Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Augmented Expression of Cardiotrophin-1 in Failing Human Hearts Is Accompanied by Diminished Glycoprotein 130 Receptor Protein Abundance

Background—Cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1), a member of the interleukin-6 superfamily, is a potent inducer of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy that prolongs myocyte survival. Although cardiac CT-1 gene expression is known to be upregulated in some animal models of congestive heart failure, the activation state of the CT-1 system in patients with congestive heart failure is unknown. Methods and Results—This study was designed to determine left ventricular expression of CT-1 and its glycoprotein 130 (gp130)/leukemia inhibitory factor receptor complex in human end-stage heart failure due to ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy. In addition, we investigated the activation state of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), the downstream effector of gp130 signaling. In the failing left ventricular myocardium, expression levels of CT-1 mRNA and protein were significantly increased by 142% and 68%, respectively, compared with non-failing donor hearts. Immunohistochemistry confirmed the increased expression of CT-1 in cardiac myocytes. Although gp130 gene expression was increased by 91% (P <0.001), gp130 protein abundance was significantly diminished by 34% in the failing myocardium. In contrast, leukemia inhibitory factor receptor and suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 protein concentrations were not changed. In addition, the ratio of activated tyrosine phosphorylated STAT3 to total STAT3 was not significantly altered in failing hearts compared with non-failing controls. Conclusions—Our data suggest that gp130 receptor downregulation balances enhanced CT-1 expression in human heart failure and thereby inhibits excessive activation of the gp130 signaling pathway.
Bottleneck Characterization of Dynamic Web Site Benchmarks

The absence of benchmarks for Web sites with dynamic content has been a major impediment to research in this area. We describe three benchmarks for evaluating the performance of Web sites with dynamic content. The benchmarks model three common types of dynamic-content Web sites with widely varying application characteristics: an online bookstore, an auction site, and a bulletin board. For each benchmark we describe the design of the database, the interactions provided by the Web server, and the workloads used in analyzing the performance of the system. We have implemented these three benchmarks with commonly used open-source software. In particular, we used the Apache Web server, the PHP scripting language, and the MySQL relational database. Our implementation is therefore representative of the many dynamic content Web sites built using these tools. Our implementations are available freely from our Web site for other researchers to use. We present a performance evaluation of our implementations of these three benchmarks on contemporary commodity hardware. Our performance evaluation focused on finding and explaining the bottleneck resources in each benchmark. For the online bookstore, the CPU on the database was the bottleneck, while for the auction site and the bulletin board the CPU on the front-end Web server was the bottleneck. In none of the benchmarks was the network between the front-end and the back-end a bottleneck. With amounts of memory common by today’s standards, neither the main memory nor the disk proved to be a limiting factor in terms of performance for any of the benchmarks.
Long non-coding RNA MALAT1 for promoting metastasis and proliferation by acting as a ceRNA of miR-144-3p in osteosarcoma cells

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in various biological processes and diseases including osteosarcoma. Long non-coding RNA metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is overly expressed in osteosarcoma. But the function and mechanism it works on in osteosarcoma proliferation and metastasis mediated by Rho associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 1 (ROCK1) and Rho associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 2 (ROCK2) remain unclear. In the present study, an elevated MALAT1 was found in osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines, and the elevated MALAT1 was correlated with a poor prognosis in osteosarcoma patients. The functional experiments show that a decreased MALAT1 could remarkably inhibit osteosarcoma cell metastasis and proliferation but induce cell cycle arrest, indicating that MALAT1 functioned as an oncogene in osteosarcoma. Furthermore, we confirmed that MALAT1 and ROCK1/ROCK2 which were targeted by microRNA-144-3p (miR-144-3p) shared the same miR-144-3p combining site. Furthermore, the constructed luciferase assay verified that MALAT1 was a target of miR-144-3p. Additionally, the results of a qRT-PCR demonstrated that MALAT1 and miR-144-3p repressed each other's expression in a reciprocal manner. Finally, we affirmed that an overexpression of MALAT1 inhibited ROCK1/ROCK2 expression and its mediated metastasis and proliferation by working as a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) via miR-144-3p. In summary, the findings of this study based on the ceRNA theory, combining the research foundation of miR-144-3p, ROCK1 and ROCK2, taking MALAT1 as a new point of study, provided new insights into molecular level proliferation reversal and metastasis of osteosarcoma.
Comparing Men's and Women's Experiences of Multiple Exclusion Homelessness

