Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ascorbate attenuates pulmonary emphysema by inhibiting tobacco smoke and Rtp801-triggered lung protein modification and proteolysis

Significance Tobacco smoking causes emphysema, a fatal disease involving extensive structural damage of the lung. Besides directly oxidizing lung proteins, tobacco smoke activates Rtp801, a proinflammatory cellular factor that induces overproduction of NO by inducible NOS and consequent lung protein nitration and damage. Such oxidized or nitrated lung proteins become susceptible to breakdown by lung proteases causing emphysema. On interacting with the antioxidant vitamin C, tobacco smoke loses its ability to cause lung protein oxidation or damage, indicating that its oxidant(s) are primarily responsible for triggering lung injury. Vitamin C provides comprehensive protection against tobacco smoke-induced emphysema by attenuating direct damage of the lung by its oxidant(s) and their ability to activate cellular damage machineries including Rtp801 and lung proteases. Cigarette smoking causes emphysema, a fatal disease involving extensive structural and functional damage of the lung. Using a guinea pig model and human lung cells, we show that oxidant(s) present in tobacco smoke not only cause direct oxidative damage of lung proteins, contributing to the major share of lung injury, but also activate Rtp801, a key proinflammatory cellular factor involved in tobacco smoke-induced lung damage. Rtp801 triggers nuclear factor κB and consequent inducible NOS (iNOS)-mediated overproduction of NO, which in combination with excess superoxide produced during Rtp801 activation, contribute to increased oxido-nitrosative stress and lung protein nitration. However, lung-specific inhibition of iNOS with a iNOS-specific inhibitor, N6-(1-iminoethyl)-L-lysine, dihydrochloride (L-NIL) solely restricts lung protein nitration but fails to prevent or reverse the major tobacco smoke-induced oxidative lung injury. In comparison, the dietary antioxidant, ascorbate or vitamin C, can substantially prevent such damage by inhibiting both tobacco smoke-induced lung protein oxidation as well as activation of pulmonary Rtp801 and consequent iNOS/NO-induced nitration of lung proteins, that otherwise lead to increased proteolysis of such oxidized or nitrated proteins by endogenous lung proteases, resulting in emphysematous lung damage. Vitamin C also restricts the up-regulation of matrix-metalloproteinase-9, the major lung protease involved in the proteolysis of such modified lung proteins during tobacco smoke-induced emphysema. Overall, our findings implicate tobacco-smoke oxidant(s) as the primary etiopathogenic factor behind both the noncellular and cellular damage mechanisms governing emphysematous lung injury and demonstrate the potential of vitamin C to accomplish holistic prevention of such damage.
Hydroxyethyl Starch (130 kD), but Not Crystalloid Volume Support, Improves Microcirculation during Normotensive Endotoxemia

Background Increased leukocyte–endothelial cell interaction (LE) and deterioration of capillary perfusion represent key mechanisms of septic organ dysfunction. The type of volume support, however, which may be used during septic disorders, remains controversial. Using intravital microscopy, the authors studied the effect of different regimens of clinically relevant volume support on endotoxin-induced microcirculatory disorders, including the synthetic colloid hydroxyethyl starch (HES, 130 kD) and a crystalloid regimen with isotonic saline solution (NaCl). Methods In Syrian Golden hamsters, normotensive endotoxemia was induced by intravenous application of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 2 mg/kg). The microcirculation was analyzed in striated muscle of skinfold preparations. HES 130 kD (Voluven®, 16 ml/kg, n = 7) or isotonic saline (NaCl, 66 ml/kg, n = 6) were infused 3 h after LPS exposure over a 1-h period (posttreatment mode). Animals receiving LPS without volume therapy served as control subjects (n = 8, control). LE, functional capillary density (FCD), and macromolecular leakage were repeatedly analyzed in the awake animals during a 24-h period using intravital fluorescence microscopy. Results HES 130 kD significantly reduced LPS-induced arteriolar and venular leukocyte adherence (P < 0.05), whereas NaCl resuscitation had no effect when compared with nontreated control animals. The LPS-induced decrease in FCD and increase in macromolecular leakage were also significantly attenuated by HES 130 kD but not by NaCl. Improvement of LPS-induced microcirculatory disorders by HES was unlikely the result of macro- and microhemodynamic changes because arterial blood pressure, heart rate, and venular wall shear rate did not differ between HES- and NaCl-treated animals. Conclusions Thus, our study provides microhemodynamic and cellular mechanisms of HES 130 kD-mediated protection on microcirculation during endotoxemia, even when used in a clinically relevant posttreatment mode during normotensive conditions.
RIF: A forwarding strategy for named data delay tolerant networking

