Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synthetic Lethal Targeting of Superoxide Dismutase 1 Selectively Kills RAD54B-Deficient Colorectal Cancer Cells

Synthetic lethality is a rational approach to identify candidate drug targets for selective killing of cancer cells harboring somatic mutations that cause chromosome instability (CIN). To identify a set of the most highly connected synthetic lethal partner genes in yeast for subsequent testing in mammalian cells, we used the entire set of 692 yeast CIN genes to query the genome-wide synthetic lethal datasets. Hierarchical clustering revealed a highly connected set of synthetic lethal partners of yeast genes whose human orthologs are somatically mutated in colorectal cancer. Testing of a small matrix of synthetic lethal gene pairs in mammalian cells suggested that members of a pathway that remove reactive oxygen species that cause DNA damage would be excellent candidates for further testing. We show that the synthetic lethal interaction between budding yeast rad54 and sod1 is conserved within a human colorectal cancer context. Specifically, we demonstrate RAD54B-deficient cells are selectively killed relative to controls via siRNA-based silencing and chemical inhibition and further demonstrate that this interaction is conserved in an unrelated cell type. We further show that the DNA double strand breaks, resulting from increased reactive oxygen species following SOD1 inhibition, persist within the RAD54B-deficient cells and result in apoptosis. Collectively, these data identify SOD1 as a novel candidate cancer drug target and suggest that SOD1 inhibition may have broad-spectrum applicability in a variety of tumor types exhibiting RAD54B deficiencies.
A Study Towards Enhanced Reliability Performance of Remote Control and Monitoring Application Over Commercial Wireless Communication Networks

Remote control and monitoring systems provide many useful operating advantages in industrial automation and demand highly reliable and secure communication means. Their widespread use is, however, limited because of the high cost of current communications in use making them economically infeasible. Hence, there is a need to develop new low cost communication and control concepts by making such solutions economically feasible. In this paper, we present a scheme for implementing reliable wireless communication links for application of remote control and monitoring system based on current available commercial wireless communication networks, e.g. GPRS/EDGE/UMTS. The reliability enhancement over wireless networks has been proposed and its performance has been studied. This paper examines the proposed solution by means of both analytical and numerical evaluation, and has shown that the demanded reliability performance can be met by using only commercial wireless communication networks
A surface vehicle

A ground engagement assembly to be located at the bow of an amphibious surface vehicle is described. It may have a strut assembly engaged or engageable to a hull of a marine vessel. The strut assembly has a primary arm that carries a wheel. The wheel is can move between a marine mode position and a land mode position where the wheel is able to locate on the ground to support at least part of the hull above the ground. A primary actuator extends to the primary arm to move the wheel between the ground mode position and the marine mode position. The strut assembly is configured and adapted to be retrofitable to a hull without the need for the hull to be modified to receive the struts assembly during its movement between the marine mode position and the land mode position.
Cycles of continuous improvement

This paper aims at increasing the understanding of the processes and dynamics of CI implementation. The paper presents findings from a longitudinal case study of how the organization is renewed by the embedding of quality‐related managerial ideology. It approaches CI from the perspective of organizational renewal, and looks at implementation as a managerial ideological change process. The paper draws on multi disciplinary concepts. The concept of ideology from political science is applied. Ideology is viewed as a force of organizational renewal, in other words, as a means that exerts influence on managerial thinking and practices. The ideological perspective provides new conceptual ideas and practical insights into CI implementation. The case study shows that CI implementation is cyclical and reveals company‐specific cycles. These cycles imply a challenge to management: the progress in developing CI capabilities is embedded in a rooted managerial ideology through which inimitable competitive advantages can be realized.
A Program of Nutritional Education in Schools Reduced the Prevalence of Iron Deficiency in Students

