Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early-Outgrowth Bone Marrow Cells Attenuate Renal Injury and Dysfunction via an Antioxidant Effect in a Mouse Model of Type 2 Diabetes

Cell therapy has been extensively investigated in heart disease but less so in the kidney. We considered whether cell therapy also might be useful in diabetic kidney disease. Cognizant of the likely need for autologous cell therapy in humans, we sought to assess the efficacy of donor cells derived from both healthy and diabetic animals. Eight-week-old db/db mice were randomized to receive a single intravenous injection of PBS or 0.5 × 106 early-outgrowth cells (EOCs) from db/m or db/db mice. Effects were assessed 4 weeks after cell infusion. Untreated db/db mice developed mesangial matrix expansion and tubular epithelial cell apoptosis in association with increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and overexpression of thioredoxin interacting protein (TxnIP). Without affecting blood glucose or blood pressure, EOCs not only attenuated mesangial and peritubular matrix expansion, as well as tubular apoptosis, but also diminished ROS and TxnIP overexpression in the kidney of db/db mice. EOCs derived from both diabetic db/db and nondiabetic db/m mice were equally effective in ameliorating kidney injury and oxidative stress. The similarly beneficial effects of cells from healthy and diabetic donors highlight the potential of autologous cell therapy in the related clinical setting.
Nitridergic Platelet Pathway Activation by Hementerin, a Metalloprotease from the Leech Haementeria depressa

Abstract Hementerin (HT) is an 80 kDa fibrino(geno)lytic metalloprotease, purified from saliva of the leech Haementeria depressa. In the present report, the effect of HT on several functional parameters of human platelets was assessed. HT inhibited platelet aggregation and ATP release induced by different agonists such as ADP, adrenaline, collagen, thrombin, and arachidonic acid. HT did neither modify the expression of platelet glycoproteins (Ib, IIb-IIIa, Ia-IIa, IV) nor intraplatelet fibrinogen levels, whereas it markedly decreased CD62P and CD63 levels after the stimulation with thrombin. HT significantly increased thrombininduced platelet Ca[2+] intracellular levels, cGMP content and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity. The effect of HT on platelet aggregation was reversed by two NOS inhibitors, Nω-Nitro-L-arginine methyl ester and 2 NG-Nitro-L-arginine. In summary, these results indicate that HT is an effective inhibitor of human platelet aggregation, presumably through activation of the platelets nitridergic pathway.
Nebulization Therapy for Asthma: A Practical Guide for the Busy Pediatrician

Children’s abilities to use different inhalation delivery devices vary, thus affecting the dose of medication that reaches the airway. The efficacy of inhaled medication is highly contingent on the patient’s ability to use an inhalation device correctly. Device selection should include consideration of the child’s ability to use the device properly, the types of medication being prescribed (eg, rescue, controller, or both), and preferences of the caregiver and patient. Incorrect use of pMDIs is common, and infants and young children may lack the coordination to use a pMDI correctly and effectively. Incorrect use of inhalers may lead to undertreatment with inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs), resulting in overtreatment with oral corticosteroids and inhaled β2-adrenergic agonists for asthma that is not well controlled. Therefore, each child should be assessed as to his/her ability to produce the necessary effort and coordination required for a specific device. Parents/guardians also should be able to help the child administer the medication properly. A nebulized system has certain advantages (Table 1). The most obvious advantage is that it requires little coordination from the patient and no voluntary adaptation of inhalation; the child can breathe normally. A nebulized system delivers Administration of asthma medication via inhalation is advantageous because it allows for drug delivery directly to the site of action, resulting in faster onset of action, smaller doses, reduced systemic absorption, and fewer systemic adverse events compared with oral administration. However, proper and effective administration of inhaled asthma medication to infants and young children is challenging. There are 3 types of inhalation delivery devices available: dry-powder inhalers, pressurized metereddose inhalers (pMDIs), and nebulizers. Dry-powder inhalers use a patient’s inspiratory effort to disperse the drug, but these devices are not recommended for children younger than 5 years because children in this age group are not able to generate adequate inspiratory forces to disperse and inhale the drug effectively. The pMDI contains a mixture of propellant and drug under pressure. These devices require coordination to trigger the actuation while inhaling, which can be overcome through the use of a spacer and holding chamber, particularly in children. Nebulizers use compressed air, vibrations from an ultrasonic energy source, or, more recently, a vibrating mesh to aerosolize liquid. For children younger than 5 years, a nebulizer or pMDI with a spacer/ holding chamber and face mask is recommended for inhaled medication. Nebulization therapy remains widely used in pediatrics, whether it is in the emergency department, clinic, or at home, for children of
Spanish-Immersion Children in Washington State: Fourth Year of a Longitudinal Study.

