Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isolation, culture, and characterization of endothelial cells from Schlemm's canal.

PURPOSE An important goal in glaucoma research has been to understand the functional contribution of trabecular meshwork (TM) and Schlemm's canal (SC) endothelia to aqueous humor outflow resistance. To date, TM cells are routinely cultured and used as a model by several laboratories. However, there has been only limited success in isolating SC cells. The current objective was to develop a technique for selective isolation and culture of endothelial cells from human SC. METHODS The anterior chamber of human cadaveric eyes was cut into eight equal and radially symmetric wedge-shaped pieces. Using a dissecting microscope, a gelatin-coated suture (6-0 sterile nylon monofilament) was gently inserted into the lumen of SC and advanced into the canal. The cannulated pieces of tissue were placed in culture medium and maintained for 3 weeks. Sutures were removed from SC and cells seeded onto 3-cm culture plates. Morphology, growth characteristics, and expression of endothelial surface antigens and other cellular markers were evaluated. RESULTS Of the 20 pairs of eyes that were cannulated, primary cells were obtained from 13. All SC cell isolates had a fusiform morphology; formed nonoverlapping, linearly arranged monolayers; and were contact inhibited. Schlemm's canal cell isolates reacted with antibodies specific for CD44 (hyaluron receptor), CD54 (intercellular adhesion molecule-1, ICAM-1), tissue-type plasminogen activator, and TM-inducible glucocorticoid-responsive protein-myocilin (TIGR-MYOC). Unlike TM cells, however, TIGR-MYOC protein was not induced in SC cells after long-term dexamethasone treatment. Schlemm's canal cells endocytosed low-density lipoprotein and acetylated low-density lipoprotein, and in the presence of Matrigel organized into multicellular tubelike structures. CONCLUSIONS Cannulation of SC with gelatin-coated suture material is an effective method for the isolation of human SC cells and provides a cellular model to study the potential role of SC cells in aqueous humor outflow function.
East Asia in the Aftermath: Was There a Crunch?

This paper investigates whether there was a credit crunch in East Asia during the recent financial and economic crises. Motivated by widespread concern that, over and above any increases in real interest rates, corporates may have also faced credit rationing, we adopt an explicit disequilibrium framework for analyzing the behavior of real credit with a view to assessing whether the supply of, or demand for credit has been a binding constraint. The findings highlight the dynamics associated with a credit crunch. We find evidence of a »credit crunch« in all three crisis countries (Indonesia, Korea, Thailand) in the period immediately following the crisis as the banking system distress deepened, and the supply of (real) credit declined. Thereafter, however, credit demand also fell sharply as economic recession took hold and corporate bankruptcies increased. By the end of the first quarter of 1998, therefore, the constraining factor was the demand for credit. We conclude that, beyond the initial crisis period, there is little evidence of a credit crunch at the aggregate level, although high real interest rates - and credit rationing of individual firms - may have continued to contribute to the difficulties of the corporate sector.
Multiple mechanisms contribute to the development of clinically significant azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus

Infections caused by the filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are a significant clinical issue and represent the second most-common form of fungal infection. Azole drugs are effective against this pathogen but resistant isolates are being found more frequently. Infections associated with azole resistant A. fumigatus have a significantly increased mortality making understanding drug resistance in this organism a priority. The target of azole drugs is the lanosterol α-14 demethylase enzyme encoded by the cyp51A gene in A. fumigatus. Mutations in cyp51A have been described that give rise to azole resistance and been argued to be the primary, if not sole, contributor to azole resistance. Here, I discuss recent developments that indicate multiple mechanisms, including increased expression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter proteins, contribute to azole resistance. ABC transporters are well-established determinants of drug resistance in other fungal pathogens and seem likely to play a similar role in A. fumigatus.
A Novel Method of Combined Feature Extraction for Recognition

Multimodal recognition is an emerging technique to overcome the non-robustness of the unimodal recognition in real applications. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has been employed as a powerful tool for feature fusion in the realization of such multimodal system. However, CCA is the unsupervised feature extraction and it does not utilize the class information of the samples, resulting in the constraint of the recognition performance. In this paper, the class information is incorporated into the framework of CCA for combined feature extraction, and a novel method of combined feature extraction for multimodal recognition, called discriminative canonical correlation analysis (DCCA), is proposed. The experiments show that DCCA outperforms some related methods of both unimodal recognition and multimodal recognition.
Eotaxin-2, a Novel CC Chemokine that Is Selective for the Chemokine Receptor CCR3, and Acts Like Eotaxin on Human Eosinophil and Basophil Leukocytes

