Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Up‐regulation of cyclooxygenase‐1 in neuroblastoma cell lines by retinoic acid and corticosteroids

Cyclooxygenases‐1 and ‐2 are both expressed in neuronal cells in vivo. In the neuroblastoma cell lines NG108 and N2a, however, only cyclooxygenase‐1 was detectable. Differentiation of the cells with retinoic acid increased cyclooxygenase‐1 mRNA and protein expression within 24 and 48 h, respectively. A further increase was observed when the cells were concomitantly treated with the glucocorticoid dexamethasone (a 2–3‐fold increase compared with retinoic acid alone). In the absence of retinoic acid, dexamethasone only slightly up‐regulated cyclooxygenase‐1 expression. The inhibitor of protein synthesis cycloheximide abrogated the effect of dexamethasone, indicating the involvement of newly synthesised proteins. Retinoic acid increased the transcription of cyclooxygenase‐1 mRNA, determined with a luciferase‐coupled promoter construct. Dexamethasone only slightly augmented cyclooxygenase‐1‐promoter activity but increased cyclooxygenase‐1 mRNA stability. Other corticosteroids, hydrocortisone and aldosterone, also up‐regulated cyclooxygenase‐1 whereas neurosteroids or oestrogen were ineffective. Up‐regulation was mediated primarily by the glucocorticoid receptor, because the receptor antagonist RU486 strongly reduced the effects of all corticosteroids. This indicated that in NG108 cells, the mineralocorticoid aldosterone may bind to the glucocorticoid receptor. Treatment of NG108 or N2a cells with corticosteroids did not alter the morphological phenotype obtained during differentiation. We thus show that corticosteroids, which down‐regulate cyclooxygenase expression in most cell types, up‐regulate cyclooxygenase‐1 during neuronal differentiation.
Illness-Related Parenting in Mothers with Functional Gastrointestinal Symptoms

OBJECTIVE:Social learning has been identified as a factor that increases vulnerability to the development of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This study aimed to distinguish between child-mediated and parent-mediated modes of transmission of illness behavior. The reporting of infants' symptoms and treatment seeking for these symptoms, by mothers, was examined over the period during which infants were aged 0 to 18 months. Thus childrens' imitation of excessive maternal illness behavior could be ruled out as a possible cause of differences in treatment seeking.METHODS:Questionnaire data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) were analyzed, comparing illness-related parenting in 73 mothers who reported taking medication for functional bowel symptoms (mostly IBS) with parenting in 154 mothers who reported past or current stomach ulcers (SU). RESULTS:There were no significant differences between the groups in the reported incidence of infants' symptoms. However, mothers with bowel symptoms had taken their infants to the doctor for a greater number of conditions than mothers reporting SU. This difference was not due to increased treatment seeking for gastrointestinal symptoms.CONCLUSIONS:Mothers with functional bowel symptoms are more likely to seek treatment when their infants experience symptoms, providing evidence of early social reinforcement of illness behavior. Such reinforcement may increase the child's vulnerability to a range of functional disorders, including IBS.
Young Adult College Students Reflect on Their Interaction with Frail Elders in Culture Change

ABSTRACT The traditional way of caring for frail elders in long-term care facilities is based in the medical model. This type of care focuses primarily on the biological needs of individual elders. A new paradigm for these care facilities is seen in the idea of culture change. This paradigm implicitly has within it elements of compassion emphasized in the teachings of world religions. The focus of this article is on the thoughts of Hesston College students in a World Religions class who spent two hours a week during the spring term 2003 interacting with frail elders in a long-term care facility. These intergenerational interactions are analyzed from the perspective of six world religions. The article concludes with reference to culture change and intergenerational relationships as related to practitioners, policy makers, and researchers.
Solubilization and concentration of carbon dioxide: Novel spray reactors with immobilized carbonic anhydrase

Novel spray reactors are described that employ immobilized biocatalyst (carbonic anhydrase), enabling concentration and solubilization of emitted CO2 by allowing catalytic contact with water spray. The reactors were fed with simulated emission gas. The performance of the reactors was investigated with respect to operation variable: emission flow rate; gas composition in the emission stream; water flow rate; area‐to‐volume ratio of immobilized reactor core; and the enzyme load within the core. The reactors were also investigated for pressure drop and extractability of CO2 from the emission with single vs. multiple reactors (of combined equal volume). The biotechnological process of solubilization and concentration of CO2 from emission exhausts or streams occurring in the spray reactors could be coupled for further biochemical/chemical conversion of the concentrated CO2. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Drosophila single-minded represses gene transcription by activating the expression of repressive factors.

