Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Norepinephrine Inhibits Th17 Cells via β2-Adrenergic Receptor (β2-AR) Signaling in a Mouse Model of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background Norepinephrine (NE), a neurotransmitter released from the sympathetic nerves, has been shown to be involved in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, its role in the sympathetic nervous system in RA is divergent. Herein, we demonstrate that the sympathetic neurotransmitter NE exerts an anti-inflammatory effect in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA), a mouse model of RA, by inhibiting Th17 cell differentiation and function via β2-adrenergic receptor (β2-AR) signaling. Material/Methods CIA was prepared by intradermal injection of collagen type II in the tail base of DBA1/J mice. On the 41st day post-immunization, the mice were used as CIA models. CD4+ T cells from the spleen were purified using magnetic cell sorting and activated with anti-CD3 anti-CD28 antibodies. Th17 cells were polarized from the CD4+ T cells using various antibodies and cytokines. Results Co-expression of CD4 and β2-AR was observed in spleens of both intact and CIA mice. The β2-AR expression in the ankle and spleen was downregulated in CIA mice. CIA induced increases in production of interleukin (IL)-17 and IL-22, CD25−IL-17+ cell percentage, and ROR-γt expression in CD4+ T cells. Importantly, NE reduced the CIA-induced CD4+ T cell shift towards Th17 phenotype, and the β2-AR antagonist ICI118551 blocked the NE effect. Moreover, the β2-AR agonist terbutaline (Terb) inhibited CIA-induced CD4+ T cell proliferation and shift towards Th17 phenotype, and the protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor H-89 abolished the agonist effect. Terb also reduced CIA-induced Th17 enhancement, and H-89 impaired the Terb effect. Conclusions NE inhibits Th17 cell differentiation and function in CIA condition by activation of β2-AR/PKA signaling.
A family of memristor‐based reactance‐less oscillators

In this paper, we present for the first time a family of memristor‐based reactance‐less oscillators (MRLOs). The proposed oscillators require no reactive components, that is, inductors or capacitors, rather, the ‘resistance storage’ property of memristor is exploited to generate the oscillation. Different types of MRLO family are presented, and for each type, closed form expressions are derived for the oscillation condition, oscillation frequency, and range of oscillation. Derived equations are further verified using transient circuit simulations. A comparison between different MRLO types is also discussed. In addition, detailed fabrication steps of a memristor device and experimental results for the first MRLO physical realization are presented. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Identification of Target Genes Regulated by APETALA3 and PISTILLATA Floral Homeotic Gene Action Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at www.plantcell.org/cgi/doi/10.1105/tpc.006353.

Identifying the genes regulated by the floral homeotic genes APETALA3 (AP3) and PISTILLATA (PI) is crucial for understanding the molecular mechanisms that lead to petal and stamen formation. We have used microarray analysis to conduct a broad survey of genes whose expression is affected by AP3 and PI activity. DNA microarrays consisting of 9216 Arabidopsis ESTs were screened with probes corresponding to mRNAs from different mutant and transgenic lines that misexpress AP3 and/or PI. The microarray results were further confirmed by RNA gel blot analyses. Our results suggest that AP3 and PI regulate a relatively small number of genes, implying that many genes used in petal and stamen development are not tissue specific and likely have roles in other processes as well. We recovered genes similar to previously identified petal- and stamen-expressed genes as well as genes that were not implicated previously in petal and stamen development. A very low percentage of the genes recovered encoded transcription factors. This finding suggests that AP3 and PI act relatively directly to regulate the genes required for the basic cellular processes responsible for petal and stamen morphogenesis.
Reconfigurable Physical Unclonable Functions - Enabling technology for tamper-resistant storage

A PUF or Physical Unclonable Function is a function that is embodied in a physical structure that consists of many random uncontrollable components which originate from process variations during manufacturing. Due to this random structure a physical stimulus or challenge generates unpredictable responses. Because of their physical properties PUFs are unclonable and very promising primitives for the purpose of authentication and storage of cryptographic keys. Previous work on PUFs considers mainly static challenge-response PUFs. In many applications, however, a dynamic PUF would be desirable, e.g., in order to allow the key derived from the PUF to be updated. We define a new primitive, the reconfigurable PUF (rPUF) which is a PUF with a mechanism to transform it into a new PUF with a new unpredictable and uncontrollable challenge-response behavior, even if the challengeresponse behavior of the original PUF is already known. We present two practical instantiations of a reconfigurable PUF. One is a new variant of the optical PUF, and the other is based on phase change memory. We also illustrate how an rPUF can be used to protect non-volatile storage against invasive physical attacks.
A systems-based dynamic knowledge transfer capacity model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to understand how recent developments in systems thinking and social construction can influence understanding of knowledge transfer (KT); and to propose a new systems‐based knowledge transfer model.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a review of the literature on knowledge transfer, systems thinking and social construction leads to the proposal of a new KT paradigm.Findings – The Dynamic Knowledge Transfer Capacity model (DKTC) found in this paper identifies the components required for social systems to generate, disseminate and use new knowledge to meet their needs. The model includes pre‐existing conditions, (need and prior knowledge) and four categories of capacities (generative, disseminative, absorptive and adaptive/responsive) that social systems must possess for KT to take place.Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that the DKTC model is particularly well suited to analyzing complex systems with multiple stakeholders as opposed t.
The effect of stress ratio on the fatigue behavior of additively manufactured porous biomaterials

