Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
G Protein-coupled Receptor Signaling via Src Kinase Induces Endogenous Human Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid Type 6 (TRPV6) Channel Activation*

Ca2+ homeostasis plays a critical role in a variety of cellular processes. We showed previously that stimulation of the prostate-specific G protein-coupled receptor (PSGR) enhances cytosolic Ca2+ and inhibits proliferation of prostate cells. Here, we analyzed the signaling mechanisms underlying the PSGR-mediated Ca2+ increase. Using complementary molecular, biochemical, electrophysiological, and live-cell imaging techniques, we found that endogenous Ca2+-selective transient receptor potential vanilloid type 6 (TRPV6) channels are critically involved in the PSGR-induced Ca2+ signal. Biophysical characterization of the current activated by PSGR stimulation revealed characteristic properties of TRPV6. The molecular identity of the involved channel was confirmed using RNA interference targeting TrpV6. TRPV6-mediated Ca2+ influx depended on Src kinase activity. Src kinase activation occurred independently of G protein activation, presumably by direct interaction with PSGR. Taken together, we report that endogenous TRPV6 channels are activated downstream of a G protein-coupled receptor and present the first physiological characterization of these channels in situ.
Effect of Use Different Levels of Caraway (Carum carvi L.) Powder on Performance, Some Blood Parameters and Intestinal Morphology on Broiler Chickens

For determine effect of use different levels of caraway powder on performance of broiler chickens a total 240 one day broilers chicks (Ross 308) were divided into 4 groups of 15 birds each and assigned to 4 treatment diets. Chicks were fed by basal diet with control diet and 1(T ), 1.5(T ) and 2(T ) percentage added 12 3 caraway. At the end of experiment 2 birds form each group were slaughtered and some parameters such as feed intake (FI), body weight gain (BW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were determined. Data showed that use caraway caused decrease FCR with increasing BW.Although the use of Caraway was reduced abdominal fat but statistically significant effects in terms were not observed. Drumstick percentage was increase were broilers fed with T ,T T (p<0.05). Breast meat percentage was higher than others for T but there were no significant 1 2, 3 3 effects about breast meat percentage between treatments. Some blood factor such as triglyceride, calcium and phosphorus changed with use experimental diets Amount of triglyceride was lower when chicks used T diets. 3 in this case increasing of use Caraway in the broilers diet cause to significant decrease blood triglyceride content of broilers chicks (p<0.05). blood calcium increased when chicks used T ,T T respectively and amount 1 2, 3 of Phosphorus was lowest when chicks used T diet (p<0.05). Bed moisture percentage was increasing none 2 significantly when increasing addition of Caraway on broilers diets. Antibody titers against New Castle Vaccine were measured and showed that antibody titers were significantly higher when broilers fed with higher content of Caraway (p<0.05). Small intestine mucosa and sub mucosa diameters were significantly increased by T ,T T diets (p<0.05). Musclaris and serosa parts diameter were higher in T than others and use of 1 2, 3 2 Caraway in broilers diets cause increase total diameter of small intestine parts (p<0.05). It seems use of Caraway in broilers' diets can be benefits for increase performance of them. Abbreviations: FI: Feed intake, BW: Body weight, FCR: Feed conversion ratio, T , basal diet with 1% added 1 caraway, T , basal diet with 1.5% added caraway, T , basal diet with 2% added caraway 23
Incorporating research technology into the clinical assessment of balance and mobility: perspectives of physiotherapists and people with stroke.

