Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Food-Derived Bioactives Can Protect the Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Cortisol with Antioxidant-Dependent and -Independent Mechanisms

In chronic inflammatory diseases the anti-inflammatory effect of glucocorticoids (GCs) is often decreased, leading to GC resistance. Inflammation is related with increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to oxidative stress which is thought to contribute to the development of GC resistance. Plant-derived compounds such as flavonoids are known for their ability to protect against ROS. In this exploratory study we screened a broad range of food-derived bioactives for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in order to investigate whether their antioxidant effects are associated with the ability to preserve the anti-inflammatory effects of cortisol. The anti-inflammatory potency of the tested compounds was assessed by measuring the oxidative stress–induced GC resistance in human macrophage-like cells. Cells were pre-treated with H2O2 (800 µM) with and without bioactives and then exposed to lipopolysaccharides (LPS) (10 ng/mL) and cortisol (100 nM). The level of inflammation was deducted from the concentration of interleukin-8 (IL-8) in the medium. Intracellular oxidative stress was measured using the fluorescent probe 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescein (DCFH). We found that most of the dietary bioactives display antioxidant and anti-inflammatory action through the protection of the cortisol response. All compounds, except for quercetin, revealing antioxidant activity also protect the cortisol response. This indicates that the antioxidant activity of compounds plays an important role in the protection of the GC response. However, next to the antioxidant activity of the bioactives, other mechanisms also seem to be involved in this protective, anti-inflammatory effect.
Gonioscopic findings in patients with acute central/hemicentral retinal vein occlusions.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate prospectively the gonioscopic findings and their changes during a 3-year follow-up period in patients with acute central/hemicentral retinal vein occlusions (C/HRVOs). MATERIAL AND METHODS A comprehensive ophthalmological examination of both eyes including static and dynamic gonioscopy as well as ocular biometric measurements was performed in 57 patients with acute C/HRVOs. The angle configuration and its changes, the axial length of the globe, the anterior chamber depth and the corneal thickness were assessed. RESULTS 12 C/HRVO patients presented with narrow drainage angles (< or = 20 degrees) and 45 had normal angles (> 20 degrees). Ocular globes with narrow angles had axial length and anterior chamber depth significantly smaller as well as cornea thickness significantly greater than the eyes with normal angles. Out of the 12 patients with narrow angles, 6 cases had primary angle closure suspect (PACS), 5 cases had primary angle closure (PAC) and one case primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG). 3 of the 6 PACS patients progressed to PAC in the 6th, 10th, and 18th months of the follow-up period. From the 8 PAC cases existing during the whole study interval, one case progressed to PACG during the 24th month of the folow-up interval. CONCLUSIONS In the context of an ocular globe having its size significantly smaller than the normal eye, narrow angle may represent a local risk factor predisposing to C/HRVO. Intermittent episodes of angle closure may contribute by increasing the intraocular pressure to the occurrence of C/HRVO as well to the progression of the gonioscopic configuration from PACS to PAC and from PAC to PACG.
The linear process of somatic evolution

Cancer is the consequence of an unwanted evolutionary process. Cells receive mutations that alter their phenotype. Especially dangerous are those mutations that increase the net reproductive rate of cells, thereby leading to neoplasia and later to cancer. The standard models of evolutionary dynamics consider well mixed populations of individuals in symmetric positions. Here we introduce a spatially explicit, asymmetric stochastic process that captures the essential architecture of evolutionary dynamics operating within tissues of multicellular organisms. The “linear process” has the property of canceling out selective differences among cells yet retaining the protective function of apoptosis. This design can slow down the rate of somatic evolution dramatically and therefore delay the onset of cancer.
Relation of Anxiety about Social Physique to Location of Participation in Physical Activity

