Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Open Access Research Article the Effect of the Pro-inflammatory Cytokine Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha on Human Joint Capsule Myofibroblasts

© 2010 Mattyasovszky et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Introduction: Previous studies have shown that the number of myoblastically differentiated fibroblasts known as myofibroblasts (MFs) is significantly increased in stiff joint capsules, indicating their crucial role in the pathogenesis of post-traumatic joint stiffness. Although the mode of MFs' function has been well defined for different diseases associated with tissue fibrosis, the underlying mechanisms of their regulation in the pathogenesis of post-traumatic joint capsule contracture are largely unknown. Methods: In this study, we examined the impact of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) on cellular functions of human joint capsule MFs. MFs were challenged with different concentrations of TNF-α with or without both its specifically inactivating antibody infliximab (IFX) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) inhibitor diclofenac. Cell proliferation, gene expression of both alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and collagen type I, the synthesis of prostaglandin derivates E 2 , F 1A , and F 2A , as well as the ability to contract the extracellular matrix were assayed in monolayers and in a three-dimensional collagen gel contraction model. The α-SMA and COX2 protein expressions were evaluated by immunofluorescence staining and Western blot analysis. Results: The results indicate that TNF-α promotes cell viability and proliferation of MFs, but significantly inhibits the contraction of the extracellular matrix in a dose-dependent manner. This effect was associated with downregulation of α-SMA and collagen type I by TNF-α application. Furthermore, we found a significant time-dependent upregulation of prostaglandin E 2 synthesis upon TNF-α treatment. The effect of TNF-α on COX2-positive MFs could be specifically prevented by IFX and partially reduced by the COX2 inhibitor diclofenac. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that TNF-α specifically modulates the function of MFs through regulation of prostaglandin E 2 synthesis and therefore may play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of joint capsule contractures. Introduction Post-traumatic joint stiffness is a common complication that occurs primarily after injuries of the upper extremities involving articular structures [1,2]. In the majority of cases, loss of function after trauma is due to adhesions and contractions as well as to scar formation within capsulo-liga-mentous structures. Upon injury, fibroblasts of the surrounding tissue become activated, start to proliferate, and undergo a phenotypic differentiation into …
Control loops : pleasure or plague ? A plant floor view within the process industry

Productivity Control loops are a vital part of the process industry and are especially important when it comes to quality, economy and safety. In fact, a significant portion of incorrectly tuned automatic control loops can actually decrease production performance rather than improve it. The availability and effectiveness of a control system is essential for operating the process safely and at maximum performance, ensuring quality of production and its profitability. Supervision and improvement of controller performance is therefore vital and important.
The Likelihood-Ratio Test and Efficient Robust Estimation

Robust estimation of model parameters in the presence of outliers is a key problem in computer vision. RANSAC inspired techniques are widely used in this context, although their application might be limited due to the need of a priori knowledge on the inlier noise level. We propose a new approach for jointly optimizing over model parameters and the inlier noise level based on the likelihood ratio test. This allows control over the type I error incurred. We also propose an early bailout strategy for efficiency. Tests on both synthetic and real data show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art in a fraction of the time.
Sound processing in amateur musicians and nonmusicians: event-related potential and behavioral indices

To increase our understanding of auditory neurocognition in musicians, we compared nonmusicians with amateur band musicians in their neural and behavioral sound encoding accuracy. Mismatch negativity and P3a components of the auditory event-related potentials were recorded to changes in basic acoustic features (frequency, duration, location, intensity, gap) and abstract features (melodic contour and interval size). Mismatch negativity was larger in musicians than in nonmusicians for location changes whereas no statistically significant group difference was observed in response to other feature changes or in abstract-feature mismatch negativity. P3a was observed only in musicians in response to location changes. This suggests that when compared with nonmusicians, even amateur musicians have neural sound processing advantages with acoustic information most essential to their musical genre.
Using direct manipulation to build algorithm animations by demonstration

Dance is a tool that facilitates direct manipulation, demonstrational development of animations for the Tango algorithm animation system. Designers sketch out target actions in a graphical-editing fashion, then Dance automatically generates the code that will carry out those actions. Dance promotes ease-of-design, rapid prototyping, and increased experimentation. It also introduces a methodology that could be used to incorporate demonstrational animation design into areas such as computer assisted instruction and user interface development.
Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Dairy Products in Egypt as a Probiotic.

