Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prolactin induces up-regulation of its cognate receptor in breast cancer cells via transcriptional activation of its generic promoter by cross-talk between ERα and STAT5

Prolactin (PRL) serves a critical role in breast cancer progression via activation of its cognate receptor. These studies reveal up-regulation of PRLR gene expression by PRL in absence of estradiol in MCF-7 and T47D breast cancer cells. PRL/PRLR via activation of STAT5 that binds a GAS-element in the PRLR gene and the participation of ERα stimulates PRLR transcription/expression. PRL/PRLR induces phosphorylation of ERα through the JAK2/PI3K/MAPK/ERK and JAK2/HER2 activated pathways. The increased recruitment of phospho-ERα, induced by PRL to Sp1 and C/EBPβ at PRLR promoter sites, is essential for PRL-induced PRLR transcription. This recruitment is prevented by blockade of PRL expression using RNA interference or ERα phosphorylation with specific inhibitors of PI3K and ERK. Direct evidence is provided for local actions of PRL, independent of estradiol, in the up-regulation of PRLR transcription/expression by an activation-loop between STAT5 and the phospho-ERα/Sp1/C/EBPβ complex with requisite participation of signaling mechanisms. PRL's central role in the up-regulation of PRLR maximizes the action of the endogenous hormone. This study offers mechanistically rational basis for invasiveness fueled by prolactin in refractory states to adjuvant therapies in breast cancer.
From Process Variations to Reliability: A Survey of Timing of Digital Circuits in the Nanometer Era

: In advanced technology nodes, transistors and interconnects with shrinking physical dimensions su ﬀ er large process variations during manufacturing and are prone to reliability issues. These underlying changes require an overhaul of the design methodologies for digital circuits. In this paper, we provide an overview of techniques introduced recently to analyze the e ﬀ ect of uncertainty in manufacturing and reliability issues of devices due to the diminishing feature size. These techniques range from variation / aging modeling to circuit-level analysis. In addition, active techniques to counter these e ﬀ ects, such as clock skew tuning and voltage tuning are also covered in this paper.
Comparative Assay of 2D and 3D Cell Culture Models: Proliferation, Gene Expression and Anticancer Drug Response.

BACKGROUND In vitro tests allow establishing experimental variables. However, in vitro results cannot be extrapolated to in vivo tests. Considering that three-dimensional (3D) culture has been one of the best ways to portray the in vivo system of most cell types, it is possible to carry out assays with a great clinical relevance for the analysis of the screening, action and resistance of antitumor drugs. OBJECTIVE Thus, the objective of the present study was to compare between 2D and 3D cell culture forms to conclude which is the most suitable model for preclinical in vitro drug testing. METHOD We evaluated the proliferation, genetic expression and chemoresistance of prostate tumor cell lines, PC- 3, LNCaP and DU145. Prostate tumor cell lines PC-3, LNCaP and DU145 were treated with the antineoplastic drugs paclitaxel and docetaxel and evaluated with cytotoxicity, cell proliferation and gene expression assays in 2D and magnetic 3D bioprinting cultures. RESULTS Lower cell proliferation rate, more resistance to paclitaxel and docetaxel and altered gene expression profile was shown in 3D cell culture comparing with its 2D counterpart. CONCLUSION 3D cell culture exhibited a more similar behavior to in vivo systems, being a promising and more reliable tool for the development of new drugs.
Ultrasonic Signal Processing for Structural Damage Detection and Quantification

