Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary , gastrointestinal and urogenital pharmacology Evaluation of the effect of kaempferol in a murine allergic rhinitis model

Kaempferol (KP) is a major compound of Naju Jjok (Polygonum tinctorium Lour.). The effect of KP on allergic rhinitis (AR) has not been elucidated. Here, we report the effects and mechanisms of KP on new and predominant mediators of AR using an eosinophil cell line, Eol-1 and an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced AR mouse model. KP significantly inhibited the production of interleukin (IL)-32 and IL-8 and activation of caspase-1 in Eol-1 cells. Allergic symptoms and predominant mediators (IgE and histamine) in the KP-administered group were significantly lower than in the AR group. The levels of interferon-γ were enhanced while the levels of IL-4 were reduced in the KP group. KP significantly reduced the levels of IL-32 and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) compared with the AR mice. KP reduced the levels of inflammation-related proteins. In the KP-administered groups, the infiltrations of eosinophils and mast cells increased by OVA were decreased. In addition, KP significantly reduced caspase-1 activity in nasal mucosa tissue of AR mice. Our findings indicate that KP has an anti-allergic effect through the regulation of the production of IL-32 and TSLP and caspase-1 activity in allergic diseases including AR. & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Distinguishing analysis on workload peak and overload under time pressure with pupil diameter

The main purpose of workload measurement is to identify conditions for overload so that they can be avoided by design. The operators' workload peak is difficult to measure by subjective evaluation. Pupil diameter is widely used as a factor to measure workload sensitively, so it's necessary to study the relationship between the workload peak and pupil diameter measurement. Eight trials were designed under different time pressure ranges from 0.5 to 1.5. The participants are required to press the corresponding letter key on the keyboard according to the letter on the screen randomly. In the experiments, the pupil diameter was measured by eye tracker. The relationship of pupil diameter, time pressure and correct rate was analyzed and established. Three change regions of the pupil diameter under different time pressure were found, which includes irregular change region, increasing linear region, decreasing linear region. When using pupil diameter to measure workload, the pupil diameter change irregularly in optimal performance region and task-related effort region. In overload region, there are two sub-regions: the pupil diameter is in linear increasing change and in linear decreasing change. The peak point of pupil diameter represents the most task-related effort, not the peak point of performance and workload. The change size of pupil diameter can represent the workload change, but the peak size of pupil diameter can't be used directly to the quantitative analysis.
Pathophysiology of Lung Injury Induced by Common Bile Duct Ligation in Mice

Background Liver dysfunction and cirrhosis affect vasculature in several organ systems and cause impairment of organ functions, thereby increasing morbidity and mortality. Establishment of a mouse model of hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) would provide greater insights into the genetic basis of the disease. Our objectives were to establish a mouse model of lung injury after common bile duct ligation (CBDL) and to investigate pulmonary pathogenesis for application in future therapeutic approaches. Methods Eight-week-old Balb/c mice were subjected to CBDL. Immunohistochemical analyses and real-time quantitative reverse transcriptional polymerase chain reaction were performed on pulmonary tissues. The presence of HPS markers was detected by western blot and microarray analyses. Results We observed extensive proliferation of CD31-positive pulmonary vascular endothelial cells at 2 weeks after CBDL and identified 10 upregulated and 9 down-regulated proteins that were associated with angiogenesis. TNF-α and MMP-9 were highly expressed at 3 weeks after CBDL and were less expressed in the lungs of the control group. Conclusions We constructed a mouse lung injury model by using CBDL. Contrary to our expectation, lung pathology in our mouse model exhibited differences from that of rat models, and the mechanisms responsible for these differences are unknown. This phenomenon may be explained by contrasting processes related to TNF induction of angiogenic signaling pathways in the inflammatory phase. Thus, we suggest that our mouse model can be applied to pulmonary pathological analyses in the inflammatory phase, i.e., to systemic inflammatory response syndrome, acute lung injury, and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.
Incorporating Multiple cDNA Microarray Slide Scans-Application to Somatic Embryogenesis in Maize 1

Microarray data are subject to multiple sources of measurement error. One source of potentially significant error is the settings of the instruments (laser and sensor) that are used to obtain the measurements of gene expression. Because ‘optimal’ settings may vary from slide to slide, operators typically scan each slide multiple times and then choose the reading with the fewest over-exposed and under-exposed spots. We propose a hierarchical modeling approach to estimating gene expression that combines all available readings on each spot. The basic premise is that all readings contribute some information about gene expression and that after appropriate re-scaling, it would be possible to combine all readings into a single estimate. We illustrate the use of the model using expression data from a maize embryogenesis experiment and assess the statistical properties of the proposed expression estimates using a simulation experiment. As expected, combining all available scans using a reasonable approach to do so results in expression estimates with noticeably lower bias and root mean squared error relative to other approaches that have been proposed.
PalmRC: leveraging the palm surface as an imaginary eyes-free television remote control