Meta-biomaterials are porous biomaterials created by additive manufacturing techniques such as Selective Laser Melting. These materials are built up form a repeating unit cell, resulting in a porous structure that can be applied for bone implants or prosthetics. The mechanical properties of these meta-biomaterials can be tailored by variations in unit cell type and strut thickness, resulting in different porosity values. This makes it possible to create a material with mechanical properties similar to bone, which prevents negative side effects of conventional bone implants such as stress shielding. The fatigue behavior of these meta-biomaterials has been studied before, but only at a single stress ratio of R=0.1 This study investigates the fatigue behavior at different stress ratios which result in an increased mean stress. A cylindrical porous structure that is built up from a diamond unit cell is tested at stress ratios of R=0.1, R=0.3, R=0.5, R=0.7 and R=0.8. Two samples types are made of Ti-6Al-4V ELI powder, resulting in a theoretical porosity of 80% and 10%. Also an experimental DIC method is developed, to visualize the deformation behavior during the fatigue tests.
Parental involvement in the care and intervention of children with hearing loss

Abstract Objective: The present study aimed to explore the nature of parental involvement in the intervention of children with hearing loss, as experienced by parents. Design: A qualitative descriptive methodology was adopted to conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of parents who have a child with hearing loss. Study sample: Seventeen parents of 11 children aged 6–9 years participated in this study. Results: The overarching theme of parents taking the central role was identified using thematic analysis. This overarching theme connected five themes which described the nature of parental involvement: (1) parents work behind the scenes; (2) parents act as ‘case managers’; (3) parents always have their child’s language development in mind; (4) parents’ role extends to advocacy for all children with hearing loss; and (5) parents serve a number of roles, but at the end of the day, they are parents. Conclusions: The results indicate that parental involvement in the intervention of children with hearing loss is multifaceted in nature and incorporates a broad range of behaviours and practices. These findings have important implications for the provision of family-centred practices.
eHistology image and annotation data from the Kaufman Atlas of Mouse Development

Abstract “The Atlas of Mouse Development” by Kaufman is a classic paper atlas that is the de facto standard for the definition of mouse embryo anatomy in the context of standard histological images. We have redigitized the original haematoxylin and eosin–stained tissue sections used for the book at high resolution and transferred the hand-drawn annotations to digital form. We have augmented the annotations with standard ontological assignments (EMAPA anatomy) and made the data freely available via an online viewer (eHistology) and from the University of Edinburgh DataShare archive. The dataset captures and preserves the definitive anatomical knowledge of the original atlas, provides a core image set for deeper community annotation and teaching, and delivers a unique high-quality set of high-resolution histological images through mammalian development for manual and automated analysis.
Preparation and Thermal Properties of P2O5 Doped Li2O-Al2O3-SiO2 Glass-Ceramics

Using TiO2 and ZrO2 as compound nucleation agent, serials Li2O–Al2O3–SiO2 (LAS) glasses containing different content of P2O5 were prepared by conventional melt quenching technique and subsequent converting to glass–ceramics. The influence of P2O5 content on viscosity of LAS glasses was investigated in the temperature range from the softening point to melting temperature. DSC was undertaken to analyze the change of characteristic temperature Tg, Tc and Tp. Thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) of matrix glass and glass-ceramic containing different P2O5 were measured. The results show introducing P2O5 effectively decreased the melting temperature and viscosity of LAS glasses. TECs of the matrix glass and glass-ceramic range from 4.1×10-6 °C -1 to 5.3×10-6 °C -1 and from -0.2×10-6 °C -1 to 1.2×10-6 °C -1, respectively. XRD analysis indicates that β-spodumene is the main crystalline phase in the P2O5 doped LAS glass-ceramics, resulting in the low thermal expansion coefficient of the glass-ceramics.
Management of fever and neutropenia in paediatric cancer patients: room for improvement?

