Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The link between chronic rhinosinusitis and asthma

Abstract Treatments for chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and asthma can affect both conditions, based on the united airway concept. This study aimed to evaluate the link between CRS and asthma, based on disease-specific quality of life measures. We performed a prospective cohort study to investigate the correlations between results from CRS- and asthma-specific questionnaires. Thirty-two patients with asthma and CRS were evaluated before and after undergoing nasal surgery at a tertiary medical center. There were significant correlations between the results from the Asthma Control Test (ACT) and the Sino-Nasal Outcome Test-22, as well as between the results of the ACT and Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire, at both the preoperative and 3-month postoperative evaluations (P < 0.01). Moreover, nasal surgery improved the sinonasal symptoms, asthma control, and pulmonary function (P < 0.01). Increasingly severe sinonasal symptoms of CRS were associated with poor asthma control. Therefore, CRS and asthma should be considered and treated as common airway diseases.
The Danger of Forgetting the Social Benefits of Higher Education

One of the main assumptions behind the discourse on the increasing need for more higher education—a discourse that proved to be very effective when one looks at the exponential increase in student numbers during the 2oth century—was that higher education will have strong social benefits. Indeed, some studies show that educated people get higher wages, have better living conditions and better health, and are more open-minded. A key challenge for higher education in the coming decades will be to maintain these beliefs and to convince society that education and training do more than produce human capital—but also have a larger social function and purpose. Knowledge is not only important for its economic value but also for society. Recently, the social contribution of higher education has been ignored or even distained by policymakers, the governments of developed countries, as they stressed the need for more knowledge and innovation in order to promote economic progress. Training more highly qualified workers, able to understand and produce knowledge, was presented as a challenge for countries involved in the global knowledge economy. What was learned at universities was considered to be less important than the job one could obtain at the end of their studies. My point here is not to say that preparing students for the job market is not an important mission for universities, or that transforming research into economic relevance should not be assumed by higher education. Yet, this should not mean the abandonment of other missions and activities, the development of purely instrumental training programs, the end of “blue sky” research, or the end of disciplines that may have no direct economic impact. This challenge is all the more important because obscurantism, ignorance, intolerance, and fanaticism are unfortunately expanding. Recent events in Europe, terrible conflicts in some African and Middle-East countries, and the civil war in Ukraine all prove that higher education institutions still have to promote humanistic values, prepare for citizenship, and to be socially responsible. These missions have never been sufficient to prevent from all misconducts and abuses—some well-trained individuals have in some cases proved to be as fanatic as noneducated ones—but they have nevertheless been largely effective. They, therefore, absolutely must be maintained and even reinforced. This might be a difficult line to hold at a time when higher education policies first of all promote the economic and instrumental roles of universities. However, it is a battle to lead and win in the coming decades, if universities are to remain a place where knowledge and humanistic values are protected and diffused.
Can light make us bright ? Effects of light on cognition sleep

Light elicits robust nonvisual effects on numerous physiological and behavioral variables, such as the human sleep–wake cycle and cognitive performance. Light effects crucially rely on properties such as dose, duration, timing, and wavelength. Recently, the use of methods such as fMRI to assess light effects on nonvisual brain responses has revealed how light can optimize brain function during specific cognitive tasks, especially in tasks of sustained attention. In this chapter, we address two main issues: how light impinges on cognition via consolidation of human sleep–wake cycles; and how light directly impacts on sleep and cognition, in particular, in tasks of sustained attention. A thorough understanding of how light affects sleep and cognitive performance may help to improve light settings at home and at the workplace in order to improve well-being.
Bik 1 , the Yeast Ortholog of the Human Microtubule Binding Protein CLIP-170