The fourth-year update of a longitudinal study examined the progress of the 31 remaining members of 2 classes in the first cohort of a Spanish immersion program and their standard-program monolingual comparison group of 15 students. Achievement gains were measured on standardized tests of mathematics and language skills. Results provided new evidence supporting the hypothesis that degrees of primary-school bilingual development correlate with development of higher-order mathematical skills. However, while an earlier report of the longitudinal study showed significant gains in nonverbal development by the immersion students at grade 2, mathematics and language achievement data do not indicate a corresponding advantage for the immersion students at grades 4 and 5. At the intermediate grades, the immersion children were generally performing on par with their monolingual comparison group on standardized achievement measures. It is concluded that the study's results support the developmental-interdependence hypothesis and Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development, but not enhanced achievement among additive-bilingual children. A 31-item bibliography is included. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Spanish-Immersion Children
Robust Nonlinear Adaptive Control of a “Boost” Converter via Algebraic Parameter Identification

This paper presents the design of a robust nonlinear adaptive controller for trajectory tracking maneuvers of the nonminimum phase output voltage on a dc-to-dc “boost” power converter with uncertain time-varying parameters. The unknown parameter variations concern both the resistive load and the input voltage supply value. A generalized proportional-integral (GPI) indirect control, exploiting the flatness property of the system, performs fast adaptations on the feedback controller and on the desired output reference trajectory owing to a fast online algebraic parameter identification procedure. The required updating of the algebraic parameter identification process is periodically triggered to cope with the time variations of the unknown plant parameters. The proposed control scheme is shown to be quite effective for handling the significant plant uncertainties when tested through experiments on a laboratory prototype. An adaptive linear quadratic regulator optimal control based on feedback linearization was designed in order to compare its performance against that of the proposed GPI adaptive scheme. An integral square error index was used for the evaluation.
Cytochromes P450 (cyp) in Tropical Fishes: Catalytic Activities, Expression of Multiple Cyp Proteins and High Levels of Microsomal P450 in Liver of Fishes from Bermuda

Hepatic microsomes prepared from 10 fish species from Bermuda were studied to establish features of cytochrome P450 (CYP) systems in tropical marine fish. The majority (7/10) of the species had total P450 content between 0.1 and 0.5 nmol/mg, and cytochrome b 5 content between 0.025 and 0.25 nmol/mg. Ethoxycou-marin O-deethylase (ECOD) and aminopyrine N-demethylase (APND) rates in these 7 species were 0.23–2.1 nmol/min/mg and 0.5–11 nmol/min/mg, respectively, similar to rates in many temperate fish species. In contrast to those 7 species, sergeant major (Abudefduf saxatilis) and Bermuda chub (Kyphosus sectatrix) had microsomal P450 contents near 1.7 nmol/mg, among the highest values reported in untreated fish, and had greater rates of ECOD, APND, ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) and pentoxyresorufin O-depentylase than did most of the other species. Freshly caught individuals of all species had detectable levels of EROD and aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) activities. Those individuals with higher rates of EROD activity had greater content of immunodetected CYP1A protein, consistent with Ah-receptor agonists acting to induce CYP1A in many fish in Bermuda waters. Injection of tomtate and blue-striped grunt with β-naphthoflavone (BNF; 50 or 100 mg/ kg) induced EROD rates by 25 to 55-fold, suggesting that environmental induction in some fish was slight compared with the capacity to respond. AHH rates were induced only 3-fold in these same fish. The basis for disparity in the degree of EROD and AHH induction is not known. Rates of APND and testosterone 6β-and 16β-hydroxylase were little changed by BNF, indicating that these are not CYP1A activities in these fish. Anti-bodies to phenobarbital-inducible rat CYP2B1 or to scup P450B, a putative CYP2B, detected one or more proteins in several species, suggesting that CYP2B-like proteins are highly expressed in some tropical fishes. Generally , species with greater amounts of total P450 had greater amounts of proteins related to CYP2B. These species also had appreciable amounts of CYP3A-like proteins. Thus, many fishes in Bermuda appear to have induced levels of CYP1A; some also have unusually high levels of total P450 and of CYP2B-like and CYP3A-like proteins. These species may be good models for examining the structural, functional and regulatory properties of teleost CYP and the environmental or ecological factors contributing to high levels of expression of CYP in some fishes. INTRODUCTION restrial vertebrates and insects (40). The abundance and function of specific CYP proteins can determine the suscep-Monooxygenases in the cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene su-tibility of individuals or …
Dietary patterns among adolescents in the West of Scotland