Purpose of review Fever and neutropenia is the most common complication in the treatment of childhood cancer. This review will summarize recent publications that focus on improving the management of this condition as well as those that seek to optimize translational research efforts. Recent findings A number of clinical decision rules are available to assist in the identification of low-risk fever and neutropenia however few have undergone external validation and formal impact analysis. Emerging evidence suggests acute fever and neutropenia management strategies should include time to antibiotic recommendations, and quality improvement initiatives have focused on eliminating barriers to early antibiotic administration. Despite reported increases in antimicrobial resistance, few studies have focused on the prediction, prevention, and optimal treatment of these infections and the effect on risk stratification remains unknown. A consensus guideline for paediatric fever and neutropenia research is now available and may help reduce some of the heterogeneity between studies that have previously limited the translation of evidence into clinical practice. Summary Risk stratification is recommended for children with cancer and fever and neutropenia. Further research is required to quantify the overall impact of this approach and to refine exactly which children will benefit from early antibiotic administration as well as modifications to empiric regimens to cover antibiotic-resistant organisms.
Fine-grained Algorithms and Complexity

A central goal of algorithmic research is to determine how fast computational problems can be solved in the worst case. Theorems from complexity theory state that there are problems that, on inputs of size n, can be solved in t(n) time but not in O(t(n)^{1-epsilon}) time for epsilon>0. The main challenge is to determine where in this hierarchy various natural and important problems lie. Throughout the years, many ingenious algorithmic techniques have been developed and applied to obtain blazingly fast algorithms for many problems. Nevertheless, for many other central problems, the best known running times are essentially those of their classical algorithms from the 1950s and 1960s. Unconditional lower bounds seem very difficult to obtain, and so practically all known time lower bounds are conditional. For years, the main tool for proving hardness of computational problems have been NP-hardness reductions, basing hardness on P neq NP. However, when we care about the exact running time (as opposed to merely polynomial vs non-polynomial), NP-hardness is not applicable, especially if the problem is already solvable in polynomial time. In recent years, a new theory has been developed, based on "fine-grained reductions" that focus on exact running times. Mimicking NP-hardness, the approach is to (1) select a key problem X that is conjectured to require essentially t(n) time for some t, and (2) reduce X in a fine-grained way to many important problems. This approach has led to the discovery of many meaningful relationships between problems, and even sometimes to equivalence classes. The main key problems used to base hardness on have been: the 3SUM problem, the CNF-SAT problem (based on the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH)) and the All Pairs Shortest Paths Problem. Research on SETH-based lower bounds has flourished in particular in recent years showing that the classical algorithms are optimal for problems such as Approximate Diameter, Edit Distance, Frechet Distance, Longest Common Subsequence etc. In this talk I will give an overview of the current progress in this area of study, and will highlight some exciting new developments and their relationship to database theory.
Photo-stimulated discharge of highly insulating polymers (PTFE and PETP)

Photo-stimulated discharge (PSD) spectroscopy of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PETP) films volume- and surface-charged by either corona discharge or a monoenergetic electron beam was performed in order to investigate the mechanism(s) of charge storage and to determine trap depths. The samples were irradiated with monochromatic light from a Xenon arc lamp (photon energies of 3 - 6.2 eV) at constant temperature. Experimental results indicate that the threshold energy for the generation of a photocurrent depends on factors like film material, contact between sample and electrodes, and electrode material. Space-charge profiles determined with the piezoelectrically generated pressure-step (PPS) method show quantitative depopulation of near-surface charges. Partial detrapping of volume charge was also observed. Experimental results indicate that apparent detrapping can sometimes be attributed to photo-injection and exciton generation with subsequent charge compensation.
Role of glutathione metabolism in host defense against Borrelia burgdorferi infection

Significance Inflammation plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Lyme disease, caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. Intracellular metabolism is increasingly being recognized as a major determinant of inflammation. In this study, we investigated how B. burgdorferi affects host cell metabolism by analyzing the intracellular metabolome in vitro, as well as the circulating metabolome in patients with early-onset Lyme disease. We identify glutathione metabolism as the most important target of B. burgdorferi infection and discover that this pathway is essential for cytokine production, likely through glutathionylation. These findings not only provide more insight into the pathogenesis of Lyme disease but also underline how host–pathogen interactions in metabolism can play crucial roles in host defense against pathogens. Pathogen-induced changes in host cell metabolism are known to be important for the immune response. In this study, we investigated how infection with the Lyme disease-causing bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) affects host metabolic pathways and how these metabolic pathways may impact host defense. First, metabolome analysis was performed on human primary monocytes from healthy volunteers, stimulated for 24 h with Bb at low multiplicity of infection (MOI). Pathway analysis indicated that glutathione (GSH) metabolism was the pathway most significantly affected by Bb. Specifically, intracellular levels of GSH increased on average 10-fold in response to Bb exposure. Furthermore, these changes were found to be specific, as they were not seen during stimulation with other pathogens. Next, metabolome analysis was performed on serum samples from patients with early-onset Lyme disease in comparison with patients with other infections. Supporting the in vitro analysis, we identified a cluster of GSH-related metabolites, the γ-glutamyl amino acids, specifically altered in patients with Lyme disease, and not in other infections. Lastly, we performed in vitro experiments to validate the role for GSH metabolism in host response against Bb. We found that the GSH pathway is essential for Bb-induced cytokine production and identified glutathionylation as a potential mediating mechanism. Taken together, these data indicate a central role for the GSH pathway in the host response to Bb. GSH metabolism and glutathionylation may therefore be important factors in the pathogenesis of Lyme disease and potentially other inflammatory diseases as well.
Supporting Decision-Making for Biometric System Deployment through Visual Analysis

