Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase Improves Angiogenesis via Enhancing Ang-1/Tie-2 Signaling in Diabetes

Diabetes is associated with impairment of angiogenesis such as reduction of myocardial capillary formation. Our previous studies demonstrate that disruption of Angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1)/Tie-2 signaling pathway contributes to the diabetes-associated impairment of angiogenesis. Protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) has a critical role in the regulation of insulin signal by inhibition of tyrosine kinase phosphorylation. In present study, we examined the role of protein tyrosine phosphatase-1 (SHP-1) in diabetes-associated impairment of Ang-1/Tie-2 angiogenic signaling and angiogenesis. SHP-1 expression was significantly increased in diabetic db/db mouse hearts. Furthermore, SHP-1 bond to Tie-2 receptor and stimulation with Ang-1 led to SHP-1 dissociation from Tie-2 in mouse heart microvascular endothelial cell (MHMEC). Exposure of MHMEC to high glucose (HG, 30 mmol/L) increased SHP-1/Tie-2 association accompanied by a significant reduction of Tie-2 phosphorylation. Exposure of MHMEC to HG also blunted Ang-1-mediated SHP-1/Tie-2 dissociation. Knockdown of SHP-1 significantly attenuated HG-induced caspase-3 activation and apoptosis in MHMEC. Treatment with PTP inhibitors restored Ang-1-induced Akt/eNOS phosphorylation and angiogenesis. Our data implicate a critical role of SHP-1 in diabetes-associated vascular complications, and that upregulation of Ang-1/Tie-2 signaling by targeting SHP-1 should be considered as a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of diabetes-associated impairment of angiogenesis.
Enhanced Dynamic Whole File De-Duplication (DWFD) for Space Optimization in Private Cloud Storage Backup

—Cloud Storage provide users with abundant storage space and make user friendly for immediate data access. But there is a lack of analysis on optimizing cloud storage for effective data access. With the development of storage and technology, digital data has occupied more and more space. According to statistics, 60% of digital data is redundant, and the data compression can only eliminate intra-file redundancy. In order to solve these problems, De-Duplication has been proposed. Many organizations have set up private cloud storage with their unused resources for resource utilization. Since private cloud storage has limited amount of hardware resources, they need to optimally utilize the space to hold maximum data. In this paper, we discuss the flaws in existing methods for Data De-Duplication. Our proposed method namely Dynamic Whole File De-duplication (DWFD) provides dynamic space optimization in private cloud storage backup as well as increase the throughput and de-duplication efficiency.
The Scientific Basis for Estimating Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations

This prepublication version of The Science Basis for Estimating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations has been provided to the public to facili tate timely access to the committee's findings. Although the substance of the report is final, minor editorial changes may be made throughout the text and citations will be checked prior to publication. The final interim report will be available in July 2002.
Multi-interferogram method for measuring interseismic deformation: Denali Fault, Alaska

SUMMARY Studies of interseismic strain accumulation are crucial to our understanding of continental deformation, the earthquake cycle and seismic hazard. By mapping small amounts of ground deformation over large spatial areas, InSAR has the potential to produce continental-scale maps of strain accumulation on active faults. However, most InSAR studies to date have focused on areas where the coherence is relatively good (e.g. California, Tibet and Turkey) and most analysis techniques (stacking, small baseline subset algorithm, permanent scatterers, etc.) only include information from pixels which are coherent throughout the time-span of the study. In some areas, such as Alaska, where the deformation rate is small and coherence very variable, it is necessary to include information from pixels which are coherent in some but not all interferograms. We use a three-stage iterative algorithm based on distributed scatterer interferometry. We validate our method using synthetic data created using realistic parameters from a test site on the Denali Fault, Alaska, and present a preliminary result of 10.5 ± 5.0 mm yr −1 for the slip rate on the Denali Fault based on a single track of radar data from ERS1/2.
Images Reconstruction with Use of a Genetic Algorithm

In this paper we investigate the task of images reconstruction with use of a genetic algorithm (GA). We consider two kinds of images: colored and black- and-white. Each kind of images requires different coding for a GA. In the case of colored images we base on the RGB color model. When black-and-white images are considered, we use binary coding. A genetic algorithm evolves an initial randomly generated population of individuals (images). The aim of a GA is to find a solution as similar to a reconstructed image as possible. We show results of computer experiments and formulate conclusions arising from them.
Multiple Mechanisms of Action for Inhibitors of Histidine Protein Kinases from Bacterial Two-Component Systems