User input on television (TV) typically requires a mediator device such as a handheld remote control. While this is a well-established interaction paradigm, a handheld device has serious drawbacks: it can be easily misplaced due to its mobility and in case of a touch screen interface, it also requires additional visual attention. Emerging interaction paradigms such as 3D mid-air gestures using novel depth sensors (e.g. Microsoft Kinect), aim at overcoming these limitations, but are known to be tiring. In this article, we propose to leverage the palm as an interactive surface for TV remote control. We present three user studies which set the base for our four contributions: We (1) qualitatively explore the conceptual design space of the proposed imaginary palm-based remote control in an explorative study, (2) quantitatively investigate the effectiveness and accuracy of such an interface in a controlled experiment, (3) identified user acceptance in a controlled laboratory evaluation comparing PalmRC concept with two most typical existing input modalities, here conventional remote control and touch-based remote control interfaces on smart phones for their user experience, task load, as well as overall preference, and (4) contribute PalmRC, an eyes-free, palm-surface-based TV remote control. Our results show that the palm has the potential to be leveraged for device-less eyes-free TV remote interaction without any third-party mediator device.
Performance of soft phones and advances in associated technology

Soft-phone technology for Internet protocol (IP) voice is growing in importance. However, soft phones exhibit poorer quality than public switched telephone network (PSTN) phones. A goal is to improve that quality, perhaps even to the point that the communication experience is better than with PSTN phones. This letter presents an analysis of soft-phone performance and describes acoustic echo cancellation and other technologies that improve soft-phone performance.
Clinical significance of serum soluble death receptor 5 concentration in locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients

There is an urgent requirement for the identification of suitable biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The present study aimed to measure the levels of serum soluble death receptor 5 (sDR5) in patients with locally advanced stage III NSCLC, and to evaluate its diagnostic and prognostic significance in these patients. The sDR5 concentrations were evaluated by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method in 50 healthy controls and 122 patients with locally advanced stage III NSCLC [including 57 adenocarcinoma (ADC) and 65 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients], before and after concurrent chemoradiotherapy. It was found that the pretreatment sDR5 levels in patients with NSCLC were higher than the sDR5 levels of healthy controls (P<0.001). However, no significant difference in the sDR5 levels was observed between the ADC and SCC subgroups (P=0.874). According to multiple clinical classifications, a significant increase in the pretreatment serum sDR5 levels could be observed in IIIB-stage patients compared with IIIA-stage patients (P=0.009). Patients with a tumor burden >3 cm had higher pretreatment sDR5 concentration than those with a tumor burden ≤3 cm (P=0.026). Additionally, T4-stage patients had significantly higher pretreatment sDR5 levels compared with those of T1-stage patients (P<0.001). There were no significant differences between pre- and post-treatment sDR5 concentrations in the total NSCLC patient group (P=0.462), ADC subgroup (P=0.066) and SCC subgroup (P=0.052). Furthermore, when patients were divided according to therapeutic response, the pretreatment sDR5 levels in the responder patients were significantly lower compared with those of the non-responders (P<0.001). Further survival analysis showed that the patients whose pretreatment sDR5 levels were ≤14 pg/ml (cutoff value, 14 pg/ml) had a longer progression-free survival (PFS) time than patients with sDR5 levels >14 pg/ml. However, no correlation was observed between the post-treatment sDR5 levels and therapeutic response or PFS time. To the best of our knowledge, the present study results provide the first evidence that the pretreatment serum levels of sDR5 may be a useful biomarker for the diagnosis, prediction and prognosis of patients with locally advanced stage III NSCLC.
Fell‐Muir Lecture: Chondroitin sulphate glycosaminoglycans: fun for some and confusion for others

This review emphasizes the importance of glycobiology in nature and aims to highlight, simplify and summarize the multiple functions and structural complexities of the different oligosaccharide combinatorial domains that are found in chondroitin sulphate/dermatan sulphate (CS/DS) glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains. For example, there are 1008 different pentasaccharide sequences possible within CS, DS or CS/DS hybrid GAG chains. These combinatorial possibilities provide numerous potential ligand‐binding domains that are important for cell and extracellular matrix interactions as well as specific associations with cytokines, chemokines, morphogens and growth factors that regulate cellular differentiation and proliferation during tissue development, for example, morphogen gradient establishment. The review provides some details of the large and diverse number of different enzymes that are involved in CS/DS biosynthesis and attempts to explain how differences in their expression patterns in different cell types can lead to subtle but important differences in the GAG metabolism that influence cellular proliferation and differentiation in development as well as regeneration and repair in disease. Our laboratory was the first to generate and characterize monoclonal antibodies (mAb) that very specifically recognize different ‘native’ sulphation motif/epitopes in CS/DS GAG chains. These monoclonal antibodies have been used to identify very specific spatio‐temporal expression patterns of CS/DS sulphation motifs that occur during tissue and organ development (in particular their association with stem/progenitor cell niches) and also their recapitulated expression in adult tissues with the onset of degenerative joint diseases. In summary, diversity in CS/DS sulphation motif expression is a very important necessity for animal life as we know it.
Confidence Intervals for Individualized Performance Models