The Drosophila single-minded gene controls CNS midline cell development by both activating midline gene expression and repressing lateral CNS gene expression in the midline cells. The mechanism by which Single-minded represses transcription was examined using the ventral nervous system defective gene as a target gene. Transgenic-lacZ analysis of constructs containing fragments of the ventral nervous system defective regulatory region identified sequences required for lateral CNS transcription and midline repression. Elimination of Single-minded:Tango binding sites within the ventral nervous system defective gene did not affect midline repression. Mutants of Single-minded that removed the DNA binding and transcriptional activation regions abolished ventral nervous system defective repression, as well as transcriptional activation of other genes. The replacement of the Single-minded transcriptional activation region with a heterologous VP16 transcriptional activation region restored the ability of Single-minded to both activate and repress transcription. These results indicate that Single-minded indirectly represses transcription by activating the expression of repressive factors. Single-minded provides a model system for how regulatory proteins that act only as transcriptional activators can control lineage-specific transcription in both positive and negative modes.
Solexa-Sequencing Based Transcriptome Study of Plaice Skin Phenotype in Rex Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

Background Fur is an important genetically-determined characteristic of domestic rabbits; rabbit furs are of great economic value. We used the Solexa sequencing technology to assess gene expression in skin tissues from full-sib Rex rabbits of different phenotypes in order to explore the molecular mechanisms associated with fur determination. Methodology/Principal Findings Transcriptome analysis included de novo assembly, gene function identification, and gene function classification and enrichment. We obtained 74,032,912 and 71,126,891 short reads of 100 nt, which were assembled into 377,618 unique sequences by Trinity strategy (N50=680 nt). Based on BLAST results with known proteins, 50,228 sequences were identified at a cut-off E-value ≥ 10-5. Using Blast to Gene Ontology (GO), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (KOG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), we obtained several genes with important protein functions. A total of 308 differentially expressed genes were obtained by transcriptome analysis of plaice and un-plaice phenotype animals; 209 additional differentially expressed genes were not found in any database. These genes included 49 that were only expressed in plaice skin rabbits. The novel genes may play important roles during skin growth and development. In addition, 99 known differentially expressed genes were assigned to PI3K-Akt signaling, focal adhesion, and ECM-receptor interactin, among others. Growth factors play a role in skin growth and development by regulating these signaling pathways. We confirmed the altered expression levels of seven target genes by qRT-PCR. And chosen a key gene for SNP to found the differentially between plaice and un-plaice phenotypes rabbit. Conclusions/Significance The rabbit transcriptome profiling data provide new insights in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying rabbit skin growth and development.
Control of Inference: Role of Some Aspects of Discourse Structure-Centering

The purpose of this communication is to examine one particular aspect of discourse structure, namely, a discourse construct called center of a sentence (utterance) in discourse and its relation to the larger issue of control of inference. We have described very briefly the notion of center(s) of a sentence in discourse and discussed how the centering phenomenon might be incorporated in a formal model of inference and its relation to the intrinsic complexity of certain inferences.
Haskell and XML: generic combinators or type-based translation?

We present two complementary approaches to writing XML document-processing applications in a functional language.In the first approach, the generic tree structure of XML documents is used as the basis for the design of a library of combinators for generic processing: selection, generation, and transformation of XML trees.The second approach is to use a type-translation framework for treating XML document type definitions (DTDs) as declarations of algebraic data types, and a derivation of the corresponding functions for reading and writing documents as typed values in Haskell.
Work and leisure time physical activity assessed using a simple, pragmatic, validated questionnaire and incident cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in men and women: The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer in Norfolk prospective population study.

BACKGROUND The health benefits of physical activity are well established, but the overall amount of physical activity associated with cardiovascular and other health outcomes, and whether the relationships are similar in men and women and at different ages is still debated. This may be partly related to different methods for assessing physical activity. Most studies have focused on leisure time physical activity. METHODS We examined the prospective relationship between usual physical activity, taking into account both leisure and work activity, using a simple, pragmatic, four-point rating scale validated against heart rate monitoring, and cardiovascular disease incidence and total mortality after an average 8 years follow-up in 22,191 community living men and women aged 45-79 years with no known cardiovascular disease or cancer at baseline. RESULTS The relative risks (95% confidence interval) for all-cause mortality (1,553 deaths) for men and women who were moderately inactive, moderately active, and active compared with those who were inactive were 0.83 (0.73-0.95), 0.68 (0.58-0.80), and 0.68 (0.57-0.81), respectively, after adjusting for age, sex, systolic blood pressure, blood cholesterol, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, diabetes, body mass index, and social class. The relationships were also consistent for cardiovascular disease incidence (3,079 events), in subgroups stratified by age, sex, body mass index, smoking status and social class, and after excluding deaths in the first 2 years. The combined scale was more consistently associated with mortality than the individual work and leisure time components separately. CONCLUSIONS When both work and leisure time physical activity patterns are taken into account, using a simple, pragmatic, validated questionnaire feasible for use in clinical and public health practice, even very moderate levels of usual physical activity are associated with significantly reduced risk of mortality and cardiovascular disease in men and women in the general population and potential population attributable impact of 14% for inactive compared with active levels. These findings may encourage efforts to increase physical activity levels not only in leisure time but also in usual daily working life.
Association of diabetes and cigarette smoke exposure on the glycemia and liver glycogen of pregnant Wistar rats.