Microtubules are long, tubular protein complexes that give structure to the cell. They form a sub-cellular organization called the cytoskeleton which plays a major role both in cell-division and in transporting molecules throughout the cell. Microtubules are able to grow and shrink through a process called dynamic instability [1]. It is written in the literature that a class of molecules called microtubule associated proteins is responsible for regulating microtubule growth and shrinkage rates by affecting the dynamic instability [2]. Bik1 is a yeast microtubule associated protein and is related to, is a homolog of, the mammalian protein CLIP-170. Both of these proteins preferentially associate with the growing end of microtubules, and as such they fall into the class of molecules called plus-end tracking proteins [2]. While the end result is the same in both cases, that Bik1 and CLIP-170 track the growth of the microtubule plus-end, the literature says that the mechanisms by which each of these proteins operate are different [3]. It was the goal of this project to gather data to either verify this hypothesis or to contradict it. This information would then be useful in other areas of research, especially within the lab, such as in computational models of how microtubule associated proteins affect dynamic instability. Additionally, the data collected would help deepen and broaden the general understanding of the mechanisms involved in plus-end tracking by microtubule associated proteins. In order to accomplish the goal of testing the hypothesis that Bik1 and CLIP-170 track the plus-end by different mechanisms I ran a set of experiments to quantitatively determine the strength of the binding reaction between Bik1 and microtubules. These experiments, called cosedimentation assays, had already been done for CLIP-170, and they showed that a direct interaction does exist between that protein and microtubules, and that the bind between them is relatively strong. Thus, if Bik1 behaved similarly in these experiments it would suggest that it may have a similar mechanism, and if not, then it most likely would have a different modus operandi altogether. In the experiment I combined a set amount, expressed as a micromolar concentration, of Bik1 with increasing amounts of microtubules to see whether binding would occur. If Bik1 were to bind the microtubules it would become a part of a heavy complex, and thus it would sediment into the pellet, rather than remaining in the supernatant, after centrifugation of the mixture. This sedimentation …
Modify or die? - RNA modification defects in metazoans

Chemical RNA modifications are present in all kingdoms of life and many of these post-transcriptional modifications are conserved throughout evolution. However, most of the research has been performed on single cell organisms, whereas little is known about how RNA modifications contribute to the development of metazoans. In recent years, the identification of RNA modification genes in genome wide association studies (GWAS) has sparked new interest in previously neglected genes. In this review, we summarize recent findings that connect RNA modification defects and phenotypes in higher eukaryotes. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of aberrant tRNA modification in various human diseases including metabolic defects, mitochondrial dysfunctions, neurological disorders, and cancer. As the molecular mechanisms of these diseases are being elucidated, we will gain first insights into the functions of RNA modifications in higher eukaryotes and finally understand their roles during development.
Perceptual steps along color scales

Color scales are commonly used to represent numerical information visually. Most scales are derived from some physical or mathematical behavior; even worse, sometimes they are selected based solely on hardware capabilities. In most known cases, no consideration is made to the perceptual capabilities of the human observer, who is ultimately the “consumer” of the information to be delivered by the scale. This article presents a method and an algorithm for the derivation of color scales, such that their perceptual properties—in particular, the perceptual steps between colors along the scale—can be controlled by the scale designer. This approach has been used for the design of the linearized gray scale and the linearized optimized color scale (LOCS). These scales are demonstrated and are also compared to the linearized heated‐object scale. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
"Rules vs. Discretion" after Twenty-Five Years

Two models of government policy are presented. In the first the choice of an instrument for conducting monetary policy is analyzed. The ease of observing policy under an exchange-rate regime is shown to confer an advantage on it compared with a regime that targets the money growth rate. In the second a discretionary fiscal regime is compared with one that mandates a simple policy rule restricting capital taxation. The discretionary regime is preferred under a Ramsey government, but the rule confers an advantage if the type of government is uncertain and the probability of a myopic administration is high enough.
Interruption of Transmission of Onchocerca volvulus in the Southern Chiapas Focus, México

Background The Southern Chiapas focus of onchocerciasis in Southern Mexico represents one of the major onchocerciasis foci in Latin America. All 559 endemic communities of this focus have undergone semi-annual mass treatment with ivermectin since 1998. In 50 communities of this focus, ivermectin frequency shifted from twice to four times a year in 2003; an additional 113 communities were added to the quarterly treatment regimen in 2009 to achieve a rapid suppression of transmission. Methodology/Principal findings In-depth epidemiologic and entomologic assessments were performed in six sentinel communities (which had undergone 2 rounds of ivermectin treatment per year) and three extra-sentinel communities (which had undergone 4 rounds of ivermectin treatment per year). None of the 67,924 Simulium ochraceum s.l. collected from this focus during the dry season of 2011 were found to contain parasite DNA when tested by polymerase chain reaction-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (PCR-ELISA), resulting in an upper bound of the 95% confidence interval (95%-ULCI) of the infective rate in the vectors of 0.06/2,000 flies examined. Serological assays testing for Onchocerca volvulus exposure conducted on 4,230 children 5 years of age and under (of a total population of 10,280 in this age group) revealed that 2/4,230 individuals were exposed to O. volvulus (0.05%; one sided 95% confidence interval = 0.08%). Conclusions/Significance The in-depth epidemiological and entomological findings from the Southern Chiapas focus meet the criteria for interruption of transmission developed by the international community.
Why anti-angiogenic treatments fail as mono-therapies ”