IN THEIR LETTER “MOVING TOWARDS INDIVIDUALIZED PERFORMANCE MODELS,” REIFMAN ET AL.1 MAKE A NUMBER OF VALUABLE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR the development of procedures for individualized prediction of cognitive performance. They also comment on the first published approach for individualized performance modeling, which we developed to predict performance in the face of unknown traits and uncertain initial states in the homeostatic and circadian processes.2 Reifman and colleagues assert that “shorter-horizon predictions should be more accurate than longer ones,” claim that the way we estimate the confidence intervals is “not in line with Bayesian procedures,” and observe that “prediction uncertainty decreases with increasing horizons, which is nonsensical. ”1 However, their belief that prediction uncertainty should always increase when predicting further into the future is incorrect. This can be demonstrated with a brief counterexample. Let's consider an individual with a daily sleep need of approximately 8 hours, whose sleep schedule is set to be fixed at 10 hours time in bed per night for, say, the next 7 days. We may not know the person's initial homeostatic state, and so performance predictions for the first waking period under the fixed sleep schedule may have large confidence intervals reflecting considerable prediction uncertainty. However, the physiology underlying sleep and wakefulness will cause the individual to dissipate any excess homeostatic pressure across the subsequent days with 10 hours time in bed. Thus, over time we can be increasingly confident that the individual will display little or no cognitive impairment, and our confidence intervals for this prediction should shrink accordingly. This asymptotic feature of sleep/wake regulation is embedded in the two-process model, through the saturating exponential build-up and decay curves of the homeostatic process.3 Since we employed the two-process model as the basis for our individualized modeling approach,2 our performance predictions may indeed show shrinking confidence intervals when predicting further into the future—in agreement with what is known about the physiology of sleep and wakefulness.
Towards the Functional Roles of an Innovation Laboratory as a Platform for Innovation: An Observational Approach

The main question guiding this paper is â€˜how are innovation laboratories a potential source of assistance for businesses in undertaking innovation projects? ' Because of the focused and case-based nature, the extant literature on innovation laboratories falls insufficient in explaining the functional contributions of innovation laboratories towards a systematic, efficient, effective, and ultimately successful innovation management of products, processes and services of business organizations. In this esteem, the present study examines the current practices and functioning of innovation laboratories in field settings by employing a multistep research methodology. As a result, eight key functionalities and thirty associated offerings of innovation laboratories that add substantial value in maximizing the chances of success are herein determined and discussed. Moreover, the findings reveal that a particular innovation laboratory focuses on only a subset of identified functionalities and thereby influences the innovation process at a different stage and in a different manner. Accordingly, the paper debates the impacts of different functionalities towards the innovation process.
Texturing by cooling a metallic melt in a magnetic field

Abstract Processing in a magnetic field leads to the texturing of materials along an easy-magnetization axis when a minimum anisotropy energy exists at the processing temperature; the magnetic field can be applied to a particle assembly embedded into a liquid, or to a solid at a high diffusion temperature close to the melting temperature or between the liquidus and the solidus temperatures in a region of partial melting. It has been shown in many experiments that texturing is easy to achieve in congruent and noncongruent compounds by applying the field above the melting temperature Tm or above the liquidus temperature of alloys. Texturing from a melt is successful when the overheating temperature is just a few degrees above Tm and fails when the processing time above Tm is too long or when the overheating temperature is too high; these observations indicate the presence of unmelted crystals above Tm with a size depending on these two variables that act as growth nuclei. A recent model that predicts the existence of unmelted crystals above the melting temperature is used to calculate their radius in a bismuth melt.
The arterial complications of polycythaemia vera

Of 200 patients referred for management of polycythaemia vera, 98 (49 per cent) had presented with vascular complications and 68 (34 per cent) of these involved arteries. Transient but recurrent cerebrovascular accidents and digital artery occlusions were the typical arterial complications. If polycythaemia was not promptly treated there was a risk of perimanent hemiplegia, monocular blindness, and severe ischaemia of the leg.
Additive effects of simulated climate changes, elevated CO2, and nitrogen deposition on grassland diversity