ABSTRACT Many pathogenic bacteria utilize two-component systems consisting of a histidine protein kinase (HPK) and a response regulator (RR) for signal transduction. During the search for novel inhibitors, several chemical series, including benzoxazines, benzimidazoles, bis-phenols, cyclohexenes, trityls, and salicylanilides, were identified that inhibited the purified HPK-RR pairs KinA-Spo0F and NRII-NRI, with 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) ranging from 1.9 to >500 μM and MICs ranging from 0.5 to >16 μg/ml for gram-positive bacteria. However, additional observations suggested that mechanisms other than HPK inhibition might contribute to antibacterial activity. In the present work, representative compounds from the six different series of inhibitors were analyzed for their effects on membrane integrity and macromolecular synthesis. At 4× MIC, 17 of 24 compounds compromised the integrity of the bacterial cell membrane within 10 min, as measured by uptake of propidium iodide. In this set, compounds with lower IC50s tended to cause greater membrane disruption. Eleven of 12 compounds inhibited cellular incorporation of radiolabeled thymidine and uridine >97% in 5 min and amino acids >80% in 15 min. The HPK inhibitor that allowed >25% precursor incorporation had no measurable MIC (>16 μg/ml). Fifteen of 24 compounds also caused hemolysis of equine erythrocytes. Thus, the antibacterial HPK inhibitors caused a rapid decrease in cellular incorporation of RNA, DNA, and protein precursors, possibly as a result of the concomitant disruption of the cytoplasmic membrane. Bacterial killing by these HPK inhibitors may therefore be due to multiple mechanisms, independent of HPK inhibition.
A Performance Study of Instruction Cache Prefetching Methods

Prefetching methods for instruction caches are studied via trace-driven simulation. The two primary methods are "fall-through" prefetch (sometimes referred to as "one block lookahead") and "target" prefetch. Fall-through prefetches are for sequential line accesses, and a key parameter is the distance from the end of the current line where the prefetch for the next line is initiated. Target prefetches work also for nonsequential line accesses. A prediction table is used and a key aspect is the prediction algorithm implemented by the table. Fall-through prefetch and target prefetch each improve performance significantly. When combined in a hybrid algorithm, their performance improvement is nearly additive. An instruction cache using a combined target and fall-through method can provide the same performance as a two to four times larger cache that does not prefetch. A good prediction method must not only be accurate, but prefetches must be initiated early enough to allow time for the instructions to return from main memory. To quantify this, we define a "prefetch efficiency" measure that reflects the amount of memory fetch delay that may be successfully hidden by prefetching. The better prefetch methods (in terms of miss rate) also have very high efficiencies, hiding approximately 90 percent of the miss delay for prefetched lines. Another performance measure of interest is memory traffic. Without prefetching, large line sizes give better hit rates; with prefetching, small line sizes tend to give better overall hit rates. Because smaller line sizes tend to reduce memory traffic, the top-performing prefetch caches produce less memory traffic than the top-performing nonprefetch caches of the same size.
High temperatures alter physiological properties of pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons in hippocampus

Temperature has multiple effects on neurons, yet little is known about the effects of high temperature on the physiology of mammalian central neurons. Hyperthermia can influence behavior and cause febrile seizures. We studied the effects of acute hyperthermia on the immature hippocampus in vitro by recording from pyramidal neurons and inhibitory oriens-lacunosum moleculare (O-LM) interneurons (identified by green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression in the GIN mouse line). Warming to 41°C caused depolarization, spontaneous action potentials, reduced input resistance and membrane time constant, and increased spontaneous synaptic activity of most pyramidal cells and O-LM interneurons. Pyramidal neurons of area CA3 were more strongly excited by hyperthermia than those of area CA1. About 90% of O-LM interneurons in both CA1 and CA3 increased their firing rates at hyperthermic temperatures; interneurons in CA3 fired faster than those in CA1 on average. Blockade of fast synaptic transmission did not abolish the effect of hyperthermia on neuronal excitability. Our results suggest that hyperthermia increases hippocampal excitability, particularly in seizure-prone area CA3, by altering the intrinsic membrane properties of pyramidal cells and interneurons.
A total energy approach to protocol design in coded wireless sensor networks

The development of hardware platforms for sensing applications and the design of energy-efficient protocols for data gathering are typically viewed as separate tasks. In many cases, communication engineers decide on the protocol specification based on high-level hardware abstractions, which assume that the radio transmission block is the top spender of electrical power. However, a closer inspection of the existing technology immediately reveals that this assumption does not hold for the majority of sensor platforms currently available in the market. To help close this gap, we propose a new hardware abstraction for protocol design that takes into consideration all of the main energy spending operations. Our preliminary results confirm that (a) the same protocol can have very different energy consumption profiles over different sensor platforms and (b) slight changes to the protocols using the proposed hardware abstraction can lead to significant energy gains over a wider range of sensor platforms. The latter findings are supported by real-life measurements, where network coding is implemented using common sensor motes.
Downregulation of long non-coding RNA ANRIL suppresses lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis in colorectal cancer