Deployment of biometric systems in the specific environment is not straightforward. Based on pre-deployment performance test results, a decision maker needs to consider the selection of sensors and matching algorithms in terms of the cost, expected false-match and false-non-match failure rates and the underlying quality factors. Which depend on operational scenarios, personnel training, demographics, etc. In this paper, we investigate information aggregation through visualization of fingerprint authentication experiments obtained from a large scale data collection with 494 participants. The data was collected using four biometric image capture devices. Each fingerprint image was analysed with two image quality algorithms, and the matching scores were generated using three different matchers. Additionally we collected and analyzed the impact of demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, ethnicity, height and weight, on system performance.
Domestic violence against women in India: A systematic review of a decade of quantitative studies

ABSTRACT Domestic violence (DV) is prevalent among women in India and has been associated with poor mental and physical health. We performed a systematic review of 137 quantitative studies published in the prior decade that directly evaluated the DV experiences of Indian women to summarise the breadth of recent work and identify gaps in the literature. Among studies surveying at least two forms of abuse, a median 41% of women reported experiencing DV during their lifetime and 30% in the past year. We noted substantial inter-study variance in DV prevalence estimates, attributable in part to different study populations and settings, but also to a lack of standardisation, validation, and cultural adaptation of DV survey instruments. There was paucity of studies evaluating the DV experiences of women over age 50, residing in live-in relationships, same-sex relationships, tribal villages, and of women from the northern regions of India. Additionally, our review highlighted a gap in research evaluating the impact of DV on physical health. We conclude with a research agenda calling for additional qualitative and longitudinal quantitative studies to explore the DV correlates proposed by this quantitative literature to inform the development of a culturally tailored DV scale and prevention strategies.
Beyond cure: preventing and managing the complications of end-stage liver disease

Purpose of reviewThe aim of this review was to define the implication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) eradication in patients with cirrhosis. Recent findingsSustained virologic response (SVR) is associated with a favourable outcome in patients with cirrhosis especially in the presence of regression of cirrhosis but also with extrahepatic outcomes regarding health-related quality of life, risk of diabetes, risk of cardiovascular diseases and control of HIV replication by antiretroviral therapy. In patients with decompensated cirrhosis identifying the point of no return where viral eradication is not followed by clinical improvement is extremely relevant. A strict follow-up is needed in order to early diagnose HCC and signs of liver dysfunction, even after SVR, not only in patients with histological diagnosis of cirrhosis but also in those with advanced disease identified by liver stiffness measurements or by noninvasive methods. SummaryEradication of HCV is associated with regression or ‘freezing’ of cirrhosis even if it is still unknown the point of no return where this has no benefit for the patient. Nevertheless, in patients with cirrhosis, follow-up should be pursued after eradication of HCV. In addition, HCV eradication has several extrahepatic benefits.
Impact of Fitness Status on the Optically Measured Hemodynamic Indexes

The physiological characteristics of skin blood flow can be described in terms of the hemodynamic indices (HI). The HI is derived from the laser speckle characteristics, which are governed by the cutaneous blood flow. A miniaturized dynamic light-scattering sensor was used to measure the speckle pattern from the finger root. Three groups of subjects from 15 to 25 years of age were tested. The first group included subjects who are actively engaged in sport activities; the second group included subjects with low level of physical activity; and the third group included healthy controls with moderate physical activity. The HI parameters were measured prior to and after the performance of a determined physical load. As a marker of cardiovascular fitness (CVF), we used the postload decay rate of HI. We found that the hemodynamic response to the physical load provides a statistically significant correlation with the postload heart rate decay. It was also found that postocclusion increase of the arterial HI is more prominent in the group with higher physical activity. These results indicate that hemodynamic indices can be used as an additional marker for cardiovascular fitness level.