This article explores gender as a variable in multiple exclusion homelessness in England. Much past research has taken insufficient account of the gender of homeless people, especially the predominance of men in the single homeless population and of women heading homeless households with dependent children. Drawing on qualitative data generated in a study of multiple exclusion homelessness in London and Nottingham, the article considers three ways in which gender may act as a homelessness variable: in people's susceptibility to homelessness, in their experiences of homelessness and in their encounters with accommodation services. By comparing the accounts of homeless men and women with complex support needs with evidence from staff working for support agencies, the overall aim of the article is to offer a critical examination of the gendered assumptions of homelessness policy and practice.
Systematic Evaluation of Perceived Spatial Quality

The evaluation of perceived spatial quality calls for a method that is sensitive to changes in the constituent dimensions of that quality. In order to devise a method accounting for these changes, several processes have to be performed. This paper shows the development of scales by elicitation and structuring of verbal data, followed by validation of the resulting attribute scales.
Multi-Edge Elimination-Based Interleaver for LDPC-CODED BICM Systems

In this paper, the impact of multi-edge LDPC symbols on the performance of the bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) system is investigated. To avoid the performance degradation caused by multi-edge symbols, we propose a multi-edge elimination-based interleaver design for the LDPC-coded BICM system. It can improve the decoding performance of LDPC-coded BICM system with a little extra computational complexity. Simulation results show that the LDPC-coded BICM system with our proposed interleaver outperforms the traditional system in different code lengths, rates, modulations and channels.
Influence of coding-end sequence on coding-end processing in V(D)J recombination.

The large diversity of the Ig and TCR repertoires is accounted for by combinatorial assembly of the germ-line-encoded V, D, and J gene segments, as well as extensive modification at the junctions during the recombination process. Those modifications, termed coding-end processing, consist of removal and addition of an apparently random number of nucleotides. To obtain further insights into the mechanism of the coding-end processing, we constructed a large data base of several Ig and TCR coding ends obtained in vivo, using conditions that avoid potential bias by cellular selection events. We show that the processing patterns are not random, but rather specific for each coding end, suggesting that specific motifs in the coding-end sequence influence the processing. We found a good correlation between the presence of internal stretches of at least three A.T nucleotides, absence of stretches of G.C nucleotides, and high average nucleotide deletion. Based on a detailed analysis of the processing patterns, we propose that nicks of the hairpin intermediate take place preferentially in potential open structures formed by weaker pairings of A.T stretches. Together, these findings indicate that the sequence of the coding end plays an important role in nonrandom aspects of the recombination mechanism. This suggests that coding-end sequences might have been selected throughout evolution to participate in an early control of the development of the primary repertoire.
Extension of the MIMO Precoder Based on the Minimum Euclidean Distance: A Cross-Form Matrix