This study aimed to investigate the effect of ANRIL on the lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis in colorectal cancer. Using RT-PCT and Northern blot, we detected ANRIL expression in tissues (cancer vs. normal) and cell lines (HCoEpic, SW480, HT29, LoVo and HCT116), finding that ANRIL was overexpressed in colorectal cancer. By statistical analysis, increased ANRIL was found to be in close association with TNM staging, Duke staging and lymphatic metastasis and poor prognosis. We down-regulated the high ANRIL expression in LoVo and HCT116 with lentivirus transfection, and found that the activity of cell mobility and invasion was remarkably reduced. And also we also identified that ANRIL down-regulation could suppress in-vitro tube formation HLECs invasion. In addition, we built a mouse model of colorectal cancer. In the mouse model, we recorded, after ANRIL downregulation, decreased tumor growth rates and tumor size and reduced lymphatic metastasis rate and frequency of transferred lymph nodes, LMVD and expressions of VEFG-C, VEGFR-3 and LYVE-1. Based on these findings, we concluded that increased ANRIL is promoter in the development of colorectal cancer. Through down-regulation of the overexpressed ANRIL, lymphangiogenesis may be suppressed and therefore lymphatic metastasis may be inhibited. On this ground, we suggest that ANRIL may be a therapeutic target for colorectal cancer.
Two synaptobrevin molecules are sufficient for vesicle fusion in central nervous system synapses

Exocytosis of synaptic vesicles (SVs) during fast synaptic transmission is mediated by soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (SNARE) complex assembly formed by the coil-coiling of three members of this protein family: vesicle SNARE protein, synaptobrevin 2 (syb2), and the presynaptic membrane SNAREs syntaxin-1A and SNAP-25. However, it is controversially debated how many SNARE complexes are minimally needed for SV priming and fusion. To quantify this effective number, we measured the fluorescence responses from single fusing vesicles expressing pHluorin (pHl), a pH-sensitive variant of GFP, fused to the luminal domain of the vesicular SNARE syb2 (spH) in cultured hippocampal neurons lacking endogenous syb2. Fluorescence responses were quantal, with the unitary signals precisely corresponding to single pHluorin molecules. Using this approach we found that two copies of spH per SV fully rescued evoked fusion whereas SVs expressing only one spH were unable to rapidly fuse upon stimulation. Thus, two syb2 molecules and likely two SNARE complexes are necessary and sufficient for SV fusion during fast synaptic transmission.
The Role of the Ankle Plantar Flexors During Running with Different Strike Patterns

The Role of the Ankle Plantar Flexors During Running with Different Strike Patterns Amanda Susuan Martin Sudduth Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Peter R. Cavanagh, Professor, Vice Chair of Research Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Different strike patterns result in differences in kinematics and kinetics during running. The objective of this study was to examine differences in muscle activation in rearfoot stike (RFS) and nonrearfoot strike (nRFS) running. It was hypothesized that the activation of the medial grastrocnemius would be earlier and of greater magnitude in runners using a nonrearfoot strike pattern. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that the medial gastrocnemius would show two distinct peaks in activity in nonrearfoot striking, the first resulting from preparation for, and support of, initial contact and the second from propulsion during the stance phase. Finally, it was hypothesized that the activation of the tibialis anterior would be earlier and of greater magnitude in runners using a rearfoot strike pattern. This study included 9 female runners, five habitual rearfoot strikers and four habitual nonrearfoot strikers, who each completed 3-dimensional running analysis under two conditions: their habitual strike pattern and a converted strike pattern during which habitual nonrearfoot runners converted to rearfoot and habitual rearfoot runners converted to nonrearfoot. Variables of interest were activation of the medial gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior, lower body kinematics, body segment positions and velocities at foot strike, and tibial acceleration. This study found no significant differences in the activation time or magnitude of the tibialis anterior or medial gastrocnemius muscles during RFS and nRFS running. Visual inspection of the medial gastrocnemius electromyography (EMG) data showed the hypothesized pre-foot strike activation peak in the nRFS condition, however because of the small number of subjects and high variability of the EMG data, this difference was not statistically significant and should be investigated further. Resultant tibial acceleration was greater in the nRFS condition, indicating a potential factor for increased risk of tibial stress fracture in individuals running with a nRFS pattern.
On detection of bitcoin mining redirection attacks