The objective was to determine the prevalence of iron, folates and retinol deficiencies in school children and to evaluate the changes after an intervention of nutritional education. The project was developed in 17 schools. The sample included 1,301 children (678 males and 623 females). A subsample of 480 individuals, was randomly selected for drawing blood for biochemical determinations before and after the intervention of nutritional education, which included in each school: written pre and post-intervention tests, 6 workshops, 2 participative talks, 5 game activities, 1 cooking course and 1 recipe contest. Anthropometrical and biochemical determinations included weight, height, body-mass index, nutritional status, hematocrit, serum ferritin, retinol and folate concentrations. There was high prevalence of iron (25%), folates (75%) and vitamin A (43%) deficiencies in school children, with a low consumption of fruit and vegetables, high consumption of soft drinks and snacks and almost no physical activity. The nutritional education intervention produced a significant reduction in iron deficiency prevalence (25 to 14%), and showed no effect on vitamin A and folates deficiencies. There was a slight improvement in nutritional status. This study shows, through biochemical determinations, that nutritional education initiatives and programs have an impact improving nutritional health in school children.
Differential Effects of Two Fermentable Carbohydrates on Central Appetite Regulation and Body Composition

Background Obesity is rising at an alarming rate globally. Different fermentable carbohydrates have been shown to reduce obesity. The aim of the present study was to investigate if two different fermentable carbohydrates (inulin and β-glucan) exert similar effects on body composition and central appetite regulation in high fat fed mice. Methodology/Principal Findings Thirty six C57BL/6 male mice were randomized and maintained for 8 weeks on a high fat diet containing 0% (w/w) fermentable carbohydrate, 10% (w/w) inulin or 10% (w/w) β-glucan individually. Fecal and cecal microbial changes were measured using fluorescent in situ hybridization, fecal metabolic profiling was obtained by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), colonic short chain fatty acids were measured by gas chromatography, body composition and hypothalamic neuronal activation were measured using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI), respectively, PYY (peptide YY) concentration was determined by radioimmunoassay, adipocyte cell size and number were also measured. Both inulin and β-glucan fed groups revealed significantly lower cumulative body weight gain compared with high fat controls. Energy intake was significantly lower in β-glucan than inulin fed mice, with the latter having the greatest effect on total adipose tissue content. Both groups also showed an increase in the numbers of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus-Enterococcus in cecal contents as well as feces. β- glucan appeared to have marked effects on suppressing MEMRI associated neuronal signals in the arcuate nucleus, ventromedial hypothalamus, paraventricular nucleus, periventricular nucleus and the nucleus of the tractus solitarius, suggesting a satiated state. Conclusions/Significance Although both fermentable carbohydrates are protective against increased body weight gain, the lower body fat content induced by inulin may be metabolically advantageous. β-glucan appears to suppress neuronal activity in the hypothalamic appetite centers. Differential effects of fermentable carbohydrates open new possibilities for nutritionally targeting appetite regulation and body composition.
Message Framing Strategy for Brand Communication