Under full channel state information at the transmitter side (Tx-CSI), MIMO precoders can be designed by the optimization of many pertinent criteria, like, for example, the maximizing post-processing signal-to-noise ratio (max-SNR or beamforming solution), or the minimizing weighted mean square error between transmit and receive vector-symbols (W-MMSE solution). These solutions decouple the MIMO channel into b parallel independent datastreams. This diagonal structure reduces the complexity of the maximum likelihood (ML) decisions but the diversity order of these schemes is limited. Recently, we proposed a precoder, max-dmjn solution, which optimizes the exact expression of the minimum Euclidean distance and leads to a non diagonal structure allowing to achieve maximum diversity order. However, the result is available only for two transmit datastreams (6 = 2) and BPSK and QPSK modulations. In this paper, we propose a heuristic method to deal with the case b > 2, which provides a suboptimal, but good solution to this general problem. The new precoder, Equal-dm;n (E-dmin), is based on a non diagonal cross-form structure. It significantly enhances the transmit diversity in the eigen-subchannels. We demonstrate that the achieved diversity order is greater than that of precoders with diagonal structure for the same number of datastreams despite a tradeoff between rate and diversity. This design can also ensure quality of service (QoS) by using an adapted power allocation strategy. Performance comparisons show the BER improvement for MIMO and MIMO-OFDM systems.
New Guaianolides from Centaurea kandavanensis

positae, tribe Cynareae) numerous different types of constituents, especially guaianolides, have been reported (1). We now have investigated a species which grows on the mountains near Kandavan. The polar fraction afforded two crystalline compounds, the guaianolides 1 and 3. The molecular formula of 1 was C17H2005 as followed from the mass spectrum. The 'H-NMR spectrum (Table I) showed the typical signals of methylene lactones. Furthermore the presence of two additional exomethylene groups, an acetate and a hydroxy group could be deduced from the spectrum which was in part close to that of zaluzanin C acetate (2). The chemical shift of the H-13' signals clearly showed that a 8u-hydroxy group had to be assumed, while a fourfold doublet at ô = 5.55 obviously was due to the H-3 proton. Spin decoupling allowed the assignment of all signals thus leading to the structure 1 which could be established by transforming the lactone into the known diacetate 2 (2). All data agreed with those of the authentic compounds. The more polar lactone 3, molecular formula C17H2006, obviously was the 93hydroxy derivative of 1. Accordingly, in the 'H-NMR spectrum (Table I) the double doublets of H-9 were replaced by a broadened doublet at ô = 3.99, while the threefold doublet assigned to H-8 in the spectrum of 1 was replaced by a double doublet at 3.92. The stereochemistry at C-8 and C-9 followed from the coupling observed which agreed nicely with those which could be deduced from a model. Again the H-13' signal was shifted down field as in other 8s-hydroxy guaianolides. The presence of a 3-acetoxy group followed again from the typical signal at = 5.57. Again all signals could be assigned by spin decoupling. Acetylation of 3 afforded the triacetate 5 together with the diacetate 4. The signals of H-8 and H-9 were shifted down field in the expected way. This investigation shows again that guaianolide derived from zaluzanin C may be characteristic for large parts of the genus Centaurea.
Lack of the Antioxidant Enzyme Glutathione Peroxidase-1 Accelerates Atherosclerosis in Diabetic Apolipoprotein E–Deficient Mice

Background— Recent clinical studies have suggested a major protective role for the antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase-1 (GPx1) in diabetes-associated atherosclerosis. We induced diabetes in mice deficient for both GPx1 and apolipoprotein E (ApoE) to determine whether this is merely an association or whether GPx1 has a direct effect on diabetes-associated atherosclerosis. Methods and Results— ApoE-deficient (ApoE−/−) and ApoE/GPx1 double-knockout (ApoE−/−GPx1−/−) mice were made diabetic with streptozotocin and aortic lesion formation, and atherogenic pathways were assessed after 10 and 20 weeks of diabetes. Aortic proinflammatory and profibrotic markers were determined by both quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis after 10 weeks of diabetes and immunohistochemical analysis after 10 and 20 weeks of diabetes. Sham-injected nondiabetic counterparts served as controls. Atherosclerotic lesions within the aortic sinus region, as well as arch, thoracic, and abdominal lesions, were significantly increased in diabetic ApoE−/−GPx1−/− aortas compared with diabetic ApoE−/− aortas. This increase was accompanied by increased macrophages, &agr;-smooth muscle actin, receptors for advanced glycation end products, and various proinflammatory (vascular cell adhesion molecule-1) and profibrotic (vascular endothelial growth factor and connective tissue growth factor) markers. Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis showed increased expression of receptors for advanced glycation end products (RAGE), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, vascular endothelial growth factor, and connective tissue growth factor. Nitrotyrosine levels were significantly increased in diabetic ApoE−/−GPx1−/− mouse aortas. These findings were observed despite upregulation of other antioxidants. Conclusions— Lack of functional GPx1 accelerates diabetes-associated atherosclerosis via upregulation of proinflammatory and profibrotic pathways in ApoE−/− mice. Our study provides evidence of a protective role for GPx1 and establishes GPx1 as an important antiatherogenic therapeutic target in patients with or at risk of diabetic macrovascular disease.
Towards an animated JPEG