In this paper we study the question of centralisation in bitcoin digital currency. In theory bitcoin has been designed to be a totally decentralized distributed system. Satoshi Nakamoto has very clearly postulated that each node should be collecting recent transactions and trying to create new blocks (Satoshi08). In bitcoin transactions are aggregated in block in order to authenticate them and form an official ledger and history of bitcoin transactions. In practice as soon as expensive ASIC bitcoin miners have replaced general-purpose hardware, production of bitcoins and the validation of transactions has concentrated in the hands of a smaller group of people. Then at some moment in early 2012 an important decision was taken: the Stratum protocol was designed (Palatinus12) which took a deliberate decision to move the power of selecting which transactions are included in blocks from miners to pool managers. The growing difficulty of mining and large standard deviation in this process (Rosenfeld13; CourtoisBahack14) made that majority of miners naturally shifted to pooled mining. At this moment bitcoin ceased being a decentralized democratic system. In this paper we survey the question of a 51% attacks and show that there is a large variety of plausible attack scenarios. In particular we study one particularly subversive attack scenario which depends on non-trivial internal details of the bitcoin hashing process. How does it compare with the current mining practices? We have study the Stratum protocol in four popular real-life mining configurations. Our analysis shows that pools could very easily cheat the majority of people. However the most subversive versions of the attack are NOT facilitated and could potentially be detected.
Training and Development and Performance of Employees: Evidence from Sri Lanka Telecom

The main objective of this research study is to measure effect of the TrainingaDevelopment on the employees Performance. The main objective of training and development is to improve employee knowledge and the skills for their better performance. The performance is measured in terms of the improvement in Productivity, Absenteeism and the Employee Job Satisfaction. This research study is mainly for identifying the effectiveness of the training and development of the Call Canter staff of the Sri Lanka Telecom. A simple random sample is a sample of 226 employees drawn from a population of size 450 employees of the Call Centre division customer care area in such a way that sample size 226 has the same chance of being selected. A sample of 50 officers was selected from the Call Centers. This sample consisted of 10 from the Managerial grade and the 40 from the Officer's grade. Training and the Development strength was measured with the dimensions of Knowledge and the Skills of the employees. The performance was measured with the dimensions of employees Productivity, Absenteeism and the Job Satisfaction. A structured questionnaire was administered to gather information. The statistical analysis of the study revealed that that there is a significant positive relationship between TrainingaDevelopment and the employee productivity, a significance negative relationship between TrainingaDevelopment and the employee Absenteeism. And also positive relationship between. TaD and Employee Job Satisfaction.
A pr 2 00 2 Action and Energy of the Gravitational Field

We present a detailed examination of the variational principle for metric general relativity as applied to a “quasilocal” spacetime region M (that is, a region that is both spatially and temporally bounded). Our analysis relies on the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity, and thereby assumes a foliation of M into spacelike hypersurfaces Σ. We allow for near complete generality in the choice of foliation. Using a field–theoretic generalization of Hamilton–Jacobi theory, we define the quasilocal stress-energy-momentum of the gravitational field by varying the action with respect to the metric on the boundary ∂M. The gravitational stress-energy-momentum is defined for a two–surface B spanned by a spacelike hypersurface in spacetime. We examine the behavior of the gravitational stress-energy-momentum under boosts of the spanning hypersurface. The boost relations are derived from the geometrical and invariance properties of the gravitational action and Hamiltonian. Finally, we present several new examples of quasilocal energy–momentum, including a novel discussion of quasilocal energy–momentum in the large-sphere limit towards spatial infinity. Chapel Hill and Raleigh, April 2002
Simulation of Triple Buffer Scheme (Comparison with Double Buffering Scheme)

Buffer management is a key design issue in the development of any machine vision system. Triple buffering is a memory economical buffer management scheme which minimizes the processor idle time while frames are being acquired and ensures the processing of intact frames. Matlab simulation results of the triple buffer scheme clearly prove the significance of this scheme in contrast to other buffering schemes.
Cognitive Style, Marketing Problem Solving and Case Analysis

Psychological type and cognitive style have received considerable attention from educators with a wide range of interests. This article reviews the Jungian-based approach to cognitive style and describes a problem-solving approach using its component concepts. Though many opportunities exist for consideration of cognitive style in marketing, the authors focus on how the concepts can be used to guide problem solving in case analysis.
Parametrix Approximation of Diffusion Transition Densities

A new analytical approximation tool, derived from the classical PDE theory, is introduced in order to build approximate transition densities of diffusions. The tool is useful for approximate pricing and hedging of financial derivatives and for maximum likelihood and method of moments estimates of diffusion parameters. The approximation is uniform with respect to time and space variables. Moreover, easily computable error bounds are available in any dimension.