Efficient content retrieval is crucial for Named Data Delay Tolerant Networking (NDDTN). Previous studies have shown that using social properties reasonably can improve availability of forwarding data packets, reduce overhead and delay. In this paper, a forwarding strategy, called RIF based on Region of Interest (ROI), is proposed and put forward for NDDTN. RIF computes cumulative visiting time and visits for getting the similarity of two nodes. Especially, RIF introduces the geographical adjacency degree of ROIs. RIF selects relay nodes according to similarity and adjacency degree of ROI sets of two nodes. This paper uses real mobility traces to evaluate RIF, and simulation results indicate that compared with PLBR, RIF improves the delivery ratio by 7 percent, and has lower delay.
Basal and Regulatory Promoter Studies of the AKR1C3 Gene in Relation to Prostate Cancer

Background: Human 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 5 (17β-HSD5) formally known as aldo-keto reductase 1C3 (AKR1C3) play a major role in the formation and metabolism of androgens. The enzyme is highly expressed in the prostate gland and previous studies indicate that genetic variation in the AKR1C3 gene may influence the prostate volume and risk of prostate cancer. Aim: Here we aimed to further study the genetic regulation of AKR1C3 and its putative role in prostate cancer. Experiments: A previously identified promoter polymorphism (A>G, rs3763676) localized at −138 from the translational start site were studied in relation to prostate cancer in a Swedish population based case–control study including 176 patients diagnosed with prostate cancer and 161 controls. Moreover, we have studied the basal and androgen induced promoter activity of the AKR1C3 gene. Expression studies with AKR1C3 promoter reporter constructs were performed in HepG2 and DSL2 cells. Results: We found that carriers of the promoter A-allele had a borderline significant decreased risk of prostate cancer (OR = 0.59; 95% CI = 0.32–1.08). We also show that dihydrotestosterone (DHT) induced the promoter activity of the A-allele 2.2-fold (p = 0.048). Sp3 seem to play an important role in regulating the transcription activity of AKR1C3 and site-directed mutagenesis of a GC-box 78 base-pair upstream the ATG-site significantly inhibited the basal AKR1C3 promoter activity by 70%. Conclusion: These results further supports previous findings that the A>G promoter polymorphism may be functional and that AKR1C3 plays a critical role in prostate carcinogenesis. Our findings also show that the members of Sp family of transcription factors are important for the constitutive expression of AKR1C3 gene.
Points, walls, and loops in resonant oscillatory media.

In an experiment of oscillatory media, domains and walls are formed under the parametric resonance with a frequency double the natural one. In this bi-stable system, %phase jumps $\pi$ by crossing walls. a nonequilibrium transition from Ising wall to Bloch wall consistent with prediction is confirmed experimentally. The Bloch wall moves in the direction determined by its chirality with a constant speed. As a new type of moving structure in two-dimension, a traveling loop consisting of two walls and Neel points is observed.
A Two‐Sample Comparison for Multiple Ordered Event Data