PURPOSE To describe the perspectives of people with stroke and their physiotherapists on the use of biomechanics technology to assess balance and mobility. METHODS This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with patients with stroke and a focus group with their physiotherapists. Coding of interview and focus-group data used a line-by-line inductive approach, with qualitative software to develop codes into themes. RESULTS The quantitative data from the assessment were seen as beneficial to providing patients with insight into balance and mobility problems. Physiotherapists found that the assessment confirmed clinical reasoning and aided in precise evaluation of progress but expressed mixed opinions as to whether treatment choice was influenced. Patients would have liked more communication regarding the purpose of the assessment. Patients also stated that trust in their physiotherapists helped them overcome anxieties and that confidence was gained through exposure to more challenging balance assessments. Physiotherapists advocated for the use of a harness system to safely incorporate reactive balance control assessment and training into practice. CONCLUSION Both patients and therapists saw value in the quantitative data provided by the assessment. Regardless of the technology used, patients value a strong physiotherapist-patient relationship. Ongoing collaboration between clinicians and researchers should guide the evolution of technology into clinically useful tools.
Risk of Advanced Adenomas in Siblings of Individuals With Advanced Adenomas: A Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND & AIMS The risk of colorectal neoplasms among siblings of patients with advanced adenomas is not clear. We determined the prevalence of advanced adenomas in the siblings of patients with advanced adenomas and compared it with that of siblings of individuals without these lesions. METHODS In a blinded, cross-sectional study, colonoscopies were performed (from 2010 through 2014), at 2 hospitals in Hong Kong on 200 asymptomatic siblings of patients with advanced adenomas (exposed; mean age, 58.2 ± 6.3 years; adenomas ≥10 mm, high-grade dysplasia, villous, or tubulovillous) and 400 age- and sex-matched siblings of subjects with normal findings from colonoscopies and no family history of colorectal cancer (unexposed; mean age, 58.1 ± 6 years). We recruited 1 sibling per family. The primary outcome was prevalence of advanced adenomas. RESULTS Baseline demographics (ie, aspirin use, smoking, body mass index, and metabolic diseases) did not differ significantly between exposed and unexposed individuals. The prevalence of advanced adenoma was 11.5% among the exposed subjects and 2.5% among the unexposed subjects (matched odds ratio [mOR] = 6.05; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.74-13.36; P < .001). The prevalence of adenomas ≥10 mm was higher among exposed than unexposed siblings (10.5% vs 1.8%; mOR = 8.59; 95% CI: 3.44-21.45; P < .001), as was the prevalence of villous adenomas (5.5% vs 1.3% in unexposed; mOR = 6.28; 95% CI: 2.02-19.53; P = .001) and all colorectal adenomas (39.0% vs 19.0% in unexposed; mOR = 3.29; 95% CI: 2.16-5.03; P < .001). Two cancers were detected in exposed siblings and none in unexposed siblings. CONCLUSIONS In a cross-sectional study of subjects undergoing colonoscopy in Hong Kong, siblings of individuals with at least 1 advanced adenoma had a 6-fold increased odds of advanced adenoma compared with subjects who had a sibling with a screening colonoscopy with no identified neoplasia. ClinicalTrials.gov, Number: NCT01593098.
Providing integrated health and social care for older persons: a European overview of issues at stake

Telomere length homeostasis is a prerequisite for the generation and growth of cancer. In 485% cancer cells, telomere length is maintained by telomerase that add telomere repeats to the end of telomere DNA. Because the G-rich strand of telomere DNA can fold into G-quadruplex that inhibits telomerase activity, stabilizing telomere quadruplex by small molecules is emerging as a potential therapeutic strategy against cancer. In these applications, the specificity of small molecules toward quadruplex over other forms of DNA is an important property to ensure no processes other than telomere elongation are interrupted. The evaluating assays currently available more or less have difficulty identifying or distinguishing quadruplex-irrelevant effect from quadruplex stabilization. Here, we describe an exonuclease I hydrolysis assay that evaluates quadruplex stabilization by DNA-interacting compounds, discriminates inhibitory effect from different sources and helps determine the optimal compound concentration.
Multiscale Composites with Health-monitoring and Self-healing capabilities by means of Nanocomposites Matrices

Il lavoro di tesi illustra il processo di selezione, caratterizzazione ed integrazioni di matrici sia termoindurenti che termoplastiche nanocaricate con nanotubi di carbonio in compositi fibrorinforzati. Le matrici nanocaricate sono state dapprima caratterizzate nella loro funzionalita piezoresistiva, dopodiche sono stati messi a punto dei processi di realizzazione di tali matrici in compositi fibrorinforzati. Infine sono state valutate le proprieta di piezo-resistivita dei compositi realizzati al fine di valutare la possibilita di utilizzare matrici nanocaricate come sistema intrinseco peril monitoraggio strutturale del composito. Un’ultima parte del lavoro e stata dedicata allo studio circa la possibilita di integrare capsule micrometriche contenenti un componente reattivo capace di riparare il composito in caso di delaminazione.
Integrity-oriented content transmission in highway vehicular ad hoc networks

The effective inter-vehicle transmission of content files, e.g., images, music and video clips, is the basis of media communications in vehicular networks, such as social communications and video sharing. However, due to the presence of diverse node velocities, severe channel fadings and intensive mutual interferences among vehicles, the inter-vehicle or vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications tend to be transient and highly dynamic. Content transmissions among vehicles over the volatile and spotty V2V channels are thus susceptible to frequent interruptions and failures, resulting in many fragment content transmissions which are unable to finish during the connection time and unusable by on-top media applications. The interruptions of content transmissions not only lead to the failure of media presentations to users, but the transmission of the invalid fragment contents would also result in the significant waste of precious vehicular bandwidth. On addressing this issue, in this work we target on provisioning the integrity-oriented inter-vehicle content transmissions. Given the initial distance and mobility statistics of vehicles, we develop an analytical framework to evaluate the data volume that can be transmitted upon the short-lived and spotty V2V connection from the source to the destination vehicle. Provided the content file size, we are able to evaluate the likelihood of successful content transmissions through the model. Based upon this analysis, we propose an admission control scheme at the transmitters, that filters the suspicious content transmission requests which are unlikely to be accomplished over the transient inter-vehicle links. Using extensive simulations, we demonstrate the accuracy of the developed analytical model, and the effectiveness of the proposed admission control scheme. In the simulated scenario, with the proposed admission control scheme applied, it is observed that about 30% of the network bandwidth can be saved for effective content transmissions.
Multi-robot cooperative box-pushing problem using multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization technique