Dietary data from 15-year-old adolescents participating in the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study were examined in order to describe current eating patterns and food habits. Comparison of the data with a ‘healthy eating’ index showed that less than one-third of the sample were eating a diet similar to that promoted by local health education campaigns, Multivariate analysis showed that adolescents from non-manual and wealthier families, non-smokers, and females were more likely to be classified as ‘healthy eaters’. Comparison of the data with that collected from a 35-year-old cohort in the same study showed that significantly fewer 15-year-olds were likely to consume diets associated with long-term health.
Characterizing College Science Assessments: The Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol

Many calls to improve science education in college and university settings have focused on improving instructor pedagogy. Meanwhile, science education at the K-12 level is undergoing significant changes as a result of the emphasis on scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. This framework of “three-dimensional learning” is based on the literature about how people learn science and how we can help students put their knowledge to use. Recently, similar changes are underway in higher education by incorporating three-dimensional learning into college science courses. As these transformations move forward, it will become important to assess three-dimensional learning both to align assessments with the learning environment, and to assess the extent of the transformations. In this paper we introduce the Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol (3D-LAP), which is designed to characterize and support the development of assessment tasks in biology, chemistry, and physics that align with transformation efforts. We describe the development process used by our interdisciplinary team, discuss the validity and reliability of the protocol, and provide evidence that the protocol can distinguish between assessments that have the potential to elicit evidence of three-dimensional learning and those that do not.
Compositional Verification of Probabilistic Systems Using Learning

We present a fully automated technique for compositional verification of probabilistic systems. Our approach builds upon a recently proposed assume-guarantee framework for probabilistic automata, in which assumptions and guarantees are probabilistic safety properties, represented using finite automata. A limitation of this work is that the assumptions need to be created manually. To overcome this, we propose a novel learning technique based on the L* algorithm, which automatically generates probabilistic assumptions using the results of queries executed by a probabilistic model checker. Learnt assumptions either establish satisfaction of the verification problem or are used to generate a probabilistic counterexample that refutes it. In the case where an assumption cannot be generated, lower and upper bounds on the probability of satisfaction are produced. We illustrate the applicability of the approach on a range of case studies.
Nanometer DFM – The tip of the ice

Design for manufacturing has become one of the key factors of nanometer designs for the past decade and it is facing increasing challenges from the manufacturing limitations. These manufacturing and process challenges include the printability issues due to deep sub-wavelength lithography, the topography variations due to chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP), the random defects due to missing and extra material, the via void, and more. Another necessity is corrections of optical process effects (optical proximity correction (OPC) and phase-shifting masks (PSM)) which create entire layout design and verification methodologies. Classic DFM design (Design for Manufacturing) consists of an analysis of yield and a set of constraints. These constraints are imposed as both guidelines and by creating an MRC (manufacturing rule check) deck. The majority of the yield loss is strongly layoutdependent thus manufacturability aware layout optimization is playing a key role in the overall yield improvement. Reticle enhancement technologies (RET) like optical proximity correction (OPC) and phase shift masking (PSM) have significantly increased the cost and complexity of nanometer photomasks. The photomask layout is no longer an exact replica of the design layout. As a result, reliably verifying RET synthesis accuracy, structural integrity, and conformance to mask fabrication rules are crucial for the manufacture of nanometer regime VLSI designs. New EDA systems consists of efficient wafer-patterning simulators that is able to solve the process physical equations for optical imaging, resist development and hence can achieve high degree accuracy required by mask verification tasks. These tools are able to efficiently evaluate mask performance by simulating edge displacement errors between wafer image and the intended layout. Our discussion addresses the necessary changes in the design-to-manufacturing flow, including infrastructure development in the mask and process communities as well as opportunities for research and development in IC physical layout, routing and verification stage. Although there are other manufacturability aware efforts in earlier design stages such as logic synthesis and placement, the physical design stage coverage is often believed to be one of the most effective design phases to address the manufacturability issues. Creating physical design methodologies to cover manufacturing issues (Topography variation due to CMP, random defects, lithography, and redundant vias) are tightly coupled with interconnection network which is mainly determined by routing and layout connectivity. Major academic and industrial efforts are invested for the past decade to provide efficient nanometer manufacturability solutions.
Characterization of the Integrase Gene and Attachment Site for the Myxococcus xanthus Bacteriophage Mx9