ABSTRACT Extant research has been conducted on message framing as an advertising strategy for brand communication, but discoveries are inconclusive and even conflicting. The current study, integrating theories of self-construal, prospect, and involvement as well as knowledge structure, proposes the Message Framing for Brand Communication (MFBC) model. As empirical examination of the MFBC model proves, self-construal, consumer involvement, and product knowledge are the three consumer characteristics moderating the persuasiveness that message framing generates at the dimensions of advertising attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention. Applying the comprehensive framework of the MFBC model, brand communicators may find it more possible to maximize the persuasive function of message framing.
Mineral metabolism and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risk: peritoneal dialysis patients compared with haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND The K/DOQI guideline for bone metabolism and disease in chronic kidney disease is predominantly based on studies in haemodialysis (HD) patients. However, in clinical practice, this guideline is also applied to peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. To validate the implementation of this guideline in PD patients, we evaluated the associations between plasma concentrations outside the K/DOQI-targets and the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in incident PD patients compared with HD patients. METHODS In a large prospective multicentre study in the Netherlands (The Netherlands Cooperative Study on the Adequacy of Dialysis, NECOSAD), we included patients starting PD or HD between 1997 and 2004. Relative risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality were estimated using time-dependent Cox regression modelling. RESULTS We included 586 PD patients with mean age 52 +/- 15 years (66% males) and 1043 HD patients with mean age 63 +/- 14 years (58% males). Cardiovascular disease (CVD) was the reason for hospitalization in 102 PD and 271 HD patients. In HD patients, the relative risk of CVD-related hospitalization increased with elevated plasma calcium concentrations (hazard ratio: 1.4; 95% CI: 1.1-1.9). Cardiovascular mortality was significantly higher for phosphorus concentrations above the K/DOQI-threshold in PD (2.4; 95% CI: 1.3-4.2) and HD patients (1.5; 95% CI: 1.1-2.1), and for elevated Ca x P in PD (2.2; 95% CI: 1.3-3.8) and HD patients (1.5; 95% CI: 1.1-2.1). CONCLUSIONS Plasma calcium concentrations above the K/DOQI-threshold increase the relative risk of CVD-related hospitalization in HD patients. Associations with cardiovascular mortality were more pronounced. Both in PD and HD patients with elevated plasma phosphorus and Ca x P concentrations, the cardiovascular mortality risk is increased. Therefore, it seems appropriate to adopt the current guideline in PD patients.
Early Outcome of Carotid Angioplasty and Stenting With and Without Cerebral Protection Devices: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Background— Carotid angioplasty and stenting (CAS) is increasingly being used for treatment of symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid artery disease (CAD). To evaluate the efficacy of cerebral protection devices in preventing thromboembolic complications during CAS, we conducted a systematic review of studies reporting on the incidence of minor stroke, major stroke, or death within 30 days after CAS. Summary of Review— We searched for studies published between January 1990 and June 2002 by means of a PubMed search and a cumulative review of reference lists of all relevant publications. In 2357 patients a total of 2537 CAS procedures had been performed without protection devices, and in 839 patients 896 CAS procedures had been performed with protection devices. Both groups were similar with respect to age, sex distribution, cerebrovascular risk factors, and indications for CAS. In many studies the periprocedural complication rates had not been presented separately for patients with symptomatic and asymptomatic CAD. The combined stroke and death rate within 30 days in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients was 1.8% in patients treated with cerebral protection devices compared with 5.5% in patients treated without cerebral protection devices (&khgr;2=19.7, P <0.001). This effect was mainly due to a decrease in the occurrence of minor strokes (3.7% without cerebral protection versus 0.5% with cerebral protection; &khgr;2=22.4, P <0.001) and major strokes (1.1% without cerebral protection versus 0.3% with cerebral protection; &khgr;2=4.3, P <0.05), whereas death rates were almost identical (≈0.8%; &khgr;2=0.3, P =0.6). Conclusions— On the basis of this early analysis of single-center studies, the use of cerebral protection devices appears to reduce thromboembolic complications during CAS. These technical aspects should be taken into account before the initiation of further randomized trials comparing CAS with carotid endarterectomy.
Malevolent Activity Detection with Hypergraph-Based Models

We propose a hypergraph-based framework for modeling and detecting malevolent activities. The proposed model supports the specification of order-independent sets of action symbols along with temporal and cardinality constraints on the execution of actions. We study and characterize the problems of consistency checking, equivalence, and minimality of hypergraph-based models. In addition, we define and characterize the general activity detection problem, that amounts to finding all subsequences that represent a malevolent activity in a sequence of logged actions. Since the problem is intractable, we also develop an index data structure that allows the security expert to efficiently extract occurrences of activities of interest.
Trading Space for Time in Grid-Based Path Finding