The present work provides a new approach to solve the well-known multi-robot co-operative box pushing problem as a multi objective optimization problem using modified Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization. The method proposed here allows both turning and translation of the box, during shift to a desired goal position. We have employed local planning scheme to determine the magnitude of the forces applied by the two mobile robots perpendicularly at specific locations on the box to align and translate it in each distinct step of motion of the box, for minimization of both time and energy. Finally the results are compared with the results obtained by solving the same problem using Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The proposed scheme is found to give better results compared to NSGA-II.
The Cardiac Desmosome and Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathies: From Gene to Disease

Intercellular communication is essential for proper cardiac function. Mechanical and electrical activity need to be synchronized so that the work of individual myocytes transforms into the pumping function of the organ. Mechanical continuity is provided by desmosomes and adherens junctions, while gap junctions provide a pathway for passage of ions and small molecules between cells. These complexes preferentially reside at the site of end-end contact between myocytes, within the intercalated disc. Recognition that some forms of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy are caused by mutations in desmosomal protein genes has galvanized interest in the biology of the desmosome and its interactions with other junctional molecules. This review presents the cellular and molecular biology of the desmosome, current knowledge on the relation of desmosomal mutations and disease phenotypes, and an overview of the molecular pathophysiology of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. Clinical experience and results from cellular and animal models provide insights into the intercalated disc as a functional unit and into the basic substrates that underlie pathogenesis and arrhythmogenesis of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.
A New Method of Image Enhancement in Spatial Domain Using Histogram Equalization, Smoothing and Fuzzy Technique

Image enhancement in Spatial Domain is the process of improving the quality of a digitally stored image by manipulating the image pixel values with the help of software. Manipulation of pixel values includes point operations, where each pixel is modified according to a particular equation that is not dependent on other pixel values so that result is more suitable than original image for specific application and human visual perception. This paper focuses mainly on spatial Domain techniques for Image Enhancement using Fuzzy concepts which includes histogram distribution analysis, Smoothing and Fuzzy Technique.
A three level fuzzy system for evaluating the trust of single web services

With the development of network infrastructures and the Internet, using web services to access and process information in distributed form apart from the different hardware and software platforms using standard protocols, Internet data exchange is expanded. By using web services, distributed applications simply exchange data, or do things by working together. In web-based applications, trust is one of the criteria for selecting the appropriate web service and also web service criteria are often qualitative. Because of the importance of this issue, we used fuzzy system in this article to assess the trust of single web services. To assess the trust of web services, eight parameters includes QoS, user preferences, subjective calculation of trust, objective calculation of trust, bootstrapping, dynamics of trust and independent trust have been considered in proposed fuzzy system. To obtain a fuzzy system with high estimation accuracy, we considered 24 different fuzzy systems with different fuzzy sets and deffuzication methods and then we created fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules based on training data. To increase the speed and to reduce the number of fuzzy rules, we have considered the fuzzy systems as three-level. Finally, after running fuzzy systems with test data, between these systems, we received the following results: best fuzzy system achieves root mean square error 2.27 percent, the accuracy value 0.9816 and the FScore value 0.9838 and recalls value 0.9860. 6
Secure , User-level Resource-constrainedSandboxing

The popularity of mobile and networked applications has resulted in an increasing demand for execution " sandboxes " —environments that impose irrevocable qualitative and quantitative restrictions on resource usage. Existing approaches either verify application compliance to restrictions at start time (e.g., using certified code or language-based protection) or enforce it at run time (e.g., using kernel support, binary modification, or active interception of the application's interactions with the operating system). However, their general applicability is constrained by the fact that they are either too heavyweight and inflexible, or are limited in the kinds of sandboxing restrictions and applications they can handle. This paper presents a secure user-level sandboxing approach for enforcing both qualitative and quantitative restrictions on resource usage of applications in distributed systems. Our approach actively monitors an application's interactions with the underlying system, proactively controlling it as desired to enforce the desired behavior. Our approach leverages a core set of user-level mechanisms that are available in most modern operating systems: fine-grained timers, monitoring infrastructure (e.g., the /proc filesystem), debugger processes, priority-based scheduling, and page-based memory protection. We describe implementations of a sandbox that imposes quantitative restrictions on CPU, memory, and network usage on two commodity operating systems: Windows NT and Linux. Our results show that application usage of resources can be restricted to within 3% of desired limits with minimal run-time overhead.
A Robotic Platform to Assess, Guide and Perturb Rat Forelimb Movements