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of anxiety about social physique to location of participation in physical activity. 37 nursing students completed the Social Physique Anxiety Scale and answered questions relating to the location of the physical activity in which they participated. Women were assigned to either a high- or low-anxiety group based on these scores. An examination of the reported location where participation in physical activity occurred showed that more high than low scorers reported a tendency to exercise privately than publicly; the number was higher than expected. Perhaps high scorers prefer exercise settings that provide less opportunity for their physiques to be evaluated.
Magnitude and Breadth of the Neutralizing Antibody Response in the RV144 and Vax003 HIV-1 Vaccine Efficacy Trials

Background. A recombinant canarypox vector expressing human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) Gag, Pro, and membrane-linked gp120 (vCP1521), combined with a bivalent gp120 protein boost (AIDSVAX B/E), provided modest protection against HIV-1 infection in a community-based population in Thailand (RV144 trial). No protection was observed in Thai injection drug users who received AIDSVAX B/E alone (Vax003 trial). We compared the neutralizing antibody response in these 2 trials. Methods. Neutralization was assessed with tier 1 and tier 2 strains of virus in TZM-bl and A3R5 cells. Results. Neutralization of several tier 1 viruses was detected in both RV144 and Vax003. Peak titers were higher in Vax003 and waned rapidly in both trials. The response in RV144 was targeted in part to V3 of gp120.vCP1521 priming plus 2 boosts with gp120 protein was superior to 2 gp120 protein inoculations alone, confirming a priming effect for vCP1521. Sporadic weak neutralization of tier 2 viruses was detected only in Vax003 and A3R5 cells. Conclusion. The results suggest either that weak neutralizing antibody responses can be partially protective against HIV-1 in low-risk heterosexual populations or that the modest efficacy seen in RV144 was mediated by other immune responses, either alone or in combination with neutralizing antibodies.
Nutrient Interactions and Toxicity Dietary Boron Decreases Peak Pancreatic In Situ Insulin Release in Chicks and Plasma Insulin Concentrations in Rats Regardless of Vitamin D or Magnesium Status 1-3

Because dietary boron deprivation induces hyperinsulinemia in vitamin D–deprived rats, the influence of dietary boron on insulin metabolism as modified by nutritional stressors was examined in two animal models. Male weanling Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to each of four (Experiment 1) or 8 (Experiment 2) dietary groups for 35 d: the basal diet ( 0.2 mg B; 1.0 mg Mg/kg) was supplemented with boron (as orthoboric acid) to contain 0.2 or 2.0 (a physiologic amount) mg B/kg; with magnesium (as magnesium acetate), at 100 (inadequate) or 360–400 (adequate) mg/kg; and with cholecalciferol [vitamin D-3; 25 g/kg for study length (Experiment 2), or, depleted for 16–17 d then repleted until end of experiment (Experiments 1 and 2)]. In the rat model, boron reduced plasma insulin (Experiment 1, P 0.002; Experiment 2, P 0.03), but did not change glucose concentrations regardless of vitamin D-3 or magnesium status. Cockerels (1 d old) were fed a ground corn, high protein casein and corn oil–based basal diet (low boron; 0.3 mg B/kg) supplemented with boron as orthoboric acid to contain 0.3 or 1.65 mg/kg (a physiologic amount) and vitamin D-3 at 3.13 (inadequate) or 15.60 (adequate) g/kg. In the chick model, boron decreased (P 0.045) in situ peak pancreatic insulin release at 26–37 d of age regardless of vitamin D-3 nutriture. These results suggest that physiologic amounts of boron may help reduce the amount of insulin required to maintain plasma glucose. J. Nutr. 133: 3577–3583, 2003.
Trust and power as means of co-ordinating the internal relations of the organization: a conceptual framework

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume focuses on the trust processes between people within organizations, with an emphasis on empirical studies. Rational foundations and psychological motivations for trust are taken into account through conceptual and empirical chapters. The authors begin by summarizing a number of key elements from the literature including how trust develops in time, and how its development is affected by social-psychological phenomena. This includes the notion of ‘framing': the interpretive context in which actions are perceived and evaluated. A conceptual framework is then used to analyse trust and power in the internal relationships of the organization. The contributors take up this issue in an evolutionary analysis of competition between trust and cheating.
Reducing mortality from colorectal cancer by screening for fecal occult blood. Minnesota Colon Cancer Control Study.