A novel human CC chemokine consisting of 78 amino acids and having a molecular mass of 8,778.3 daltons (VVIPSPCCMF FVSKRIPENR VVSYQLSSRS TCLKAGVIFT TKKGQQ SCGD PKQEWVQRYM KNLDAKQKKA SPRARAVA) was isolated together with three minor COOH-terminally truncated variants with 73, 75, and 76 residues. The new chemokine was termed eotaxin-2 because it is functionally very similar to eotaxin. In terms of structure, however, eotaxin and eotaxin-2 are rather distant, they share only 39% identical amino acids and differ almost completely in the NH2-terminal region. Eotaxin-2 induced chemotaxis of eosinophils as well as basophils, with a typically bimodal concentration dependence, and the release of histamine and leukotriene C4 from basophils that had been primed with IL-3. In all assays, eotaxin-2 had the same efficacy as eotaxin, but was somewhat less potent. The migration and the release responses were abrogated in the presence of a monoclonal antibody that selectively blocks the eotaxin receptor, CCR3, indicating that eotaxin-2, like eotaxin, acts exclusively via CCR3. Receptor usage was also studied in desensitization experiments by measuring [Ca2+]i changes in eosinophils. Complete cross-desensitization was observed between eotaxin-2, eotaxin and MCP-4 confirming activation via CCR3. No Ca2+ mobilization was obtained in neutrophils, monocytes and lymphocytes, in agreement with the lack of chemotactic responsiveness. Intradermal injection of eotaxin-2 in a rhesus monkey (100 or 1,000 pmol per site) induced a marked local infiltration of eosinophils, which was most pronounced in the vicinity of postcapillary venules and was comparable to the effect of eotaxin.
Adaptive Reweighting of Auditory Localization Cues in Response to Chronic Unilateral Earplugging in Humans

Localizing a sound source involves the detection and integration of various spatial cues present in the sound waves at each ear. Previous studies indicate that the brain circuits underlying sound localization are calibrated by experience of the cues available to each individual. Plasticity in spatial hearing is most pronounced during development but can also be demonstrated during adulthood under certain circumstances. Investigations into whether adult humans can adjust to reduced input in one ear and learn a new correspondence between interaural differences cues and directions in space have produced conflicting results. Here we show that humans of both sexes can relearn to localize broadband sounds with a flat spectrum in the horizontal plane after altering the spatial cues available by plugging one ear. In subjects who received daily training, localization accuracy progressively shifted back toward their pre-plug performance after 1 week of earplugging, whereas no improvement was seen if all trials were performed on the same day. However, localization performance did not improve on a task that used stimuli in which the source spectrum was randomized from trial to trial, indicating that monaural spectral cues are needed for plasticity. We also characterized the effects of the earplug on sensitivity to interaural time and level differences and found no clear evidence for adaptation to these cues as the free-field localization performance improved. These findings suggest that the mature auditory system can accommodate abnormal inputs and maintain a stable spatial percept by reweighting different cues according to how informative they are.
Airline Yield Management Optimal Bid Prices for Single-Hub Problems without Cancellations

In recent years, the most successful approaches to solving the airline yield management (YM) problem have been based on bid pricing. Bid price control assigns a threshold price to each ight leg. Given the bid prices, the resulting policy accepts a booking request if its associated fare is greater than the sum if the bid prices along the associated itinerary. The most diicult aspect of bid pricing methods is the selection of bid prices. In this paper, we introduce a new method to compute bid prices for YM problems that are imposed by ight complexes. Flight complexes are of great importance in practice due to the fact that most passengers connect only within a ight complex, permitting decomposition of the larger ight network. Our approach obtains optimal bid prices for certain classes of YM problems and performs promisingly in simulations based on data from a real ight complex.
Forum Data Extraction without Explicit Rules

Web forum data contributed by millions of users are the mixture of well-formed user information and free-format user-generated content. Though easy to read for users, forum data are difficult to be analyzed by computer systems because of various surrounding HTML tags. It is challenging to extract forum data from a large number of Web sites automatically since these sites may have different styles. In this paper, we propose an approach to extract user information and user-generated content from multiple forum sites by using both structural and textual characteristics of forums. A structural induction process and a term combination computation process are introduced to assure extraction accuracy and automation. Extensive experiments on real-life data sets show the effectiveness of our proposed method.
The Ethical Dangers of Deliberative Decision Making