Summary. A longitudinal study is conducted to compare the process of a particular disease between two groups. The process of the disease is monitored according to which of several ordered events occur. In the paper, the sojourn time between two successive events is considered as the outcome of interest. The group effects on the sojourn times of the multiple events are parameterized by scale changes in a semiparametric accelerated failure time model where the dependence structure among the multivariate sojourn times is unspecified. Suppose that the sojourn times are subject to dependent censoring and the censoring times are observed for all subjects. A log‐rank‐type estimating approach by rescaling the sojourn times and the dependent censoring times into the same distribution is constructed to estimate the group effects and the corresponding estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal. Without the dependent censoring, the independent censoring times in general are not available for the uncensored data. In order to complete the censoring information, pseudo‐censoring times are generated from the corresponding nonparametrically estimated survival function in each group, and we can still obtained unbiased estimating functions for the group effects. A real application and a simulation study are conducted to illustrate the proposed methods.
Seizures in Series: Similarities Between Seizures of the West and Lennox‐Gastaut Syndromes

Summary: We observed seizures resembling infantile spasms in patients with Lennox‐Gastaut syndrome (LGS). Infantile spasms, the type of seizures that occurs in patients who have West syndrome, have been well characterized by video‐EEG studies and typically occur as a series of sudden generalized flexor or extensor jerks. The seizure types that occur in LGS have not been as clearly delineated. Some patients with West syndrome (WS) in early infancy later develop LGS. Using intensive video‐EEG monitoring, we evaluated 14 LGS patients who had seizures that occurred in series. Clinically the seizures greatly resembled infantile spasms, and the ictal EEG changes were identical to those that occur with infantile spasms. These findings expand the number of features known to be shared by these two syndromes and strengthen the hypothesis that the two syndromes represent age‐related manifestations of similar epileptogenic processes.
Unconstrained recursive importance sampling

We propose an unconstrained stochastic approximation method of finding the optimal measure change (in an a priori parametric family) for Monte Carlo simulations. We consider different parametric families based on the Girsanov theorem and the Esscher transform (or exponential-tilting). In a multidimensional Gaussian framework, Arouna uses a projected Robbins-Monro procedure to select the parameter minimizing the variance. In our approach, the parameter (scalar or process) is selected by a classical Robbins-Monro procedure without projection or truncation. To obtain this unconstrained algorithm we intensively use the regularity of the density of the law without assume smoothness of the payoff. We prove the convergence for a large class of multidimensional distributions and diffusion processes. We illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm via pricing a Basket payoff under a multidimensional NIG distribution, and pricing a barrier options in different markets.
UK guidelines on the management of variceal haemorrhage in cirrhotic patients

These updated guidelines on the management of variceal haemorrhage have been commissioned by the Clinical Services and Standards Committee (CSSC) of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) under the auspices of the liver section of the BSG. The original guidelines which this document supersedes were written in 2000 and have undergone extensive revision by 13 members of the Guidelines Development Group (GDG). The GDG comprises elected members of the BSG liver section, representation from British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL) and Liver QuEST, a nursing representative and a patient representative. The quality of evidence and grading of recommendations was appraised using the AGREE II tool. The nature of variceal haemorrhage in cirrhotic patients with its complex range of complications makes rigid guidelines inappropriate. These guidelines deal specifically with the management of varices in patients with cirrhosis under the following subheadings: (1) primary prophylaxis; (2) acute variceal haemorrhage; (3) secondary prophylaxis of variceal haemorrhage; and (4) gastric varices. They are not designed to deal with (1) the management of the underlying liver disease; (2) the management of variceal haemorrhage in children; or (3) variceal haemorrhage from other aetiological conditions.
A simple and efficient way to store many messages using neural cliques

Associative memories are devices that are able to learn messages and to recall them in presence of errors or erasures. Their mechanics is similar to that of error correcting decoders. However, the role of correlation is opposed in the two devices, used as the essence of the retrieval process in the first one and avoided in the latter. In this paper, original codes are introduced to allow the effective combination of the two domains. The main idea is to associate a clique in a binary neural network with each message to learn. The obtained performance is dramatically better than that given by the state of the art, for instance Hopfield Neural Networks. Moreover, the model proposed is biologically plausible; it uses sparse binary connections between clusters of neurons provided with only two operations: sum and selection of maximum.
Ontology-Based Categorization of Web Search Results Using YAGO