BACKGROUND Although tests for occult blood in the feces are widely used to screen for colorectal cancers, there is no conclusive evidence that they reduce mortality from this cause. We evaluated a fecal occult-blood test in a randomized trial and documented its effectiveness. METHODS We randomly assigned 46,551 participants 50 to 80 years of age to screening for colorectal cancer once a year, to screening every two years, or to a control group. Participants who were screened submitted six guaiac-impregnated paper slides with two smears from each of three consecutive stools. About 83 percent of the slides were rehydrated. Participants who tested positive underwent a diagnostic evaluation that included colonoscopy. Vital status was ascertained for all study participants during 13 years of follow-up. A committee determined causes of death. A single pathologist determined the stage of each tissue specimen. Differences in mortality from colorectal cancer, the primary study end point, were monitored with the sequential log-rank statistic. RESULTS The 13-year cumulative mortality per 1000 from colorectal cancer was 5.88 in the annually screened group (95 percent confidence interval, 4.61 to 7.15), 8.33 in the biennially screened group (95 percent confidence interval, 6.82 to 9.84), and 8.83 in the control group (95 percent confidence interval, 7.26 to 10.40). The rate in the annually screened group, but not in the biennially screened group, was significantly lower than that in the control group. Reduced mortality in the annually screened group was accompanied by improved survival in those with colorectal cancer and a shift to detection at an earlier stage of cancer. CONCLUSIONS Annual fecal occult-blood testing with rehydration of the samples decreased the 13-year cumulative mortality from colorectal cancer by 33 percent.
La production des évaluations actuarielles de la juste valeur dans les organisations: Une étude des acteurs, outils et contextes de la préparation des comptes

Cette these porte sur le travail des comptables a travers la production des evaluations actuarielles de la comptabilite a la juste valeur. L’observation directe de leur activite quotidienne au moyen d’une observation participante, permet d’en saisir les conditions erratiques peu etudiees par les recherches comptables. Les resultats obtenus permettent de proposer une premiere formalisation conceptuelle des conditions de la preparation des comptes dans les organisations, melant acteurs, outils et contextes. En donnant toute leur place aux preparateurs des comptes dans l’etude de la communication financiere, nos contributions suggerent de questionner les representations dominant la recherche comptable. Nos resultats decrivent comment certaines des qualites communement attribuees (neutralite, fidelite, …) a la comptabilite sont d’une importance discutable et l’assimilation de la communication financiere a un conflit d’agence difficile.
Buckling of carbon nanotubes at high temperatures

Presented herein is an investigation into the buckling behavior of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) subjected to axial compression and torsion at high temperatures. This study is carried out by performing molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at both room temperature and extremely high temperatures. It is observed that the SWCNT becomes more susceptible to buckling in a higher temperature environment, especially when the SWCNT is subject to axial compression. The high thermal energy enhances the vibration of carbon atoms in the SWCNT significantly, which leads to bond breaking and the formation of sp3 bonds as well as Stone–Wales (SW) defects in the postbuckling stage.
Timely Industry Information as an Assurance Service: Evidence on the Information Content of the Book-to-Bill Ratio

Assurance services include independent professional services that improve the quality of information. Once such service is the collection of confidential information from participating firms on behalf of an industry association and the release of summarized information to investors. An example of this type of service is the collection of industry-wide information for the Semiconductor Industry Association. The primary output from this process is the monthly release of a ratio of new orders received to chips shipped, known as the book-to-bill ratio. We evaluate the association between book-to-bill disclosures and common stock prices. Statements in the financial press suggest that the book-to-bill index is an important indicator of future demand in the semiconductor industry. Because changes in the book-to-bill ratio signal impending changes in sales, the index may be relevant information for firm valuation. Our results suggest that investors in semiconductor firms utilize the book-to-bill ratio in revising their expectations of future cash flows. Specifically, we find (1) that eight of the 36 monthly book-to-bill announcements occurring during 1994 through 1996 produced share price reactions significant at the 10 percent level, and (2) that the price response across the subset of "good news" disclosures is positively related to the change in the book-to-bill ratio.
Comparing the performance of concurrent linked-list implementations in Haskell