Biodiversity responses to ongoing climate and atmospheric changes will affect both ecosystem processes and the delivery of ecosystem goods and services. Combined effects of co-occurring global changes on diversity, however, are poorly understood. We examined plant diversity responses in a California annual grassland to manipulations of four global environmental changes, singly and in combination: elevated CO2, warming, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition. After 3 years, elevated CO2 and nitrogen deposition each reduced plant diversity, whereas elevated precipitation increased it and warming had no significant effect. Diversity responses to both single and combined global change treatments were driven overwhelmingly by gains and losses of forb species, which make up most of the native plant diversity in California grasslands. Diversity responses across treatments also showed no consistent relationship to net primary production responses, illustrating that the diversity effects of these environmental changes could not be explained simply by changes in productivity. In two- to four-way combinations, simulated global changes did not interact in any of their effects on diversity. Our results show that climate and atmospheric changes can rapidly alter biological diversity, with combined effects that, at least in some settings, are simple, additive combinations of single-factor effects.
Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic considerations for epilepsy – depression comorbidities

ABSTRACT Introduction: Epilepsy may be frequently associated with psychiatric disorders and its co-existence with depression usually results in the reduced quality of life of patients with epilepsy. Also, the efficacy of antiepileptic treatment in depressed patients with epilepsy may be significantly reduced. Areas covered: Results of experimental studies indicate that antidepressants co-administered with antiepileptic drugs may either increase their anticonvulsant activity, remain neutral or decrease the protective action of antiepileptic drugs in models of seizures. Apart from purely pharmacodynamic interactions, pharmacokinetic mechanisms have been proven to contribute to the final outcome. We report on clinical data regarding the pharmacokinetic interactions of enzyme-inducing antiepileptic drugs with various antidepressants, whose plasma concentration may be significantly reduced. On the other hand, antidepressants (especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) may influence the metabolism of antiepileptics, in many cases resulting in the elevation of plasma concentration of antiepileptic drugs. Expert opinion: The preclinical data may provide valuable clues on how to combine these two groups of drugs – antidepressant drugs neutral or potentiating the anticonvulsant action of antiepileptics are recommended in this regard. Avoidance of antidepressants clearly decreasing the convulsive threshold or decreasing the anticonvulsant efficacy of antiepileptic drugs (f.e. bupropion or mianserin) in patients with epilepsy is recommended.
Latrophilin receptors: novel bronchodilator targets in asthma

Background Asthma affects 300 million people worldwide. In asthma, the major cause of morbidity and mortality is acute airway narrowing, due to airway smooth muscle (ASM) hypercontraction, associated with airway remodelling. However, little is known about the transcriptional differences between healthy and asthmatic ASM cells. Objectives To investigate the transcriptional differences between asthmatic and healthy airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC) in culture and investigate the identified targets using in vitro and ex vivo techniques. Methods Human asthmatic and healthy ASMC grown in culture were run on Affymetrix_Hugene_1. 0_ST microarrays. Identified candidates were confirmed by PCR, and immunohistochemistry. Functional analysis was conducted using in vitro ASMC proliferation, attachment and contraction assays and ex vivo contraction of mouse airways. Results We suggest a novel role for latrophilin (LPHN) receptors, finding increased expression on ASMC from asthmatics, compared with non-asthmatics in vivo and in vitro, suggesting a role in mediating airway function. A single nucleotide polymorphism in LPHN1 was associated with asthma and with increased LPHN1 expression in lung tissue. When activated, LPHNs regulated ASMC adhesion and proliferation in vitro, and promoted contraction of mouse airways and ASMC. Conclusions Given the need for novel inhibitors of airway remodelling and bronchodilators in asthma, the LPHN family may represent promising novel targets for future dual therapeutic intervention.
Social Mobility and the Interpretation of Social Class Mortality Differentials

Abstract The discussion of health inequalities in Britain (e.g. in the Black Report) has been conducted largely on the basis of social class mortality differentials measured by achieved social class and not by social class of origin. It is shown in this paper that social class mortality differentials by achieved social class are not invariant to the rate of social mobility and that the use of them is likely to result in a biased measure of trends in health inequalities when the absolute rate of social mobility varies over time. It is further shown that if, as is likely, health status is a factor systematically affecting the probability for an individual of upward or downward social mobility, then an increase in the rate of social mobility may well result in constant or widening social class mortality differentials by achieved social class even if the differentials are narrowing when measured by social class of origin. It is claimed that this process may well explain why the observed social class mortality differentials, which are measured by achieved social class, have not fallen in Britain during the post-1945 period.