Recently, short animated image sequences have become very popular in social networks. Most animated images are represented in GIF format. In this paper we propose an animated JPEG format, called aJPEG, which allows the standard JPEG format to be extended in a backward compatible way in order to cope with animated images. After presenting the proposed format, we illustrate it using two prototype applications: the first in form of a GIF-to-aJPEG converter on a personal computer and the second in form of an aJPEG viewer on a smart phone. The paper also reports the performance evaluation of aJPEG when compared to GIF. Experimental results show that aJPEG outperforms animated GIF in both file size overhead and image quality.
Surgical evaluation and management of lumbar synovial cysts: the Mayo Clinic experience.

OBJECT The authors report a retrospective analysis of 194 patients surgically treated at their institutions for symptomatic lumbar synovial cysts from January 1974 to January 1996. METHODS Patient characteristics including age, sex, symptoms, signs, and preoperative neuroimaging studies were reviewed. Surgical procedures, complications, results, and pathological findings were correlated with preoperative assessment. One hundred ninety-four patients were surgically treated for symptomatic lumbar synovial cysts. Eighty percent were diagnosed and treated between 1987 and 1996. There were 100 men and 94 women with an average age of 66 years (range 28-94 years). The most common symptoms were painful radiculopathy (85%) and neurogenic single or multiroot claudication (44%). However, sensory loss (43%) and motor weakness (27%) were also presenting symptoms. Eleven percent of patients had undergone previous lumbar surgery prior to being referred to the Mayo Clinic. Preoperative neurological examination demonstrated motor weakness (40%), sensory loss (45%), reflex changes (57%), and variants of cauda equina syndrome (13%). In 19% of patients, normal neurological status was demonstrated. There was equal left/right-sided laterality, and eight patients presented with bilateral synovial cysts. The most commonly affected level was L4-5 (64%). All patients underwent laminectomy and resection of the cyst. Concomitant fusion was performed in 18 patients in whom clinical evidence of instability had been observed. However, subsequent fusion was required in only four patients who developed symptomatic spondylolisthesis. Surgery-related complications included cerebrospinal fluid leak (three patients), discitis (one patient), epidural hematoma (one patient), seroma (one patient), and deep vein thrombosis (one patient). One patient died 3 days after surgery of cardiac dysrhythmia. Follow-up data obtained for at least 6 months postoperatively were available in 147 patients. Of these, 134 (91%) reported good relief of their pain and 82% experienced improvement in their motor deficits. CONCLUSIONS Lumbar synovial cysts are a more common cause of lumbar radicular pain than previously thought. Surgical removal of the cyst is a safe and effective treatment for symptomatic relief in patients with lumbar synovial cysts. A concomitant fusion procedure may be performed in select cases. In this study, only a few patients developed symptomatic spinal instability requiring a second operation.
Hybrid digital-analog source-channel coding with one-to-three bandwidth expansion

We consider the problem of bandwidth expansion for lossy joint source-channel coding over a memoryless Gaussian channel. A low delay 1∶3 bandwidth expansion hybrid digital-analog coding system, which combines a scalar quantizer and a 1∶2 nonlinear analog coder, is proposed. It is shown that our proposed system outperforms the 1∶3 generalized hybrid scalar quantizer linear coder in terms of signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR). A lower bound on the system SDR is also derived.
AC electric field‐assisted assembly and alignment of cellulose nanocrystals