Angiogenesis is essential to the development of all clinically significant tumors and has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent years as researchers have sought to develop anti-tumor drugs that target genetically stable stromal cells within tumors. Despite the theoretical advantage of targeting such stable cells, angiogenesis inhibitors have thus far been shown to fail by-in-large as mono-therapies due to inadequate response and succession of resistant tumors. In this proposal I hypothesize that such resistance phenotypes emerge as a result of tumor modulated compensations that activate redundant, parallel, angiogenesis signaling pathways. I set forth herein four specific objectives aimed at testing this hypothesis by fleshing out cellular-level tumor and stromal responses to angiogenesis inhibitor mono-therapies and generating a comprehensive model of tumor-specific angiogenesis signaling pathways. With my latter two aims I propose to evaluate these nascent models by testing their ability to guide clinical reasoning in the approach to delivering angiogenesis-targeting therapeutics. Hypothesis Extensive redundancy and cross-communication exists in anti-and pro-angiogenic signaling. This gives rise to a complex combinatorial system of angiogenic signaling. This system is driven out of its normal homeostatic balance in favor of pro-angiogenesis in the context of a growing solid tumor. This results in the hasty formation of tortuous, leaky vessels that characterize solid tumor vasculature and elevation of tumor interstitial fluid pressures, ultimately compromising perfusion of the tumor and limiting " Why anti-angiogenic treatments fail as mono-therapies " Zachary S. Morris delivery of chemotherapeutics and oxygen necessary for radiation treatments. On account of the redundancy in angiogenic signaling, anti-angiogenic mono-therapies are not capable of swaying the balance of this signaling back from a pathological pro-angiogenic state, through a normal homeostatic window, and into an anti-angiogenic state – as would be necessary to yield tumor regression. Rather, anti-angiogenic mono-therapies are at best capable of transitioning most tumor endothelial microenvironments from a pathological pro-angiogenic state back into a homeostatic window of balanced pro-and anti-angiogenic signaling. When this occurs it results in a clinically observed pruning and normalization of tumor vasculature that improves tumor perfusion but typically does not go so far as to eliminate tumor vasculature and elicit an observable decrease in tumor size (Jain, 1989; Jain 2005). This vascular normalizing response is transient and " resistance " is eventually observed as tumors adapt to exploit alternative pro-angiogenic pathways not targeted by a given mono-therapy. As a consequence of this hypothetical model, one can surmise that …
Materials and Methods Som Text Figs. S1 to S6 References and Notes Movies S1 to S3 Noise Propagation in Gene Networks

intrinsic noise (16) decays rapidly: t intrinsic G 10 min ¡ t corr (Fig. 4E). Thus, the observed slow fluctuations do not result from intrinsic noise; they represent noise extrinsic to CFP expression (see supporting online text). The concentration of a stable cellular factor would be expected to fluctuate with a time scale of the cell cycle period (7, 10). For instance, even though intrinsic fluctuations in production rates are fast, the difference between the total amounts of YFP and CFP in the symmetric branch experiments has an auto-correlation time of t total 0 45 T 5 min (16). A similar time scale may well apply to other stable cellular components such as ribosomes, metabolic apparatus, and sigma factors. As such components affect their own expression as well as that of our test genes, extrinsic noise may be self-perpetuating. These data indicate that the single-cell GRF cannot be represented by a single-valued function. Slow extrinsic fluctuations give the cell and the genetic circuits it comprises a memory, or individuality (29), lasting roughly one cell cycle. These fluctuations are substantial in amplitude and slow in time scale. They present difficulty for modeling genetic circuits and, potentially, for the cell itself: In order to accurately process an intracellular signal, a cell would have to average its response for well over a cell cycle—a long time in many biological situations. This problem is not due to intrinsic noise in the output, noise that fluctuates rapidly, but rather to the aggregate effect of fluctuations in other cellular components. There is thus a fundamental tradeoff between accuracy and speed in purely transcriptional responses. Accurate cellular responses on faster time scales are likely to require feedback from their output (1, 4, 6, 10, 30). These data provide an integrated, quantitative characterization of a genetic element at the single-cell level: its biochemical parameters, together with the amplitude and time scale of its fluctuations. Such systems-level specifications are necessary both for modeling natural genetic circuits and for building synthetic ones. The methods introduced here can be generalized to more complex genetic networks, as well as to eukaryotic organisms (18). Accurately predicting noise propagation in gene networks is crucial for understanding signal fidelity in natural networks and designing noise-tolerant gene circuits. To quantify how noise propagates through gene networks, we measured expression correlations between genes in single cells. We found that noise in a gene was determined by its …
Using AI Planning to Enhance E-Learning Processes