Grid-based path finding is required in many games to move agents. We present an algorithm called DBA* that uses a database of pre-computed paths to reduce the time to solve search problems. When evaluated using benchmark maps from Dragon Age™, DBA* requires less time for search and produces less suboptimal paths than the PRA* implementation used in Dragon Age™.
Bayesian Inference for Spiking Neuron Models with a Sparsity Prior

Generalized linear models are the most commonly used tools to describe the stimulus selectivity of sensory neurons. Here we present a Bayesian treatment of such models. Using the expectation propagation algorithm, we are able to approximate the full posterior distribution over all weights. In addition, we use a Laplacian prior to favor sparse solutions. Therefore, stimulus features that do not critically influence neural activity will be assigned zero weights and thus be effectively excluded by the model. This feature selection mechanism facilitates both the interpretation of the neuron model as well as its predictive abilities. The posterior distribution can be used to obtain confidence intervals which makes it possible to assess the statistical significance of the solution. In neural data analysis, the available amount of experimental measurements is often limited whereas the parameter space is large. In such a situation, both regularization by a sparsity prior and uncertainty estimates for the model parameters are essential. We apply our method to multi-electrode recordings of retinal ganglion cells and use our uncertainty estimate to test the statistical significance of functional couplings between neurons. Furthermore we used the sparsity of the Laplace prior to select those filters from a spike-triggered covariance analysis that are most informative about the neural response.
CXCL12 Modulates Prostate Cancer Cell Adhesion by Altering the Levels or Activities of β1-Containing Integrins

The mechanisms by which prostate cancer (PCa) cell adhesion and migration are controlled during metastasis are not well understood. Here, we studied the effect of CXCL12 in PCa cell adhesion and spreading in DU145 and PC3 cell lines using as substrates collagen I, fibronectin (FN), and their recombinant fragments. CXCL12 treatment increased β1 integrin-dependent PC3 cell adhesion on FN which correlated with increased focal adhesion kinase activation. However neither α5β1 nor α4β1 subunits were involved in this adhesion. By contrast, CXCL12 decreased DU145 adhesion and spreading on FN by downregulating α5 and β1 integrin expression. To demonstrate the clinical relevance of CXCL12 in PCa, we measured CXCL12 levels in plasma by using ELISA and found that the chemokine is elevated in PCa patients when compared to controls. The high concentration of CXCL12 in patients suffering from PCa in comparison to those with benign disease or healthy individuals implicates CXCL12 as a potential biomarker for PCa. In addition these data show that CXCL12 may be crucial in controlling PCa cell adhesion on fibronectin and collagen I, possibly via crosstalk with integrin receptors and/or altering the expression levels of integrin subunits.
Interactive Stereo Rendering for Non-planar Projections of 3D Virtual Environments - With a Comparison of Image - and Geometry-based Approaches

Stereo rendering, as an additional visual cue for humans, is an important method to increase the immersion into 3D virtual environments. Stereo pairs synthesized for the left and right eye are displayed in a way that the human visual system interprets as 3D perception. Stereoscopy is an emerging field in cinematography and gaming. While generating stereo images is well known for standard projections, the implementation of stereoscopic viewing for interactive non-planar single-center projections, such as cylindrical and spherical projections, is still a challenge. This paper presents the results of adapting an existing image-based approach for generating interactive stereoscopic non-planar projections for polygonal scenes on consumer graphics hardware. In particular, it introduces a rendering technique for generating image-based, non-planar stereo pairs within a single rendering pass. Further, this paper presents a comparison between the image-based and a geometry-based approach with respect to selected criteria.
G-Protein Coupled Receptors Dimerization: Diversity in Somatostatin Receptors Subtypes