Lactobacilli belong to lactic acid bacteria (LAB), generally recognized as safe primary fermentation end product from sugars is lactic acid and that is why foods are conserved. Lactic acid bacteria have been used for improving health host. Therefore, they are an important part of intestinal flora in human and animals as probiotic. This research aimed to isolate lactic acid bacteria with significant probiotic character from different dairy products. In this study, homo- fermentative LAB were isolated from different dairy products in Egypt. Isolates were identified by morphological, biochemical and physiological methods. Probiotic properties of isolates were investigated. The isolated bacteria were studied for antagonistic effects on clinically isolated E.coli, Salmonella spp. Micrococcus spp. , Staphylococcus spp. A collection of fifty four isolates were obtained. Eight isolates from different dairy products were observed as potential probiotic safe for human use; where they found to be tolerant to low pH and bile salt and effective against isolated E.coli, Salmonella spp. Micrococcus spp. All isolates were screened for enzymatic activity using API ZYM Kits and antibiotic sensitivity. Biochemical and physiological results indicated that they were found to be related to the genus Lactobacillus and suggested to belong to L. casei (4 isolates), L. Acidophillus (3 isolates) and L. lactis(1 isolates) and that were effective on the isolated E.coli ,Salmonella spp. Staphylococus spp. and they have enzymatic activity. β- galactosidase was produced, which is beneficial for lactose intolerance. Lactobacillus spp. produced enzymes including leucinearylamidase, crystinearylamidase,acid phosphatase, naphthol-AS-BI-phosphohydrolase, α- galactosidase, β-galactosidase, α-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, and N-acetyl-β-glucosamidase so we concluded that human milk, yogurt and raw milk are considered a good source of potential probiotic strains also the isolated bacteria had no haemolytic activity so it consider as a great potential probiotic and safe for human use. (Rasha H. Bassyouni, Walla S. Abdel-all b, Mostafa G. Fadl , Saed Abdel-all and Zeinat kamel Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Dairy Products in Egypt as a Probiotic.) Life Sci J 2012;9(4):2924-2933). (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 428-2933). (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 428.
SnSAG 5 is an alternative surface antigen of Sarcocystis neurona strains that is mutually exclusive to SnSAG 1 §

Sarcocystis neurona is an obligate intracellular parasite that causes equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM). Previous work has identified a gene family of paralogous surface antigens in S. neurona called SnSAGs. These surface proteins are immunogenic in their host animals, and are therefore candidate molecules for development of diagnostics and vaccines. However, SnSAG diversity exists in strains of S. neurona, including the absence of the major surface antigen gene SnSAG1. Instead, sequence for an alternative SnSAG has been revealed in two of the SnSAG1-deficient strains. Herein, we present data characterizing this new surface protein, which we have designated SnSAG5. The results indicated that the protein encoded by the SnSAG5 sequence is indeed a surfaceassociated molecule that has characteristics consistent with the other SAGs identified in S. neurona and related parasites. Importantly, Western blot analyses of a collection of S. neurona strains demonstrated that 6 of 13 parasite isolates express SnSAG5 as a dominant surface protein instead of SnSAG1. Conversely, SnSAG5 was not detected in SnSAG1-positive strains. One strain, which was isolated from the brain of a sea otter, did not express either SnSAG1 or SnSAG5. Genetic analysis with SnSAG5-specific primers confirmed the presence of the SnSAG5 gene in Western blot-positive strains, while also suggesting the presence of a novel SnSAG sequence in the SnSAG1-deficient, SnSAG5-deficient otter isolate. The findings provide further indication of S. neurona strain diversity, which has implications for diagnostic testing and development of vaccines against EPM as well as the population biology of Sarcocystis cycling in the opossum definitive host. # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A new Algorithm to construct LDPC codes with large stopping sets

A new algorithm to construct good low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with large stopping sets is presented. Since the minimum stopping set characterizes an LDPC code, searching for stopping sets in LDPC codes is an important issue. Large minimum stopping sets avoid the LDPC code to get trapped in cycles specially on the binary erasure channel. Dealing with stopping sets is not an easy task since their discovering is a well known NP hard problem. Conversely, we propose an algorithm in order to construct an LDPC code from a stopping set which is demonstrated to be large. Results of simulations showing the performance of the LDPC code obtained this way are analyzed. Keywords— LDPC, stopping set, BEC.
DESIGN VHDL Approach Improves Nonlinear Simulation A new approach to harmonic-balance simulation uses a frequency-domain-extended standardized modeling language to support the use of “ black boxes ” in simulations

circuit description format is considered a de-facto standard. For high-frequency modeling (above approximately100 MHz), this has not been the case, however. The wide variety of RF and microwave elements has demanded more advanced description languages to accurately describe their behavior over varying conditions. To that end, most EDA suppliers created their own proprietary description languages to describe these components. However, it appeared to be a situation in need of standardization. For modeling digital circuitry, proprietary and standards-based languages were created. The latest and most useful versions— VHDL and Verilog—entered the public domain and became widely used standards. Increasing demands for simulating complex analog, digital, and mixed digital anaicrowave and RF designers have long sought higher levels of performance and accuracy in their simulation tools. Due to the special considerations in the microwave and RF region, there has been a complicated evolution ranging from the application of linear approaches of Touchstone and Simulation Program with Integrated-Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) simulations on nonlinear circuits to more
Gaussian multiple-access channels with weighted energy constraint