ABSTRACT Bacteriophage Mx9 is a temperate phage that infects Myxococcus xanthus. It lysogenizes the bacteria by integrating into the bacterial chromosome by site-specific recombination at one of two sites, attB1 or attB2. Integration at attB1 results in deletion of DNA between the two attB sites. The attB2 site lies within the 5′ region of the M. xanthus tRNAGly gene. Mx9 integration requires a single protein, Int. Analysis of integration revealed that the phage attachment site (attP) is contained in the int gene and that upon integration, the 3′ end of the int gene is altered. Plasmids containing fusions of the pilA or mgl promoter to lacZ integrated at either Mx9 attB site have higher levels of transcription than the same fusions integrated at the Mx8 attB site.
Performance of TCP congestion control algorithms with interference in IEEE 802.11ac WLANs

In order to meet the incremental requirements from clients, fifth generation Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN) protocol IEEE 802.11ac provides a lot more throughput than his predecessors. However, in all distributed channel access 802.11 protocols, probability of packet loss increases with respect to number of available stations; consecutive packet losses in link layer activates congestion control mechanism of TCP which decreases throughput. In this work, we investigated the performance of congestion control algorithms of TCP protocol when interference available wireless medium is used in between the IEEE 802.11ac capable devices. As a benchmark, we repeated the experiments with UDP protocol which does not have reliable connection and congestion control mechanism. According to our experiments, we observed that UDP provides more throughput than all other TCP congestion control algorithms. When we compare TCP congestion control algorithms by themselves, we observed that the algorithms which does not decrease congestion window size too much during interference and have more aggressive increment of congestion window -such as Cubic and Illinois, Scalable have better performance in terms of throughput and standard deviation.
The Link Between Relationship Orientations and Friendship Quality: The Mediating Roles of Social Goals and Resolution Strategies

Title of Document: THE LINK BETWEEN RELATIONSHIP ORIENTATIONS AND FRIENDSHIP QUALITY: THE MEDIATING ROLES OF SOCIAL GOALS AND RESOLUTION STRATEGIES Bridget Kay Fredstrom, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Directed By: Professor Judith Torney-Purta, Department of Human Development & Quantitative Methods During adolescence, friendships become increasingly important to overall well-being, yet it is common for individuals to experience frequent conflicts with their friends. Theories relating to social cognition offer a framework to examine how adolescents think about expectations for reciprocity as well as goals and strategies in response to hypothetical conflicts (and how these social cognitions are associated with friendship quality). Participants included 198 adolescents from 6 th , 7 th , and 8 th grades from two racially diverse schools in a southern state. All participants had parental consent and provided verbal assent. They provided nominations of two same-sex best friends in their grade who attended their school and rated their perceptions of four dimensions of positive friendship quality for each. Participants also completed an exchange and a communal orientation scale (revised from adult versions) responding with reference to each of their nominated friends. Finally, participants read four hypothetical conflicts and were asked to imagine that they and their nominated friend were described. They rated the likelihood that they would choose each of a set of specific social goals and strategies in resolving conflict. Hierarchical linear regressions examined whether adolescents’ exchange and communal orientations predicted their perceptions of positive friendship quality. Moderated-mediation analyses examined whether individual differences in social goals and resolution strategies mediated the associations between exchange and communal orientations and positive friendship quality (and also gender differences). Exchange and communal orientations had different associations with friendship quality. Choice of social goals appears to be one process through which relationship orientations are associated with friendship quality. Exchange orientation was not significantly associated with positive friendship quality. However, mediation models revealed that adolescents with higher expectations for tit-for-tat exchanges were more likely to endorse revenge goals which in turn were associated with lower friendship quality. In contrast, communal orientations were positively and significantly associated with overall rated friendship quality, suggesting the importance of reciprocity in meeting the needs of others. Finally, gender differences suggest that relationship orientations partially explain why adolescent males and females have qualitatively different friendships, and manage conflict differently. Limitations, implications, and future directions for analyses and research are discussed. THE LINK BETWEEN RELATIONSHIP ORIENTATIONS AND FRIENDSHIP QUALITY: THE MEDIATING ROLES OF SOCIAL GOALS AND RESOLUTION STRATEGIES
PAS-MC: Privacy-preserving Analytics Stream for the Mobile Cloud

In today's digital world, personal data is being continuously collected and analyzed without data owners' consent and choice. As data owners constantly generate data on their personal devices, the tension of storing private data on their own devices yet allowing third party analysts to perform aggregate analytics yields an interesting dilemma. This paper introduces PAS-MC, the first practical privacy-preserving and anonymity stream analytics system. PAS-MC ensures that each data owner locally privatizes their sensitive data before responding to analysts' queries. PAS-MC also protects against traffic analysis attacks with minimal trust vulnerabilities.We evaluate the scheme over the California Transportation Dataset and show that we can privately and anonymously stream vehicular location updates yet preserve high accuracy.