Haskell has a rich set of synchronization primitives for implementing shared-state concurrency abstractions, ranging from the very high level (Software Transactional Memory) to the very low level (mutable variables with atomic read-modify-write). In this paper we perform a systematic comparison of these different concurrent programming models by using them to implement the same abstraction: a concurrent linked-list. Our results are somewhat surprising: there is a full two orders of magnitude difference in performance between the slowest and the fastest implementation. Our analysis of the performance results gives new insights into the relative performance of the programming models and their implementation. Finally, we suggest the addition of a single primitive which in our experiments improves the performance of one of the STM-based implementations by more than a factor of 7.
Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Durable Goods, Adjustment Costs, and Aggregation

In this paper, we investigate the implications of non-separable preferences over durable and nondurable consumption for asset pricing tests when adjusting durable consumption is costly. In an economy without adjustment costs, in which a frictionless rental market exists for the durable good, the standard Euler equation with respect to nondurable consumption will hold for each individual agent as well as for aggregate data. If the adjustment of the durable good is costly, however, aggregation generally fails. We use aggregate data to find substantial deviations from the frictionless model, consistent with the presence of non-convex adjustment costs for the durable good. We also show how empirical asset pricing tests that use aggregate data can be affected by these deviations. We then propose and implement asset pricing tests that are robust to the presence of adjustment costs by relying on microeconomic data. Using household-level observations of nondurable food and durable housing consumption, our estimation results suggest that preferences are indeed non-separable in the two consumption goods and that reasonable structural parameters characterize agents' intertemporal utility optimizations.
A graphical representation of relational formulae with complementation

We study translations of dyadic first-order sentences into equalities between relational expressions. The proposed translation techniques (which work also in the converse direction) exploit a graphical representation of formulae in a hybrid of the two formalisms. A major enhancement relative to previous work is that we can cope with the relational complement construct and with the negation connective. Complementation is handled by adopting a Smullyan-like uniform notation to classify and decompose relational expressions; negation is treated by means of a generalized graph-representation of formulae in L + ,
On the Sampling Problem for Kernel Quadrature

The standard Kernel Quadrature method for numerical integration with random point sets (also called Bayesian Monte Carlo) is known to converge in root mean square error at a rate determined by the ratio $s/d$, where $s$ and $d$ encode the smoothness and dimension of the integrand. However, an empirical investigation reveals that the rate constant $C$ is highly sensitive to the distribution of the random points. In contrast to standard Monte Carlo integration, for which optimal importance sampling is well-understood, the sampling distribution that minimises $C$ for Kernel Quadrature does not admit a closed form. This paper argues that the practical choice of sampling distribution is an important open problem. One solution is considered; a novel automatic approach based on adaptive tempering and sequential Monte Carlo. Empirical results demonstrate a dramatic reduction in integration error of up to 4 orders of magnitude can be achieved with the proposed method.
Structure-Function Analysis of VapB4 Antitoxin Identifies Critical Features of a Minimal VapC4 Toxin-Binding Module