One of the major limitations of current search engines is that users could not quickly locate what they want if the input query is too general. Some existing techniques try to cluster web search results into groups so as to user’s quick browsing. In this paper, we present a new approach to categorize the web search results by using YAGO ontology. It utilizes the YAGO ontology to automatically generate categories for the user's specific query and classify the search results into appropriate categories. Our experimental results indicate that our method is feasible and effectiveness.
Chronic in ﬂ ammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy: from pathology to phenotype

Chronic in ﬂ ammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is an in ﬂ ammatory neuropathy, classically characterised by a slowly progressive onset and symmetrical, sensorimotor involvement. However, there are many phenotypic variants, suggesting that CIDP may not be a discrete disease entity but rather a spectrum of related conditions. While the abiding theory of CIDP pathogenesis is that cell-mediated and humoral mechanisms act together in an aberrant immune response to cause damage to peripheral nerves, the relative contributions of T cell and autoantibody responses remain largely unde ﬁ ned. In animal models of spontaneous in ﬂ ammatory neuropathy, T cell responses to de ﬁ ned myelin antigens are responsible. In other human in ﬂ ammatory neuropathies, there is evidence of antibody responses to Schwann cell, compact myelin or nodal antigens. In this review, the roles of the cellular and humoral immune systems in the pathogenesis of CIDP will be discussed. In time, it is anticipated that delineation of clinical phenotypes and the underlying disease mechanisms might help guide diagnostic and individualised treatment strategies for CIDP.
[The relationship between the five beta-fibrinogen gene polymorphisms and cerebral infarction].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship among beta-fibrinogen (Fg) concentration, related gene polymorphisms (including -148C/T, -249C/T, -455G/A, 448G/A, 1689T/G) and cerebral infarction. METHODS Fg level and its five gene polymorphisms were analyzed with by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism in 132 patients with cerebral infarction, 79 patients with other neurological diseases and 92 healthy elders. RESULTS The plasma Fg level in cerebral infarction patients was significantly higher than that in the patients with other neurological diseases or healthy elders (P < 0.05). In the three groups, the plasma Fg levels in individuals with T-148 and A-455 alleles were higher than those in individuals without T-148 and A-455 alleles (P < 0.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences in the genotype and allele frequencies in the five mutation gene polymorphisms among the three groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Cerebral infarction is a multifactorial disease and an increased Fg level is a risk factor for cerebral infarction. T-148 and A-455 allele can lead to elevated Fg concentration.
Rolling tachyons and decaying branes

We present new rolling tachyon solutions describing the classical decay of D- branes. Our methods are simpler than those appearing in recent works, yet our results are exact in classical string theory. The role of pressure in the decay is studied using tachyon proflles with spatial variation. In this case the flnal state involves an array of codimension one D-branes rather than static, pressureless tachyon matter.
Tertiary amine derivatives of chlorochalcone as acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and buthylcholinesterase (BuChE) inhibitors: the influence of chlorine, alkyl amine side chain and α,β-unsaturated ketone group

Abstract A new series of tertiary amine derivatives of chlorochalcone (4a∼4l) were designed, synthesized and evaluated for the effect on acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and buthylcholinesterase (BuChE). The results indicated that all compounds revealed moderate or potent inhibitory activity against AChE, and some possessed high selectivity for AChE over BuChE. The structure–activity investigation showed that the substituted position of chlorine significantly influenced the activity and selectivity. The alteration of tertiary amine group also leads to obvious change in bioactivity. Among them, IC50 of compound 4l against AChE was 0.17 ± 0.06 µmol/L, and the selectivity was 667.2 fold for AChE over BuChE. Molecular docking and enzyme kinetic study on compound 4l suggested that it simultaneously binds to the catalytic active site (CAS) and peripheral anionic site (PAS) of AChE. Further study showed that the pyrazoline derivatives synthesized from chlorochalcones had weaker activity and lower selectivity in inhibiting AChE compared to that of chlorochalcone derivatives.
Cancer risks in chemical production workers exposed to 2-mercaptobenzothiazole