Research on ethical decision making has been heavily influenced by normative decision theories that view intelligent choices as involving conscious deliberation and analysis. Recent developments in moral psychology, however, suggest that moral functions involved in ethical decision making are metaphorical and embodied. The research presented here suggests that deliberative decision making may actually increase unethical behaviors and reduce altruistic motives when it overshadows implicit, intuitive influences on moral judgments and decisions. Three lab experiments explored the potential ethical dangers of deliberative decision making. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that deliberative decision making, activated by a math problem-solving task or by simply framing the choice as a decision rather than an intuitive reaction, increased deception in a one-shot deception game. Experiment 3—which activated systematic thinking or intuitive feeling about the choice to donate to a charity—found that deliberative decision making could also decrease altruism. These findings highlight the potential ethical downsides of a rationalistic approach toward ethical decision making and call for a better understanding of the intuitive nature of moral functioning.
The relationship between glucocerebrosidase mutations and Parkinson disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer disease, whereas Gaucher disease (GD) is the most frequent lysosomal storage disorder caused by homozygous mutations in the glucocerebrosidase (GBA1) gene. Increased risk of developing PD has been observed in both GD patients and carriers. It has been estimated that GBA1 mutations confer a 20‐ to 30‐fold increased risk for the development of PD, and that at least 7–10% of PD patients have a GBA1 mutation. To date, mutations in the GBA1 gene constitute numerically the most important risk factor for PD. The type of PD associated with GBA1 mutations (PD‐GBA1) is almost identical to idiopathic PD, except for a slightly younger age of onset and a tendency to more cognitive impairment. Importantly, the pathology of PD‐GBA1 is identical to idiopathic PD, with nigral dopamine cell loss, Lewy bodies, and neurites containing alpha‐synuclein. The mechanism by which GBA1 mutations increase the risk for PD is still unknown. However, given that clinical manifestation and pathological findings in PD‐GBA1 patients are almost identical to those in idiopathic PD individuals, it is likely that, as in idiopathic PD, alpha‐synuclein accumulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, autophagic impairment, oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress may contribute to the development and progression of PD‐GBA1. Here, we review the GBA1 gene, its role in GD, and its link with PD.
AWGN based seed for random noise generator in ParseKey+

This research presents an enhancement in the ParseKey+ authentication scheme presented in an earlier research. Basically, ParseKey+ relies on scattering sub-keys in a block of uniformly created random noise. The sequence of noise is created using the same hash function used to create the sub-key itself. Using timestamp as seed does not help in countering replay attack in one-way encryption functions as it cannot be discovered to be compared in sequence. However, its imperfect usage causes discovering the sequence of generated random noise so that sub-keys are distinguishable. We require a pure uniform random noise to be used as seed of hash function. In this respect, Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) is used to provide sequence of seeds for hash function in generating ParseKey+ noise file. Similarly, such random noise can be applied in all security schemes relying on one-way encryption algorithms or in those which need instant update of the key without having any dependency in key sequence.
Self-incompatibility in passion fruit: cellular responses in incompatible pollinations

Self-incompatibility (SI) is a genetic mechanism in angiosperms that prevents selfing. The SI system in passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims) was investigated using hand pollinations. Pollen tube growth was inspected by microscopy, and sequence analysis of potential regulators of this process was carried out. The results revealed that the pollen tubes grew slowly and were often completely arrested in the stigma in an incompatible combination. Under these circumstances the pollen tube was rapidly and significantly rearranged, followed by the rapid deposition of callose in the stigma during the SI response. The structural changes in the pollen grain after an incompatible pollination were investigated using scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, ultrastructural observations during incompatible interactions showed that the membrane system of the pollen tube was damaged, and fertilisation was not observed or was considerably delayed when compared to compatible interactions. The analysis presented here provides evidence that the passion fruit genome presents similar sequences to those encoding factors involved in SI in different species. These results suggest that, in the SI system of passion fruit, the rejection of an incompatible pollen grain is characterised by drastic structural changes in both pollen and pollen tube.
A Worldwide Analysis of Beta-Defensin Copy Number Variation Suggests Recent Selection of a High-Expressing DEFB103 Gene Copy in East Asia

Beta‐defensins are a family of multifunctional genes with roles in defense against pathogens, reproduction, and pigmentation. In humans, six beta‐defensin genes are clustered in a repeated region which is copy‐number variable (CNV) as a block, with a diploid copy number between 1 and 12. The role in host defense makes the evolutionary history of this CNV particularly interesting, because morbidity due to infectious disease is likely to have been an important selective force in human evolution, and to have varied between geographical locations. Here, we show CNV of the beta‐defensin region in chimpanzees, and identify a beta‐defensin block in the human lineage that contains rapidly evolving noncoding regulatory sequences. We also show that variation at one of these rapidly evolving sequences affects expression levels and cytokine responsiveness of DEFB103, a key inhibitor of influenza virus fusion at the cell surface. A worldwide analysis of beta‐defensin CNV in 67 populations shows an unusually high frequency of high‐DEFB103‐expressing copies in East Asia, the geographical origin of historical and modern influenza epidemics, possibly as a result of selection for increased resistance to influenza in this region. Hum Mutat 32:743–750, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Gene Inactivation of Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin/Kexin Type 9 Reduces Atherosclerosis in Mice