Animal models are widely used to explore the mechanisms underlying sensorimotor control and learning. However, current experimental paradigms allow only limited control over task difficulty and cannot provide detailed information on forelimb kinematics and dynamics. Here we propose a novel robotic device for use in motor learning investigations with rats. The compact, highly transparent, three degree-of-freedom manipulandum is capable of rendering nominal forces of 2 N to guide or perturb rat forelimb movements, while providing objective and quantitative assessments of endpoint motor performance in a 50×30 mm2 planar workspace. Preliminary experiments with six healthy rats show that the animals can be familiarized with the experimental setup and are able to grasp and manipulate the end-effector of the robot. Further, dynamic perturbations and guiding force fields (i.e., haptic tunnels) rendered by the device had significant influence on rat motor behavior (ANOVA, ). This approach opens up new research avenues for future characterizations of motor learning stages, both in healthy and in stroke models.
Morphology and conductivity improvement of metal mesh through roll-to-roll-compatible near-infrared sintering

This work proposes a near-infrared (NIR) sintering method to improve the surface roughness and to reduce the sheet resistance of a gravure-offset-printed metal mesh with a viscous silver paste that contains large nanoparticles. Results indicate that the sintering was thorough because the porosity in the metal mesh approached 0%. Examination proved a 29.7% surface roughness improvement in the metal mesh after NIR sintering, which outperformed the conventional oven operations by 2.37%. In addition, material analyses through both energy-dispersive and Raman spectroscopy explained the reduction of insulative elements and features with chemical bonds in the metal mesh, supporting the finding of the most significant improvements in surface roughness (90.9%) and sheet resistance (98.6%). The effective NIR sintering evaluated in this work was proven to be not only capable of replacing discontinuous oven operations in roll-to-roll manufacturing but also efficient in enhancing the material characteristics under identical sintering conditions compared with conventional oven operations.
Effect of Chemotherapy with Praziquantel on the Production of Cytokines and Morbidity Associated with Schistosomiasis Mansoni

ABSTRACT The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that treatment of schistosomiasis mansoni with praziquantel can alter significantly the immune response of patients and generate a reversal of the level of fibrosis. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples were collected from, and abdominal ultrasound examinations conducted on, volunteers infected with Schistosoma mansoni and living in an area where the disease is endemic, both prior to and one year after treatment with praziquantel. Subjects were classified into groups according to the level of pathology (i.e., absent, incipient, moderate, or severe fibrosis). PBMCs were stimulated with schistosome soluble egg antigens (SEA), and the levels of production of the cytokines gamma interferon (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor alpha, transforming growth factor β, and interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-10, and IL-13 were determined. The chemotherapy was effective in reducing morbidity, particularly for individuals presenting with severe fibrosis. When levels of cytokine production in posttreatment PBMC cultures stimulated by SEA were categorized as low or high, significant differences in the distribution of IL-13 levels between groups presenting with or not presenting with fibrosis were established. Comparison of pre- and posttreatment SEA-induced cytokine levels in individuals who had experienced no change in the grade of fibrosis following chemotherapy revealed that the level of IFN-γ decreased in subjects with fibrosis whereas that of IL-10 decreased in individuals with and without fibrosis. The data suggest that chemotherapy is effective in reducing the morbidity of the disease and that the level of IL-13 may be a useful indicator of the persistence of fibrosis following treatment.
Integrated Iterated Local Search for the Permutation Flowshop Problem with Tardiness Minimization

In this paper, IILS (Integrated Iterated Local Search) is proposed for the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with the total tardiness minimization. Local searches are performed on an initial solution generated by NEHEDD. Insertion and swapping neighborhood structures are constructed, based on which an integrated neighborhood structure is investigated. In terms of the integrated neighborhood structure, the local search exploits the search space with strong intensification. To increase the diversification of IILS, a composite perturbation procedure is introduced, which performs either an insertion or swapping perturbation operation with a probability. The perturbation procedure is utilized to generate a candidate list of new start points for the next iteration of local searches. The new start point is selected according to a defined criterion, which takes into account both the distance factor and the objective function difference factor. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms three existing best sequential meta-heuristics for the considered problem on most of the 60 benchmark instances in effectiveness with the same computation time limitation.