PURPOSE To evaluate cigarette smoke exposure and/or diabetes association effects on the glycemia and liver glycogen levels of pregnant Wistar rats. METHODS 60 adult rats were randomly distributed into (n=10/group): non-diabetic exposed to filtered air (G1); non-diabetic exposed to cigarette smoke only before pregnancy (G2); non-diabetic exposed to cigarette smoke before and during pregnancy (G3); diabetic exposed to filtered air (G4); diabetic exposed to cigarette smoke only before pregnancy (G5), and diabetic exposed to cigarette smoke before and during pregnancy (G6). Glycemia was determined at days 0 and 21 of pregnancy. Liver samples were collected for liver glycogen determinations. RESULTS At day 21 of pregnancy, glycemia was higher in G5 and G6 compared to G4 group. G2 (2.43+/-0.43), G3 (3.20+/-0.49), G4 (2.62+/-0.34), G5 (2.65+/-0.27) and G6 groups (1.94+/-0.35) presented decreased liver glycogen concentrations compared to G1 (4.20+/-0.18 mg/100mg liver tissue) (p<0.05). G5 and G6 groups presented decreased maternal weight gain and litter weight. CONCLUSIONS Severe diabetes and cigarette smoke exposure, alone or associated, caused impairment in liver glycogen storage at term pregnancy. Due to the fact that liver glycogen storages were considered determinant for glucose tolerance, it is relevant to point out a rigid clinical glycemic control and to stop smoking so earlier in pregnancy programming.
Novel germline mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in Indian breast and breast‐ovarian cancer families

The two major hereditary breast/ovarian cancer predisposition tumor suppressor genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2 that perform apparently generic cellular functions nonetheless cause tissue‐specific syndromes in the human population when they are altered, or mutated in the germline. However, little is known about the contribution of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations to breast and/or ovarian cancers in the Indian population. We have screened for mutations the entire BRCA1 and BRCA2 coding sequences, and intron‐exon boundaries, as well as their flanking intronic regions in sixteen breast or breast and ovarian cancer families of Indian origin. We have also analyzed 20 female patients with sporadic breast cancer regardless of age and family history, and 69 unrelated normal individuals as control. Thus a total of 154 samples were screened for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations using a combination of polymerase chain reaction‐mediated site directed mutagenesis (PSM), polymerase chain reaction‐single stranded conformation polymorphism assay (PCR‐SSCP) and direct DNA sequencing of PCR products (DS). Twenty‐one sequence variants including fifteen point mutations were identified. Five deleterious pathogenic, protein truncating frameshift and non‐sense mutations were detected in exon 2 (c.187_188delAG); and exon 11 (c.3672G>T) [p.Glu1185X] of BRCA1 and in exon 11 (c.5227dupT, c.5242dupT, c.6180dupA) of BRCA2 (putative mutations – four novel) as well as fourteen amino acid substitutions were identified. Twelve BRCA1 and BRCA2 missense variants were identified as unique and novel. In the cohort of 20 sporadic female patients no mutations were found. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Toward Formal Verification of 802.11 MAC Protocols: Verifying a Petri-Net Model of 802.11 PCF

The delivery of traffic with stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements over wireless local area networks (WLAN) is a vital research topic. A solution is to adopt centralized control functions, which allocate part of the bandwidth to polling traffic and part to contending traffic. Reliable means of performing this allocation are required as this allocation directly determines how well the two forms of traffic can coexist. In an earlier publication we presented an extended Petri-net model of an IEEE802.11 centralized control scheme, and used this model in the manner of a simulation tool to analyze performance, promising analysis of the model to come. Here we perform verification on aspects of the model to verify key properties of the system, something that is only possible by virtue of the strong mathematical basis of Petri-nets.
Radio-Over-Fiber Technologies for Emerging Wireless Systems

Radio-over-fiber transmission has extensively been studied as a means to realizing a fiber optic wireless distribution network that enables seamless integration of the optical and wireless network infrastructures. Emerging wireless communication networks that support new broadband services provide increased opportunities for photonics technologies to play a prominent role in the realization of the next generation integrated optical/wireless networks. In this paper, we present a review of recent developments in radio-over-fiber technologies that can support the distribution of broadband wireless signals in a converged optical/wireless network. We also describe some of the challenges for the successful application of radio-over-fiber technologies in future wireless systems, such as 5G and 60-GHz networks.
An algorithm to estimate the stability of the individual clusters in the hierarchical context