Five specific receptor subtypes namely somatostatin receptor 1-5 (SSTR1-5) that are differentially expressed in central and peripheral tissue in selective manner have different role in many human pathological conditions. SSTRs possess seven-transmembrane spanning domains and are linked to G-proteins; therefore, belong to the superfamily of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). There is a preponderance of evidence suggesting the importance of GPCR dimerization in receptor-biogenesis, regulation and pharmacology. SSTR subtypes dimerization, with specific interest on the formation of heterodimers within the family or other related receptors, generates novel receptors with unique pharmacological, biochemical and enhanced signaling properties distinct from those of the native receptor existing as monomers or dimers. An understanding of the molecular mechanisms involve in SSTR dimerization could offer a rationale in future drug design. Importantly, gaining insights on the structure, function and signaling pathways of SSTR subtypes would represent a major advance in improving the treatment of various diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases and the tumors of various origins. In addition to discuss the significance of SSTR subtypes homo-and heterodimerization in particular, this review first describes the concept of GPCRs dimerization and the role of key membrane associated signaling proteins.
Theorizing Reactive Reflexivity: Lifestyle Displacement and Discordant Performances of Taste

Culturally oriented consumer research has predominantly been framed by two ideal types of reflexivity, which we characterize as existential and critical reflexivity. Drawing from our research on divorced women who have been displaced from their domestically oriented, middle-class lifestyles, we develop an alternative conceptualization—reactive reflexivity—that highlights a different relationship among consumer agency, social structures, and identity goals and practices. Rather than embracing their post-divorce lifestyles as a revitalizing challenge (per existential reflexivity) or liberation from a constraining gender role (per critical reflexivity), our participants felt estranged from their current lifestyle and reflexively viewed their pre-divorce lifestyle as a structure of relative empowerment that had afforded emotional, aesthetic, and status-oriented benefits. In reflexive response to these perceived lifestyle discontinuities, they engaged in discordant practices of taste that sought to insulate their aesthetic predispositions from structurally imposed socioeconomic constraints and, ultimately, to accomplish a reactive identity goal of regaining their displaced status as middle-class homemakers. We discuss the implications of our analysis for theorizations of consumer taste and the relationships between gender ideologies and reflexive consumption practices.
A Framework Supporting Collaborative Filtering for Internet Information *

̄ They are designed to handle different types of information and applications using different recommendation formats. The recommendation content comes in two different forms: enumerated and free text. Although the enumerated form is simple to understand, its inflexibility limits its usefulness. The free text form allows evaluators to contribute a wider range of annotation semantics; however, it makes automatic processing of information difficult.
What Is New in Listeriosis?

Listeriosis is a disease caused by Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes). L. monocytogenes is bacteria that usually infects some determined inhabitants, especially high risk patients such as the elderly, immunosuppressed patients and pregnant women. However, it can also affect people who do not have these risk factors. L. monocytogenes is widespread in nature being part of the faecal flora of many mammals and it is a common foodborne source. It is acquired by humans primarily through consumption of contaminated food. Besides, between 1% and 10% of the population is a faecal carrier of L.monocytogenes. Listeriosis may occur sporadically or in outbreaks. Infection causes a spectrum of illness, ranging from febrile gastroenteritis to invasive disease, including bacteraemia, sepsis, and meningoencephalitis. This infection has a low incidence, although it is undeniably increasing, particularly due to the rise of population of over 60 years old or of under 60 years olds with a predisposing condition. The diagnosis is complicated because of its incubation period and the different clinical manifestations. Also listeriosis has a high mortality despite adequate and early treatment. The importance of bacteraemia for L. monocytogenes lies in the infrequency of this bacterium and the high mortality, even with appropriate antibiotic treatment.
Budgetary Institutions in Turkey

This paper examines institutional determinants of budget policy in Turkey. The discussion is based on an analytical framework, inspired by the recent literature, that treats budgetary institutions as mechanisms that may potentially resolve agency and common pool problems in a two-stage principal-agent set up that involves citizens, politicians and the bureaucracy. We first discuss the nature of inter-party competition and intra-party bargaining and examine how these generate distributive pressures on public resources. We then review the main features of Turkish budgetary institutions, and, in particular, the role of the central bureaucratic agencies. We conclude with a discussion of proposals for reform.