ABSTRACT Bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems play a critical role in the regulation of gene expression, leading to developmental changes, reversible dormancy, and cell death. Type II toxin-antitoxin pairs, composed of protein toxins and antitoxins, exist in nearly all bacteria and are classified into six groups on the basis of the structure of the toxins. The VapBC group comprises the most common type II system and, like other toxin-antitoxin systems, functions to elicit dormancy by inhibiting protein synthesis. Activation of toxin function requires protease degradation of the VapB antitoxin, which frees the VapC toxin from the VapBC complex, allowing it to hydrolyze the RNAs required for translation. Generally, type II antitoxins bind with high specificity to their cognate toxins via a toxin-binding domain and endow the complex with DNA-binding specificity via a DNA-binding domain. Despite the ubiquity of VapBC systems and their critical role in the regulation of gene expression, few functional studies have addressed the details of VapB-VapC interactions. Here we report on the results of experiments designed to identify molecular determinants of the specificity of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis VapB4 antitoxin for its cognate VapC4 toxin. The results identify the minimal domain of VapB4 required for this interaction as well as the amino acid side chains required for binding to VapC4. These findings have important implications for the evolution of VapBC toxin-antitoxin systems and their potential as targets of small-molecule protein-protein interaction inhibitors. IMPORTANCE VapBC toxin-antitoxin pairs are the most widespread type II toxin-antitoxin systems in bacteria, where they are thought to play key roles in stress-induced dormancy and the formation of persisters. The VapB antitoxins are critical to these processes because they inhibit the activity of the toxins and provide the DNA-binding specificity that controls the synthesis of both proteins. Despite the importance of VapB antitoxins and the existence of several VapBC crystal structures, little is known about their functional features in vivo. Here we report the findings of the first comprehensive structure-function analysis of a VapB toxin. The results identify the minimal toxin-binding domain, its modular antitoxin function, and the specific amino acid side chains required for its activity.
Regulation of Human CLC-3 Channels by Multifunctional Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent Protein Kinase*

The multifunctional calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II, CaMKII, has been shown to regulate chloride movement and cellular function in both excitable and non-excitable cells. We show that the plasma membrane expression of a member of the ClC family of Cl−channels, human CLC-3 (hCLC-3), a 90-kDa protein, is regulated by CaMKII. We cloned the full-length hCLC-3 gene from the human colonic tumor cell line T84, previously shown to express a CaMKII-activated Cl− conductance (ICl,CaMKII), and transfected this gene into the mammalian epithelial cell line tsA, which lacks endogenous expression of ICl,CaMKII. Biotinylation experiments demonstrated plasma membrane expression of hCLC-3 in the stably transfected cells. In whole cell patch clamp experiments, autonomously active CaMKII was introduced into tsA cells stably transfected with hCLC-3 via the patch pipette. Cells transfected with the hCLC-3 gene showed a 22-fold increase in current density over cells expressing the vector alone. Kinase-dependent current expression was abolished in the presence of the autocamtide-2-related inhibitory peptide, a specific inhibitor of CaMKII. A mutation of glycine 280 to glutamic acid in the conserved motif in the putative pore region of the channel changed anion selectivity from I− > Cl− to Cl− > I−. These results indicate that hCLC-3 encodes a Cl− channel that is regulated by CaMKII-dependent phosphorylation.
Network stack specialization for performance

Contemporary network stacks are masterpieces of generality, supporting many edge-node and middle-node functions. Generality comes at a high performance cost: current APIs, memory models, and implementations drastically limit the effectiveness of increasingly powerful hardware. Generality has historically been required so that individual systems could perform many functions. However, as providers have scaled services to support millions of users, they have transitioned toward thousands (or millions) of dedicated servers, each performing a few functions. We argue that the overhead of generality is now a key obstacle to effective scaling, making specialization not only viable, but necessary. We present Sandstorm and Namestorm, web and DNS servers that utilize a clean-slate userspace network stack that exploits knowledge of application-specific workloads. Based on the netmap framework, our novel approach merges application and network-stack memory models, aggressively amortizes protocol-layer costs based on application-layer knowledge, couples tightly with the NIC event model, and exploits microarchitectural features. Simultaneously, the servers retain use of conventional programming frameworks. We compare our approach with the FreeBSD and Linux stacks using the nginx web server and NSD name server, demonstrating 2--10x and 9x improvements in web-server and DNS throughput, lower CPU usage, linear multicore scaling, and saturated NIC hardware.