This work describes an approach that automatically extracts standard metadata information from e-learning contents, combines it with the student preferences/goals and creates PDDL planning domains+problems.These PDDL problems can be solved by current planners, although we motivate the use and benefits of case-based planning techniques, to obtain fully tailored learning routes that significantly enhance the learning process. During the execution of a given route, a monitoring phase is used to detect discrepancies, i.e. flaws that prevent the student from continuing with the original plan. In such a situation, an adaptation mechanism becomes necessary to fix the flaws, while also trying to minimise the differences between the original and the new route. We have integrated this approach on top of Moodle and experimented with 100 benchmark problems to evaluate the quality, scalability and viability of the system.
Spite and the scale of competition

In recent years there has been a large body of theoretical work examining how local competition can reduce and even remove selection for altruism between relatives. However, it is less well appreciated that local competition favours selection for spite, the relatively neglected ugly sister of altruism. Here, we use extensions of social evolution theory that were formulated to deal with the consequences for altruism of competition between social partners, to illustrate several points on the evolution of spite. Specifically, we show that: (i) the conditions for the evolution of spite are less restrictive than previously assumed; (ii) previous models which have demonstrated selection for spite often implicitly assumed local competition; (iii) the scale of competition must be allowed for when distinguishing different forms of spite (Hamiltonian vs. Wilsonian); (iv) local competition can enhance the spread of spiteful greenbeards; and (v) the theory makes testable predictions for how the extent of spite should vary dependent upon population structure and average relatedness.
Enabling Open Innovation in Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: How to Find Alternative Applications for Your Technologies

A critical success factor in the practice of Open Innovation is the timely identification of opportunities for out-licensing a firm's technologies outside its core business. This can be particularly challenging for small- and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs), because of their focussed business portfolio, specialized knowledge basis, and limited financial resources that can be devoted to innovation activities. The paper illustrates a quick and easy-to-use methodology for the identification of viable opportunities for out-licensing a firm's technologies outside its core business. The method uses established TRIZ instruments in combination with non-financial weighting and ranking techniques and portfolio management tools. It has been developed by the authors in collaboration with an Italian SME working in the packaging industry.
MCEP

With the proliferation of mobile devices and sensors, complex event proceesing (CEP) is becoming increasingly important to scalably detect situations in real time. Current CEP systems are not capable of dealing efficiently with highly dynamic mobile consumers whose interests change with their location. We introduce the distributed mobile CEP (MCEP) system which automatically adapts the processing of events according to a consumer's location. MCEP significantly reduces latency, network utilization, and processing overhead by providing on-demand and opportunistic adaptation algorithms to dynamically assign event streams and computing resources to operators of the MCEP system.
DNA alkylation in mice with genetically different susceptibility to 1,2-dimethylhydrazine-induced colon carcinogenesis.

The formation and persistence of methylated purines was determined in mice that received a single s.c. injection of 1,2-[14C]dimethylhydrazine (15 mg/kg) and were allowed to survive for 12 or 60 hr. In mice with a low susceptibility to dimethylhydrazine-induced colon carcinogenesis (C57BL/Ha), concentrations of 7-methylguanine and O6-methylguanine in DNA of colon, ileum, and kidney were 40 to 60% less than in mice with a high incidence of colonic tumors (ICR/Ha). In hepatic DNA the extent of methylation was higher in C57BL/Ha than in ICR/Ha mice. The rate of loss of methylated purines from colon DNA was similar in both strains. In all organs investigated the metabolic incorporation of 14C into normal DNA bases was lower in C57BL/Ha than in ICR/Ha mice. It is concluded that the low carcinogenic response of C57BL/Ha mice is due to the smaller extent of initial alkylation of colon DNA, which probably reflects differences in the enzymic metabolism of the parent carcinogen.