Objectives: To investigate cancer risks in chemical production workers exposed to 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT). Methods: The mortality (1955–2005) and cancer morbidity experience (1971–2005) of a cohort of 363 male production workers exposed to MBT while employed at a chemical factory in north Wales were investigated. Two analytical approaches were used, indirect standardisation and Poisson regression. Results: Based on national mortality rates, significant excess mortality was found for cancers of the large intestine (observed; Obs 8, standardised mortality ratio (SMR) 232, 95% CI 100 to 457) and bladder (Obs 8, SMR 374, 95% CI 162 to 737). Non-significant excesses were shown for lung cancer (Obs 27, SMR 138, 95% CI 91 to 201) and multiple myeloma (Obs 3, SMR 440, 95% CI 91 to 1287). Based on national cancer incidence rates, significant excess morbidity was found for cancer of the bladder (Obs 12, standardised registration ratio (SRR) 253, 95% CI 131 to 441) and multiple myeloma (Obs 4, SRR 465, 95% CI 127 to 1191). Non-significant excesses were shown for cancers of the large intestine (Obs 9, SRR 181, 95% CI 83 to 344) and lung (Obs 26, SRR 152, 95% CI 99 to 223). In analyses that included follow-up information on an additional 1797 plant employees not exposed to MBT, Poisson regression showed significant positive trends both for risks of cancer of the large intestine and for risks of multiple myeloma in relation to estimated cumulative exposure to MBT. Conclusions: MBT may be a human carcinogen; confident evaluation awaits findings from other studies.
Visual Tracking using Corner based Centrist Descriptor with a Robust Localization Algorithm

In this paper an algorithm for object tracking in the visual domain based on a novel localization method is proposed. First a part of the search area, preferably the interest points is chosen. The proposed approach drastically speeds up the process of tracking, meanwhile the intensity histogram and Centrist descriptor which is known for good coding capability of small patches of an image will be used for target’s description. In order to increase the accuracy of the descriptor, this descriptor is applied to small blocks of image to encode most of the image around the target’s interest points. By providing the description of object’s interest points, a 1-NN classifier is used to distinguish the corresponding target’s interest points in each frame. Given the matched corresponding interest points, a convolution problem is formulated to detect the center of the target. Experiments on a challenging dataset against several state-of-theart methods demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
FollowMe: on research of pluggable infrastructure for context-awareness

Pervasive computing is to enhance the environment by embedding many computers that are gracefully integrated with human users. To achieve this, the key research thrust is to create a smart context-awareness environment which should enclose various users and satisfy different needs of the users. Building such smart environments is still difficult and complex due to lacking a uniform infrastructure that can adapt to diverse smart domains. To address this problem, we propose a context-aware computing infrastructure, called FollowMe. Our infrastructure integrates an ontology based context model and a workflow based application model with the OSGi framework. By plugging different domain contexts and applications, FollowMe can be customized to various domains.
Interventional Neuroradiology on Call: The Need for Emergency Coiling of Ruptured Intracranial Aneurysms

Subarachnoid hemorrhage is a serious disease with a case fatality of approximately 50%. Aneurysms are the cause of SAH in 85% of cases. Rebleeding is the most imminent concern; therefore, the first aim is occlusion of the ruptured aneurysm. [1][1] In our institution with 150–200 SAHs annually, 3
Face recognition algorithm and application developed for humanoid robot

A face recognition system based on humanoid robot is discussed and implemented in this paper; the structure and hardware features of humanoid robot NAO are analyzed, and the meaning and method of achieving face recognition system are discussed; a humanoid robot is a copy of human by science and technology, whose visual system is just like human's eyes, certainly, therefore, recognition is a primary task and it's significant to achieve the task with face recognition; then, the algorithm and software structure of face recognition is investigated; finally, based on these, face recognition system based on humanoid robot is accomplished. Experimental results show that the system is feasible.