Copyright Notice iv To my parents and to my wife Yang and my daughter Grace for their love, support, encouragement, and inspiration v Acknowledgements I would never have been able to finish my dissertation, reach the heights or explore the breadths of knowledge without the guidance of my committee members, the discussions with my collaborators and colleagues, the support from my family and my wife, and the help from many other people. I would like to thank each member of my committee, Dr. for their guidance. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Oppenheim. Thank you for your excellent guidance, encouragement, patience, and providing me with an excellent atmosphere for doing research. Thank you for teaching me how to write an academic paper, how to present my research work, and how to be excellent on many other things. I would like to thank Dr. Greve who has been providing me the greatest insights into my research questions and giving me direct advice on software and hardware issues related to ultrasonic devices. I would like to thank Dr. Junker for guiding me through many difficult problems in my research work using his expertise in the field of ultrasound and his rich working experience in the field of ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation. I would like to thank Dr. Berges and Dr. Harley for providing me great research ideas, teaching me signal processing and machine learning, and giving me advice on many other problems. others for the great support and numerous help in the past years. I would like to thank Dr. Mark Patton at MEP Ltd who had directed me through the experimental work on concrete. His strong expertise on concrete problems had helped me a lot. I would like to thank ç and my collaborators there including Jack Lareau, Mike Burke, and Tom Nenno for their testing devices, advice, and practical knowledge. I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Hay at TechKnowServ Corp for providing me with the frac iron specimens and his great insights and help on my research work. I would also like to thank Dr. Christoph Hurley at NobelClad for his great insights on my research studies on clad steel although this topic is outside the scope of this dissertation. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate student collaborators, It has been an honor for me to work with such smart and …
Electrocardiographic P-wave delineation based on adaptive slope Gaussian detection

The study of the P-wave on the electrocardiogram is essential in the characterization of atrial conduction defects that may anticipate cardiac pathologies, such as atrial fibrillation. This evidence exhibits the need to develop reliable methods for accurate automatic delineation of P-waves. Many different strategies for delineating P-waves have been introduced. Nonetheless, they all share the same principle of smoothing aggressively the P-wave pattern to facilitate its delineation. However, that strategy may provoke morphological alterations in the P-wave under study that could lead to inaccurate delineation. Alternatively, the present work introduces a new delineation strategy grounded on the generation of a Gaussian model of the P-wave under study to assist its delineation and an adaptive slope threshold that takes into account the morphology of the preceding P-waves. The method was validated using the annotated QT database from Physionet. Delineation results provided a detection sensitivity of 100%, whereas the mean and standard deviation of the delineation error for the P-wave onset, peak and offset were 4.71 ± 9.59 ms, 2.82 ± 6.69 ms and 0.6 ± 9.79 ms, respectively. These results demonstrate that the proposed strategy provides accurate delineation of P-waves that outperforms others presented in the literature, in particular in terms of stability.
Activation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) induced angiogenesis under influence of low level laser radiation in vitro

One of the feasible explanations for long-term treatment effects of laser therapy of diseases connected with tissue ischemia and altered blood circulation is activation of angiogenesis after low level laser irradiation. The aim of the current study was to investigate if laser irradiation can enhance vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF) induced angiogenesis in vitro. The study was conducted on rat thoracic aortal rings. Samples of group 1 served as control, samples of groups 2 and 3 were incubated with VEGF or FGF, group 4 samples were irradiated with laser (660 nm, 20 mW) during 10 min, samples of groups 5 and 6 were incubated with VEGF or FGF accordingly and received 10 min of laser irradiation. In the control group no noticeable angiogenesis occurred. The application of VEGF activated angiogenesis: the area covered by new vessels was 1,3±0,24 mm and the maximal length of vessels was 0,93±0,11 mm. Laser light irradiation (group 4) activated angiogenesis (1,9±0,29 mm 2 and 0,75±0,10 mm). The combined influence of laser light and VEGF on angiogenesis (group 5) was significantly stronger (p <0,001), than each of the factors separately (6,98±0,88 mm 2 and 1,7±0,23 mm). Application of FGF also activated angiogenesis: the area covered by new vessels was 2,76±0,22 mm 2 and the maximal length of vessels was 1,19±0,12 mm. Combined influence of laser light and FGF on angiogenesis (group 6) was again significantly stronger (p <0,001), than each of the factors separately (5,43±0,28 mm 2 and 1,99±0,10 mm). Studies show that laser irradiation can intensify effects of growth factors in vitro.
RNA capping by mitochondrial and multi-subunit RNA polymerases