The stability techniques widely used in bioinformatics research estimate clusterings with a pre-defined number of clusters. But the complex nature of bio-molecular data necessitates the extension of the stability techniques in order to validate the whole clusters' hierarchy without strict setting of the number of clusters beforehand. In this paper we proposed a stability- based algorithm HClusterV to estimate the individual clusters of the dendrogram. It is based on a repetitive construction of the hierarchy of clusters followed by the calculation of the original consensus matrix. The proposed algorithm allows to overcome the deficiency of the previous approach and to improve the reliability of the stability indices. Experiments on two simulated datasets and further comparative analysis confirmed the advantages of our approach. The proposed HClusterV algorithm was evaluated on two real microarray datasets and gave the results consistent with the corresponding non-hierarchical stability-based methods and relevant biological knowledge.
Advances in Atheroma Imaging in the Carotid

Atherosclerosis affects all vascular beds, including the coronary, carotid, intracerebral, peripheral and aortic vascular beds, and is responsible for tremendous morbidity and mortality, with the most serious outcomes being myocardial infarction, stroke and death. Historically the effects of vascular narrowing and associated thrombosis have been key indicators of disease in the coronary and carotid territories, with degrees of vascular stenosis being of profound importance in carotid surgery trials. Our improving understanding of the biology of atheromatous lesions and the development of alternative therapeutic agents which can initiate actual plaque regression have created a need to attempt to image plaque itself, with the carotid artery being an achievable target. This article reviews current strategies for assessing carotid atherosclerotic disease, particularly with reference to identifying plaque components and risk of rupture, the so-called vulnerable plaque.
Comparison of clay mineral stratigraphy to other proxy palaeoclimate indicators in the Mesozoic of NW Europe

This paper reviews the opportunities and pitfalls associated with using clay mineralogical analysis in palaeoclimatic reconstructions. Following this, conjunctive methods of improving the reliability of clay mineralogical analysis are reviewed. The Mesozoic succession of NW Europe is employed as a case study. This demonstrates the relationship between clay mineralogy and palaeoclimate. Proxy analyses may be integrated with clay mineralogical analysis to provide an assessment of aridity–humidity contrasts in the hinterland climate. As an example, the abundance of kaolinite through the Mesozoic shows that, while interpretations may be difficult, the Mesozoic climate of NW Europe was subject to great changes in rates of continental precipitation. We may compare sedimentological (facies, mineralogy, geochemistry) indicators of palaeoprecipitation with palaeotemperature estimates. The integration of clay mineralogical analyses with other sedimentological proxy indicators of palaeoclimate allows differentiation of palaeoclimatic effects from those of sea–level and tectonic change. We may also observe how widespread palaeoclimate changes were; whether they were diachronous or synchronous; how climate, sea level and tectonics interact to control sedimentary facies and what palaeoclimate indicators are reliable.
Efficacy and safety of infliximab in patients with ankylosing spondylitis: results of a randomized, placebo-controlled trial (ASSERT).

OBJECTIVE The signs and symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) respond inadequately to nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, and disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in quite a number of patients. Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors have demonstrated success in reducing AS disease activity in a limited number of clinical trials. The objective of this multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of infliximab in patients with AS. METHODS Patients were randomly assigned to receive infusions of placebo or 5 mg/kg infliximab at weeks 0, 2, 6, 12, and 18. Efficacy was assessed using the ASsessment in Ankylosing Spondylitis (ASAS) International Working Group criteria, the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI), night pain, patient's global assessment, the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index (BASMI), chest expansion, the Mander enthesis index, the total swollen joint index, the C-reactive protein level, and the Short Form 36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire. The primary end point in this study was the proportion of patients with a 20% improvement response according to the ASAS International Working Group criteria (ASAS20 responders) at week 24. RESULTS Of the 357 patients screened, 201 were assigned to receive 5 mg/kg infliximab and 78 were assigned to receive placebo. After 24 weeks, 61.2% of patients in the infliximab group were ASAS20 responders compared with 19.2% of patients in the placebo group (P < 0.001). Clinical benefit was observed in patients receiving infliximab as early as week 2 and was maintained over the 24-week study period. Patients receiving infliximab also showed significant improvements in the BASDAI, BASFI, BASMI, chest expansion, and physical component summary score of the SF-36. Adverse events were reported by 82.2% of patients receiving infliximab and by 72.0% of patients receiving placebo; however, most adverse events in both treatment groups were mild or moderate in severity. CONCLUSION Infliximab was well tolerated and effective in a large cohort of patients with AS during a 24-week study period.