Background— The proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) promotes independently of its enzymatic activity the degradation of the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor. PCSK9 gain of function in humans leads to autosomal dominant hypercholesterolemia, whereas the absence of functional PCSK9 results in ≈7-fold lower levels of LDL cholesterol. This suggests that lowering PCSK9 may protect against atherosclerosis. Methods and Results— We investigated the role of PCSK9 in atherosclerosis in C57BL/6 wild-type (WT), apolipoprotein E–deficient, and LDL receptor–deficient mouse models. Circulating cholesterol levels, fast protein liquid chromatography profiles, aortic cholesteryl esters (CE), and plaque sizes were determined. Intima-media thicknesses were measured by ultrasound biomicroscopy. First, mice expressing null (knockout [KO]), normal (WT), or high (transgenic [Tg]) levels of PCSK9 were fed a 12-month Western diet. KO mice accumulated 4-fold less aortic CE than WT mice, whereas Tg mice exhibited high CE and severe aortic lesions. Next we generated apolipoprotein E–deficient mice, known to spontaneously develop lesions, that expressed null (KO/e), normal (WT/e), or high (Tg/e) levels of PCSK9. After a 6-month regular diet, KO/e mice showed a 39% reduction compared with WT/e mice in aortic CE accumulation, whereas Tg/e mice showed a 137% increase. Finally, LDL receptor–deficient mice expressing no (KO/L), normal (WT/L), or high (Tg/L) levels of PCSK9 were fed a Western diet for 3 months. KO/L and Tg/L mice exhibited levels of plasma cholesterol and CE accumulation similar to those of WT/L mice, suggesting that PCSK9 modulates atherosclerosis mainly via the LDL receptor. Conclusions— Altogether, our results show a direct relationship between PCSK9 and atherosclerosis. PCSK9 overexpression is proatherogenic, whereas its absence is protective.
Implementation and Use of Data Structures in Linux

This paper describes the abstract or conceptual software architecture of the Linux kernel. This level of architecture is concerned with the large-scale subsystems within the kernel, but not with particular procedures or variables. One of the purposes of such an abstract architecture is to form a mental model for Linux developers and architects. The model may not reflect the as-built architecture perfectly, but it provides a useful way to think about the overall structure. This model is most useful for entry-level developers, but is also a good way for experienced developers to maintain a consistent and accurate system vocabulary. The architecture presented here is the result of reverse engineering an existing Linux implementation; the primary sources of information used were the documentation and source code. Unfortunately, no developer interviews were used to extract the live architecture of the system. Linux Kernel & System programming. Some of the information I have taken from books/net and added my perception into it and presenting it in a simple language. Data structures are a fundamental building block for many software systems: computers manipulate information, and this information is often stored in data structures. Implementing linked data structures invariably appears early in an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. Classically, programmers implement in memory data structures with pointers. Modern programming environments, however, include rich standard.
Situated motivational affordances of game elements: A conceptual model

An increasing number of applications use game design elements to motivate user behavior in non-game contexts. Yet current models of video game motivation do not connect to the granular level of single design elements. Similarly, they do not address the social situation of game play. To address this lack, the concept of situated motivational affordances is introduced to conceptualize the motivational pull of single game design elements in varying contexts.
Evaluation on External Economies of Renewable Energy Resource Utilization: Taken Wind Power Engineering Project as Example

Different wind power projects have different external economics level, the practical evaluation on which can provide reference for wind power projects selection and qualify the role of completed projects. In this paper, the external economies of wind power engineering projects were evaluated by employing VIKOR method. The basic theory of VIKOR method was firstly introduced, and then the empirical evaluation was performed. After the evaluation index system was built from environmental, social and economic aspects, the external economies of three selected wind power engineering projects in Hebei province were studied. The evaluation result shows the external economies of wind power project #3 are the best one. The application of VIKOR method in external economies evaluation of wind power project is effective and feasible.
Magnetic and electronic properties of be-doped low-temperature grown GaAs layers

Magnetic and electron transport properties of Be-doped low-temperature-grown GaAs layers at low temperatures were studied. A nearly abrupt decrease of magnetization is observed at a temperature around 3.2 K where a discontinuous decrease in resistance is also observed. These observations are explained by cooperative transition of the electron states of ASGa defects. First-principal calculations of the electron state of an ASGa atom with a shallow acceptor Be atom show that at the transition, an ASGa+ion is displaced to the interstitial site and becomes a neutral atom, leading to a magnetization annihilation. In addition, the displacement results in the generation of a hole in the valence band and enhance the electrical conduction.