The Gaussian multiple-access channel with weighted energy constraint E~/sub sum/=/spl Sigma//sub k/E/sub k//|d/sub k/|/sup 2/ models the situation in cellular multiuser communication more accurately than the standard approach with d/sub k/=1,/spl forall/k. The minimum weighted sum energy E~/sub sum/ is shown to be only achievable at a unique energy tupel (E/sub 1/, ., E/sub K/), if all weights differ in amplitude. Moreover, the theory is generalized to a multiple receiver system describing cellular communication systems with optimum multiple cell-site processing. While for single-receiver systems the optimum energy tupel is a vertex of the allowed energy region, i.e. successive cancellation is possible, for a multi-receiver system this does not hold in general.
Distribution and Epidemiological Characteristics of Published Individual Patient Data Meta-Analyses

Background Individual patient data meta-analyses (IPDMAs) prevail as the gold standard in clinical evaluations. We investigated the distribution and epidemiological characteristics of published IPDMA articles. Methodology/Principal Findings IPDMA articles were identified through comprehensive literature searches from PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library. Two investigators independently conducted article identification, data classification and extraction. Data related to the article characteristics were collected and analyzed descriptively. A total of 829 IPDMA articles indexed until 9 August 2012 were identified. An average of 3.7 IPDMA articles was published per year. Malignant neoplasms (267 [32.2%]) and circulatory diseases (179 [21.6%]) were the most frequently occurring topics. On average, each IPDMA article included a median of 8 studies (Interquartile range, IQR 5 to 15) involving 2,563 patients (IQR 927 to 8,349). Among 829 IPDMA articles, 229 (27.6%) did not perform a systematic search to identify related studies. In total, 207 (25.0%) sought and included individual patient data (IPD) from the “grey literature”. Only 496 (59.8%) successfully obtained IPD from all identified studies. Conclusions/Significance The number of IPDMA articles exhibited an increasing trend over the past few years and mainly focused on cancer and circulatory diseases. Our data indicated that literature searches, including grey literature and data availability were inconsistent among different IPDMA articles. Possible biases may arise. Thus, decision makers should not uncritically accept all IPDMAs.
Redewiedergabe – Schritte zur automatischen Erkennung

Abstract This contribution presents a quantitative approach to speech, thought and writing representation (ST&WR) and steps towards its automatic detection. Automatic detection is necessary for studying ST&WR in a large number of texts and thus identifying developments in form and usage over time and in different types of texts. The contribution summarizes results of a pilot study: First, it describes the manual annotation of a corpus of short narrative texts in relation to linguistic descriptions of ST&WR. Then, two different techniques of automatic detection – a rule-based and a machine learning approach – are described and compared. Evaluation of the results shows success with automatic detection, especially for direct and indirect ST&WR.
Gender Dimensions of Pension Reform in the Former Soviet Union

The authors analyze the gender implications of pension reform in Kazakhstan, the Kygyz Republic, Latvia, and Moldova. The new systems deliberately penalize early retirement and reward longer careers, so that with no change in behavior or policy, women's pensions will be lower than men's on average. Still, the implicit financial returns for women remain higher on average than returns for men, because of women's longer life expectancy and because of redistributory minimum pensions. Overall, however, the net change in wealth resulting from the reforms will be larger on average for men than for women, because they will work longer and get a larger pension. Women's longerlife expectancy means that women can expect to spend the last years of their lives alone. If their pensions are too low because of their work histories, poverty among elderly women may increase.
Towards a Unified 3 D Affective Model

The nowadays affective models consider either a number of discrete affective states or a continuous space of affective states. In this paper we propose a fuzzy logic-based extension to the continuous 2D activation-evaluation affective model and a quantization methodology to define the areas of the discrete sets of basic affective states that unifies the discrete and dimensional models. We demonstrate why a third dimension (intensity) is useful to be added to the activation-evaluation model. The advantages of the new model are the ability to define basic affective states areas in the activation-evaluation plane, the personalization, the ability to express the secondary states as nuances of the basic affective states and to explicitly express the intensity of each state. A new methodology using statistics is proposed in order to construct a generalized and a personalized affective model.
Ectonucleotidases and Epilepsy