ABSTRACT Recently, it was found that bacterial and eukaryotic transcripts are capped with cellular cofactors installed by their respective RNA polymerases (RNAPs) during transcription initiation. We now show that mitochondrial RNAP efficiently caps transcripts with ADP – containing cofactors. However, a functional role of universal RNAP – catalysed capping is not yet clear.
Classification of ECG recordings with neural networks based on specific morphological features and regularity of the signal

The problem of detecting and analysing various kinds of pathologies in ECG signals has been profoundly researched in last years, but there is still no satisfying solution to distinguish such signals from normal or too noisy recordings. Our approach to solve this problem is based on analysis of ECG signals in time and frequency domain. It combines machine learning (neural networks, bagged trees) with standard methods of classification of cardiac arrhythmias and other pathologies, from which the features for the network are determined. We want to underline that all of the features used in classifying algorithm are based on signals morphology and other physiologically reasonable factors. We concentrate mostly on features resulting from comparison of QRS complex shapes and regularity of RR intervals. In presented approach, we decided not to feed the network with many random features, but to focus only on those adequate for ECG signal analysis (in other words, only those that can be easily understood by the physician).
Effects of Acetone Fraction From Buchenavia tomentosa Aqueous Extract and Gallic Acid on Candida albicans Biofilms and Virulence Factors

A promising anti-Candida activity of Buchenavia tomentosa extracts was recently described. In the present work, experiments were carried out to determine the fraction with higher antifungal activity from a B. tomentosa extract. Acetone fraction (AF) was obtained from the aqueous extract from dried leaves (5 min/100°C) and it was the most effective one. Gallic acid (GA) was identified by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI–MS) and also chosen to perform antifungal tests due to its promising activity on Candida albicans. Minimal inhibitory and fungicidal concentrations (MIC and MFC) were determined by broth microdilution technique. The effect on virulence factors of C. albicans was evaluated, and the cytotoxicity was determined. MIC50 and MIC90 values were both equal to 0.625 mg ml-1 for AF and 2.5 and 5 mg ml-1, respectively, for GA. AF and GA showed ability to inhibit C. albicans adherence and to disrupt 48 h-biofilm. AF and GA were effective in reducing the formation of hyphae of C. albicans SC5314. AF and GA decreased adherence of C. albicans to oral epithelial cells. AF and GA showed slight to moderate toxicity to Vero cells. This result suggests further studies for topic use of these compounds. AF, which contains a combination of several molecules, presented greater potential of antimicrobial activity than GA, with lower values of MIC and lower cytoxicity.
New theoretical methodology for elucidating the solution structure of peptides from NMR data. 1. The relative contribution of low-energy microstates to the partition function

A new theoretical methodology is developed for treating ensembles of interconverting conformations which is based on purely thermodynamic grounds. The peptide is described by a potential energy function, and its conformational space is viewed as a collection of microstates, which are local conformational regions around energy minima. The overall methodology enables one to identify the thermodynamically most stable microstates, determine their populations, calculate the individual microstate nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectra (NOEs) and obtain the overall NOEs as averages over the individual contributions, weighted by the microstate populations. This paper develops theoretical methods for calculating the relative contribution of microstates to the partition function, as their minimum energy is increased above the global energy minimum. 47 refs., 1 fig., 4 tabs.
STUDY OF EFFECT OF COOLING RATE ON MECHANICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF CAST Al-6.5Cu ALUMINUM ALLOY

Solidification time is known to have a large effect on the microstructure of cast Aluminium alloys and hence its properties. This study is conducted to quantify how the mechanical properties of Al-6.5 Cu alloy vary with respect to the solidification time. The solidification time is varied by varying the diameter of the cast rod; this is based on the Chvorinov’s rule which gives a relation between solidification time and surface area, volume of the specimen. Mechanical properties such as Ultimate Tensile Strength, Micro- hardness are observed by experimentation and change in microstructure for all the different specimens are also studied and inferred. It is observed that as the solidification time increases, the mechanical properties tend to decrease. Further the coefficient of friction is independent of the hardness and weight loss is dependent on hardness of the alloy.
The exocyst is required for photoreceptor ciliogenesis and retinal development