In this article, we describe an efficient physical electric-field-assisted method to study self-assembly and orientation of cellulose nanocrystals. When applying an alternating voltage to a cellulose nanocrystals suspension deposited onto a thin gap of coplanar lithographically patterned metallic electrodes, a highly homogeneous orientation of cellulose nanocrystals is obtained. Parameters such as strength and frequency of the applied electric field and cellulose nanocrystals aspect ratios were studied to determine how they affect cellulose nanocrystals assembly and orientation. The prepared films were analyzed by atomic force microscopy, and the results suggest that the alignment of cellulose nanocrystals generated films is greatly influenced by the frequency and the strength of the applied electric field. The orientation of cellulose nanocrystals becomes more homogeneous with increasing electric field higher than 2000 V/cm with a frequency ranging between 104 and 106 Hz. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 1430–1436, 2008
No . 2119 Punishment , Inequality and Emotions

Punishment, Inequality and Emotions Cooperation among people who are not related to each other is sustained by the availability of punishment devices which help enforce social norms (Fehr and Gächter, 2002). However, the rationale for costly punishment remains unclear. This paper reports the results of an experiment investigating inequality aversion and negative emotions as possible determinants of punishment. We compare two treatments of a public good game, one in which costly punishment reduces the immediate payoff inequality between the punisher and the target, and one in which it does not affect inequality. We show that while inequality-aversion prevents some subjects from punishing in the equal cost treatment, negative emotions are the primary motive for punishment. Results also indicate that the intensity of punishment increases with the level of inequality, and reduces earnings inequality over time. JEL Classification: A13, C92, D63
How quickly can we send a command to a robot using a non-invasive (eye)-brain-computer interface?

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are devices for sending commands to computers using “brain signals”, such as intracortical neural firing recording or electroencephalogram (EEG). With a BCI, a paralyzed patient can communicate with other people or control robotic devices connected to a computer. Healthy people may also benefit from BCI-based new “output pathways” for their brain (Kaplan et al. 2005; Wolpaw 2007). Recent achievements in BCI technology based on intracortical recording are impressive (e.g., Collinger et al. 2013), but such technology is still associated with high risk and is very expensive. EEG based noninvasive interfacing is highly appealing as not requiring surgery, but the existing non-invasive BCIs provides the user with a rather slow and unreliable control.
Risperidone improves interpersonal perception and executive function in patients with schizophrenia

Objective To investigate whether risperidone improves social cognitive impairments and executive dysfunction in people with schizophrenia. Methods Fifty-six patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia were allocated to a risperidone treatment group (RTG, n=28) and a typical antipsychotic treatment group (TATG, n=28). Twenty-eight healthy volunteers were recruited as the normal control group (NCG). The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Interpersonal Perception Task-15 (IPT-15), and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were rated at baseline and after 4 and 12 weeks of treatment with risperidone or typical antipsychotics. Results Risperidone and typical antipsychotics decreased Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale scores for total psychopathology and positive and negative symptoms. At baseline, in the IPT-15, total scores and five factor scores, as well as the number of categories completed and the percentage of conceptual level responses, were significantly lower in the RTG and TATG than in the NCG, whereas total response errors, perseverative errors, and failure to maintain set were significantly higher in the patient groups than in the NCG. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect of time period (baseline, 4 weeks, and 12 weeks) for IPT-15 scores and WCST performances, and significant interactions for time period × group (RTG and TATG). Multivariate analysis of variance showed no significant differences between the RTG and TATG on IPT-15 scores at 4 weeks, but there were significant differences between these two groups at 12 weeks. Significant differences were also found between the RTG and TATG on WCST performances at 4 and 12 weeks. Conclusion Individuals with schizophrenia have impairments in social cognitive and executive function, which might be improved by risperidone.