Adenosine has been proposed as an endogenous anticonvulsant which can play an important role in seizure ini- tiation, propagation and arrest. Extracellular ATP and adenosine are able to modulate synaptic activity through activation of P2 (P2X and P2Y) and P1 receptors (A1, A2A, A2B, and A3), respectively. Besides the release of adenosine per se, the levels of ATP and adenosine in the synaptic cleft are controlled by a complex cascade of cell surface-localized enzymes collectively known as ectonucleotidases. These enzymes are capable of hydrolyzing nucleoside triphosphates, diphos- phates and monophosphates to their respective nucleosides. There are four major families of ectonucleotidases: ecto- nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolases (E-NTPDases), ecto-nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterases (E- NPPs), alkaline phosphatases and ecto-5'-nucleotidase. All these members have specific physiological functions in the brain. In this review, the involvement of ectonucleotidases in the pathophysiology of brain disorders, such as seizures and epilepsy, is discussed. A brief introduction about the general characteristics of these enzymes is followed by a discussion about the role of ectonucleotidases in epilepsy and seizures and the implications for future treatments.
Numerical simulation of red blood cells' motion: a review

The micro-circulation of blood plays an important role in human body by providing oxygen and nutrients to the cells and removing carbon dioxide and wastes from the cells. This process is greatly affected by the rheological properties of the Red Blood Cells (RBCs). Changes in the rheological properties of the RBCs are caused by certain human diseases such as malaria and sickle cell diseases. Therefore it is important to understand the motion and deformation mechanism of RBCs in order to diagnose and treat this kind of diseases. Although, many methods have been developed to explore the behavior of the RBCs in micro-channels, they could not explain the deformation mechanism of the RBCs properly. Recently developed Particle Methods are employed to explain the RBCs’ behavior in micro-channels more comprehensively. The main objective of this study is to critically analyze the present methods, used to model the RBC behavior in micro-channels, in order to develop a computationally efficient particle based model to describe the complete behavior of the RBCs in micro-channels accurately and comprehensively
UWB Elliptical Monopoles With a Reconfigurable Band Notch Using MEMS Switches Actuated Without Bias Lines

Two CPW-fed elliptical monopoles were fabricated on liquid crystal polymer (LCP) with reconfigurable rejection band (band-notch) characteristics in the frequency range between 5 and 6 GHz. The first antenna uses a lambda/2 long, U-shaped slot and the second antenna uses two symmetrically placed lambda/4 long, inverted L-shaped stubs as resonating elements. Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches are used to activate and deactivate the resonating elements without the need of dc bias lines due to a novel design of the switch geometry. Transmission line models and surface current distributions are used to explain the effect of the added resonating elements. Reflection coefficient radiation pattern and gain measurements are presented to verify the design concepts featuring a very satisfactory performance.
Statistical inference for network samples using subgraph counts

We consider that a network is an observation, and a collection of observed networks forms a sample. In this setting, we provide methods to test whether all observations in a network sample are drawn from a speciﬁed model. We achieve this by deriving, under the null of the graphon model, the joint asymptotic properties of average subgraph counts as the number of observed networks increases but the number of nodes in each network remains ﬁnite. In doing so, we do not require that each observed network contains the same number of nodes, or is drawn from the same distribution. Our results yield joint conﬁdence regions for subgraph counts, and therefore methods for testing whether the observations in a network sample are drawn from: a speciﬁed distribution, a speciﬁed model, or from the same model as another network sample. We present simulation experiments and an illustrative example on a sample of brain networks where we ﬁnd that highly creative individuals’ brains present signiﬁcantly more short cycles.
The Impact of High-Stakes Testing in Chicago on Student Achievement in Promotional Gate Grades

This article analyzes the impact of high-stakes testing in Chicago on student achievement in grades targeted for promotional decisions. Using a three-level Hierarchical Linear Model, we estimate achievement value added in gate grades (test-score increases over and above that predicted from a student’s prior growth trajectory) for successive cohorts of students and derive policy effects by comparing value added pre- and postpolicy. Test scores in these grades increased substantially following the introduction of high-stakes testing. The effects are larger in the 6th and 8th grades and smaller in the 3rd grade in reading. Effects are also larger in previously low-achieving schools. In reading, students with low skills experienced the largest improvement in learning gains in the year prior to testing, while students with skills closer to their grade level experienced the greatest benefits in mathematics.
Endogenous control of waking brain rhythms induces neuroplasticity in humans

This study explores the possibility of noninvasively inducing long‐term changes in human corticomotor excitability by means of a brain–computer interface, which enables users to exert internal control over the cortical rhythms recorded from the scalp. We demonstrate that self‐regulation of electroencephalogram rhythms in quietly sitting, naive humans significantly affects the subsequent corticomotor response to transcranial magnetic stimulation, producing durable and correlated changes in neurotransmission. Specifically, we show that the intrinsic suppression of alpha cortical rhythms can in itself produce robust increases in corticospinal excitability and decreases in intracortical inhibition of up to 150%, which last for at least 20 min. Our observations may have important implications for therapies of brain disorders associated with abnormal cortical rhythms, and support the use of electroencephalogram‐based neurofeedback as a noninvasive tool for establishing a causal link between rhythmic cortical activities and their functions.