We previously have shown that the highly conserved eight-protein exocyst trafficking complex is required for ciliogenesis in kidney tubule cells. We hypothesized here that ciliogenic programs are conserved across organs and species. To determine whether renal primary ciliogenic programs are conserved in the eye, and to characterize the function and mechanisms by which the exocyst regulates eye development in zebrafish, we focused on exoc5, a central component of the exocyst complex, by analyzing both exoc5 zebrafish mutants, and photoreceptor-specific Exoc5 knock-out mice. Two separate exoc5 mutant zebrafish lines phenocopied exoc5 morphants and, strikingly, exhibited a virtual absence of photoreceptors, along with abnormal retinal development and cell death. Because the zebrafish mutant was a global knockout, we also observed defects in several ciliated organs, including the brain (hydrocephalus), heart (cardiac edema), and kidney (disordered and shorter cilia). exoc5 knockout increased phosphorylation of the regulatory protein Mob1, consistent with Hippo pathway activation. exoc5 mutant zebrafish rescue with human EXOC5 mRNA completely reversed the mutant phenotype. We accomplished photoreceptor-specific knockout of Exoc5 with our Exoc5 fl/fl mouse line crossed with a rhodopsin-Cre driver line. In Exoc5 photoreceptor-specific knock-out mice, the photoreceptor outer segment structure was severely impaired at 4 weeks of age, although a full-field electroretinogram indicated a visual response was still present. However, by 6 weeks, visual responses were eliminated. In summary, we show that ciliogenesis programs are conserved in the kidneys and eyes of zebrafish and mice and that the exocyst is necessary for photoreceptor ciliogenesis and retinal development, most likely by trafficking cilia and outer-segment proteins.
Comparison of Inhalational Vital Capacity Induction with Sevoflurane to Intravenous Induction with Propofol for Insertion of Laryngeal Mask Airway in Adults: A Randomized Study

Background: Since the development of laryngeal mask airway (LMA) by Dr. Brain, it is extensively used for airway management; satisfactory insertion of LMA requires administration of an induction agent and suppression of airway reflexes. Among intravenous agents, propofol has been the drug of choice in view of better safety profile, relaxation and depression of upper airway reflexes. Sevoflurane on the other hand, with pleasant odor, nonirritating to the airways and with bronchodilator property are best among the volatile induction agents. While it is true both propofol and sevoflurane have their merits, still both have certain limitations. We aimed to compare the quality and ease of LMA insertion, hemodynamic changes, and complications with inhalation of 8% sevoflurane vital capacity breath and propofol. Materials and Methods: A prospective randomized study of 100 American Society of Anaesthesiologists' Class I and II patients was conducted equal distribution among two groups with 50 each undergoing gynecological procedures under general anesthesia. Group P received injection propofol and Group S received sevoflurane. At the end point of induction, the LMA insertion was attempted. Scoring systems were used to grade the conditions for insertion of the LMA. Induction characteristics, hemodynamic changes, and complications were assessed. Results: Sevoflurane took a longer time for induction and jaw relaxation than propofol. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups, with respect to LMA insertion time, and conditions. Apnea time was more in propofol group. Fall in heart rate and mean blood pressure was more in propofol. Conclusion: Propofol is associated with faster induction while sevoflurane is associated with good hemodynamic stability.
Weight misperception and its association with dieting methods and eating behaviors in South Korean adolescents

