2018 Available online: September 22, 2018 Branded fashion clothing is developing expeditiously in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi local apparel fashion brand outlets are flourishing with positive customers’ attitude. The aim of this research is to understand the effect of brand equity on customers’ desire to spend on a premium price on a shopping store named Aarong. The research tries to discover different aspects of brand equity by analyzing the customers’ manner and buying behavior. In this research, Aaker’s brand equity model is used to examine the influence of brand equity on consumers’ intention to pay for a premium cost. The necessary data for the study is collected from 100 respondents using the non-probability judgmental sampling technique. The collected data is analyzed by regression analysis so that the relationship can be examined, properly and the results support the proposed four hypotheses. It is found that among four brand equity variables, brand association maintained the most significant impact on creating positive customer intention to pay the premium price. Other variables such as brand recognition, discerned quality and brand faithfulness only slightly create positive influence on customer intention to pay the premium price. Thus, the results indicate that to ensure good performance and attract customers, Aarong must put more emphasis on improving all brand equity variables and maintain a suitable balance among them. © 2018 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada
Hippo: A Fast, yet Scalable, Database Indexing Approach

Even though existing database indexes (e.g., B-Tree) speed up the query execution, they suffer from two main drawbacks: (1) A database index usually yields 5% to 15% additional storage overhead which results in non-ignorable dollar cost in big data scenarios especially when deployed on modern storage devices like Solid State Disk (SSD) or NonVolatile Memory (NVM). (2) Maintaining a database index incurs high latency because the DBMS has to find and update those index pages affected by the underlying table changes. This paper proposes Hippo a fast, yet scalable, database indexing approach. Hippo only stores the pointers of disk pages along with light weight histogram-based summaries. The proposed structure significantly shrinks index storage and maintenance overhead without compromising much on query execution performance. Experiments, based on real Hippo implementation inside PostgreSQL 9.5, using the TPC-H benchmark show that Hippo achieves up to two orders of magnitude less storage space and up to three orders of magnitude less maintenance overhead than traditional database indexes, i.e., B-Tree. Furthermore, the experiments also show that Hippo achieves comparable query execution performance to that of the B-Tree for various selectivity factors.
Components Of Sexual Health Programs For Special Education Students And Pre-Service Teachers

The present paper investigates the existing literature in order to identify potential components for the development of Sexual Health Programs (SHP) for Special Education (SE) students. Sexual Health Education programs (SHE programs) are considered a recognized and accepted practice in educational systems in Israel and around the world (Weisblay, 2010). The main purpose of SHE programs is to provide students with knowledge and the ability to defend themselves against sexual violence, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, as well as to offer information and knowledge of healthy, responsible sexual behaviours (Brosch, 2007; Washington State Department of Health, 2011; Winges-Yanez, 2014). SHE programs may be of particular importance to people with disabilities and to special education students. The reasons of this importance are presented in the present paper. The research questions of the current systematic review are: (1) Are there SHPs in the area of SE? (2) Among the general SHPs, which factors are significant to SE students and pre-service teachers, in terms of addressing sexuality to persons with special needs? The results of the systematic review (14 studies met the specific inclusion criteria) are presented in the light of designing SHPs for SE pre-service teachers. The review shows that in special education frameworks there is a real need and importance in programs for the study of sexual health education, both in the context of knowledge acquisition, insight and the formulation of values, and in the context of preventing exploitation and dangerous or inappropriate behaviours. © 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy. org.UK
Effect of age and event on post exercise values of blood biochemical parameters in show jumping horses

Fitness is a certain metabolic status – as a result of training – which makes the equine athletes capable of good results in sport. Assess the fitness status in field conditions is therefore very important. Rather limited information is available on low class show jumpers, therefore the aim of this trial was study the effect of age and event on the biochemical blood parameters. During the winter indoor competition tournament (from October to February) blood samples were collected right after the first class of the last day of the event from all together thirty show jumpers (five, six and seven years old horses, five randomly selected horse from each year category at the first and at the last competition of the tournament). From the blood samples taken from the jugularis vein the plasma were separated and the lactate, LDH, CK, AST, glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, total billirubin and cortisol level were measured for evaluating the training status of the horses. Five year old horses had significantly lower lactate level compared to six and seven year old horses. At the end of the tournament horses had lower glucose and higher cortisol level in the plasma right after show jumping class. It can be concluded, that show jumping competitions on up to 100 cm height and a minimum of 300 m/min average speed do not involve substantial anaerobic energy supply. The frequent stress situation can elevate the cortisol response given. Multivariate methods applied on several post exercise blood parameter can be useful to detect slight differences in fitness. Keywords: show jumping; horse; training; fitness
Two conformational states in the crystal structure of the Homo sapiens cytoplasmic ribosomal decoding A site

The decoding A site of the small ribosomal subunit is an RNA molecular switch, which monitors codon–anticodon interactions to guarantee translation fidelity. We have solved the crystal structure of an RNA fragment containing two Homo sapiens cytoplasmic A sites. Each of the two A sites presents a different conformational state. In one state, adenines A1492 and A1493 are fully bulged-out with C1409 forming a wobble-like pair to A1491. In the second state, adenines A1492 and A1493 form non-Watson–Crick pairs with C1409 and G1408, respectively while A1491 bulges out. The first state of the eukaryotic A site is, thus, basically the same as in the bacterial A site with bulging A1492 and A1493. It is the state used for recognition of the codon/anticodon complex. On the contrary, the second state of the H.sapiens cytoplasmic A site is drastically different from any of those observed for the bacterial A site without bulging A1492 and A1493.
Effects of Toxins on Ca2+ Currents and Peptide Release from Nerve Terminals a

Voltage-activated calcium channels in nerve terminals of the neurohypophysis are instrumental for triggering the exocytotic release of the neuropeptides, oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP). In depolarization-secretion coupling, Ca2+, acting as a second messenger, flows into the terminals through these channels and consequently evokes release. '. 2 In neurons, the major voltage-gated Ca2+ channels were originally named and distinguished as the T(low-voltage-threshold), N-, and L(high-voltagethreshold) type^. ^,^ Both of the high-voltage Ca2+ channel types may be involved in the process of neurotransmitter or neuropeptide A number of pharmacological agents, including toxins, have been used to further
Effects of rotation on the helium burning shell source in accreting white dwarfs

We investigate the effects of rotation on the behavior of the helium-burning shell source in accreting carbon-oxygen white dwarfs, in the context of the single degenerate Chandrasekhar mass progenitor scenario for type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We model the evolution of helium-accreting white dwarfs of initially 1 M� , assuming four different constant accretion rates (2, 3, 5a nd 10× 10 −7 M� /yr). In a one-dimensional approximation, we compute the mass accretion and subsequent nuclear fusion of helium into carbon and oxygen, as well as angular momentum accretion, angular momentum transport inside the white dwarf, and rotationally induced chemical mixing. Our models show two major effects of rotation: a) The helium-burning nuclear shell source in the rotating models is much more stable than in corresponding non-rotating models - which increases the likelihood that accreting white dwarfs reach the stage of central carbon ignition. This effect is mainly due to rotationally induced mixing at the CO/He interface which widens the shell source, and due to the centrifugal force lowering the density and degeneracy at the shell source location. b) The C/O-ratio in the layers which experience helium shell burning - which may affect the energy of an SN Ia explosion - is strongly decreased by the rotationally induced mixing of α-particles into the carbon-rich layers. We discuss implications of our results for the evolution of SNe Ia progenitors.