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES There is little information on the association between weight misperception and eating behavior in Korean adolescents. Therefore, we investigated the association of food intake habits and dieting method and disturbed eating behavior (DEB) in relation to weight misperception. SUBJECTS/METHODS Data was collected by using a nationwide online panel survey from 6,943 adolescents enrolled in middle/high school. DEB was measured with the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and those who scored ≥ 20 on the EAT-26 were considered to have eating disorder. Logistic regressions were conducted to examine the association between weight misperception based on self-reported weight status and dieting method and eating behaviors. RESULTS The proportion of weight underestimation was 23.5% and that of overestimation was 24.0%. Weight overestimating girls were more likely to engage in various unhealthy dieting practices (OR = 1.69 for fasting; OR = 1.88 for laxative or diuretic use; OR = 2.05 for self-induced vomiting after meals; P < 0.05). Moreover, there was a strong association between overestimation and undesirable eating behaviors, especially among girls, e.g.: having breakfast (OR = 0.85), high consumption of fast foods (OR = 1.28) and regular sodas (OR = 1.39), but not among boys. In both genders, weight overestimation appears to be a major risk factor for DEB (OR = 1.34 for boys and OR = 1.41 for girls; P < 0.05). CONSLUSIONS Weight overestimation is associated with unhealthy weight control practices and eating behaviors. We particularly found a significant association between weight overestimation and DEB among nationwide Korean adolescents.
Development of Real-Time Duplex RT-PCR for Thedetection of Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus and Bovine Rotavirus in Cattle

Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) and bovine rotavirus (BRV) are important pathogens of cattle. These pathogenselicitsigns that is sometimes difficult to differentiate. A real-time duplex RT-PCR assay would allow the simultaneous detection of the two viruses in the same sample. A real-time duplex RT-PCR assay was developed and optimized. The detection limit of the assay was 5 TCID50 or 100 RNA copies of BVDV and 20 TCID50 or 100 RNA copies for BRV. No cross reactivity with other bovine pathogens was detected. Both standard curves have amplification efficiency (E) of 1.06-0.95 and a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9917-0.9988, with the dynamic range of detection between 103 to 108copies per reaction. The sensitivity and specificityof this assay were compared with single real-time RT-PCR and conventional RT-PCR assays to verify its accuracy and sensitivity.The standardized duplex realtime RT-PCR confirmed the presence of viral RNA in 26 of 93 clinical samples. Two clinical samples were shown to be co-infected with both BVDV and BRV. This optimized real-time assay will be useful as a new sensitive diagnostic tool in epidemiological investigations of diarrheas in cattle.
Assessing reliability of classification in the most informative spectral regions of hyperspectral images

Reliability analysis is usually applied to evaluate classification procedures with different classes. In this research, we have applied the analysis to two different band sets to find out which one is more reliable. These band sets provide the most informative spectral regions covered by hyperspectral images. The informative regions are identified by minimizing two dependency measures between bands: correlation coefficient and normalized mutual information. The implementations are done by a newly developed top-down method named Spectral Region Splitting (SRS) resulting in two sets of bands which are almost identical at critical spectral regions. A reliability analysis based on the thresholding technique of the two sets of bands was performed. A technique was applied to discard those pixels that are not correctly classified at the given confidence level. The results show that the informative spectral regions selected by normalized mutual information was more reliable.
Aircraft Detection by Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

: Features play crucial role in the performance of classiﬁer for object detection from high-resolution remote sensing images. In this paper, we implemented two types of deep learning methods, deep convolutional neural network (DNN) and deep belief net (DBN), comparing their performances with that of the traditional methods (handcrafted features with a shallow classiﬁer) in the task of aircraft detection. These methods learn robust features from a large set of training samples to obtain a better performance. The depth of their layers ( > 6 layers) grants them the ability to extract stable and large-scale features from the image. Our experiments show both deep learning methods reduce at least 40% of the false alarm rate of the traditional methods (HOG, LBP + SVM), and DNN performs a little better than DBN. We also fed some multi-preprocessed images simultaneously to one DNN model, and found that such a practice helps to improve the performance of the model obviously with no extra-computing burden adding.