Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intersectin-1s Regulates the Mitochondrial Apoptotic Pathway in Endothelial Cells*

Intersectins (ITSNs) are multidomain adaptor proteins implicated in endocytosis, regulation of actin polymerization, and Ras/MAPK signaling. We have previously shown that ITSN-1s is required for caveolae fission and internalization in endothelial cells (ECs). In the present study, using small interfering RNA to knock down ITSN-1s protein expression, we demonstrate a novel role of ITSN-1s as a key antiapoptotic protein. Knockdown of ITSN-1s in ECs activated the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis as determined by genomic DNA fragmentation, extensive mitochondrial fission, activation of the proapoptotic proteins BAK and BAX, and cytochrome c efflux from mitochondria. ITSN-1 knockdown acts as a proapoptotic signal that causes mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization, dissipation of the mitochondrial membrane potential, and generation of reactive oxygen species. These effects were secondary to decreased activation of Erk1/2 and its direct activator MEK. Bcl-XL overexpression prevented BAX activation and the apoptotic ECs death induced by suppression of ITSN-1s. Our findings demonstrate a novel role of ITSN-1s as a negative regulator of the mitochondrial pathway-dependent apoptosis secondary to activation of the Erk1/2 survival signaling pathway.
Comparison of pain and swelling after removal of oral leukoplakia with CO2 laser and cold knife: A randomized clinical trial

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare conventional surgery with carbon dioxide (CO2) laser in patients with oral leukoplakia, and to evaluate the postoperative pain and swelling. Study design: A total of 48 patients (27 males and 21 females) with a mean age of 53.7 ± 11.7 years and diagnosed with oral leukoplakia were randomly assigned to receive treatment either with conventional surgery using a cold knife or with a CO2 laser technique. A visual analog scale (VAS) was used to score pain and swelling at different postoperative time points. Results: Pain and swelling reported by the patients was greater with the conventional cold knife than with the CO2 laser, statistically significant differences for pain and swelling were observed between the two techniques during the first three days after surgery. Followed by a gradual decrease over one week. In neither group was granuloma formation observed, and none of the patients showed malignant transformation during the period of follow-up. Conclusions: The CO2 laser causes only minimal pain and swelling, thus suggesting that it may be an alternative method to conventional surgery in treating patients with oral leukoplakia. Key words:Oral leukoplakia, treatment, laser surgery, cold knife, pain, swelling.
Exploring the acceptability of human papillomavirus self-sampling among Muslim immigrant women

Background With appropriate screening (ie, the Papanicolaou [Pap] test), cervical cancer is highly preventable, and high-income countries, including Canada, have observed significant decreases in cervical cancer mortality. However, certain subgroups, including immigrants from countries with large Muslim populations, experience disparities in cervical cancer screening. Little is known about the acceptability of human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling as a screening strategy among Muslim immigrant women in Canada. This study assessed cervical cancer screening practices, knowledge and attitudes, and acceptability of HPV self-sampling among Muslim immigrant women. Methods A convenience sample of 30 women was recruited over a 3-month period (June–August 2015) in the Greater Toronto Area. All women were between 21 and 69 years old, foreign-born, and self-identified as Muslim, and had good knowledge of English. Data were collected through a self-completed questionnaire. Results More than half of the participants falsely indicated that Pap tests may cause cervical infection, and 46.7% indicated that the test is an intrusion on privacy. The majority of women reported that they would be willing to try HPV self-sampling, and more than half would prefer this method to provider-administered sampling methods. Barriers to self-sampling included confidence in the ability to perform the test and perceived cost, and facilitators included convenience and privacy being preserved. Conclusion The results demonstrate that HPV self-sampling may provide a favorable alternative model of care to the traditional provider-administered Pap testing. These findings add important information to the literature related to promoting cancer screening among women who are under or never screened for cervical cancer.
Improved decoding of Shannon-Kotel'nikov mappings

In some applications the transmission of discrete-time but continuous-amplitude (or multilevel) source symbols is required which might be more bandwidth efficient than conventional digital transmission. An appropriate method is to apply a source channel mapping (SCM) of M source symbols to N channel symbols. A geometrical approach for SCM has been introduced by Shannon and Kotel'nikov (Shannon-Kotel'nikov mappings). These systems are used to map M continuous-amplitude and discrete-time source symbols to N continuous-amplitude and discrete-time channel symbols without the intermediate step of a binary representation. These schemes are usually decoded using a maximum likelihood (ML) decoder which leads to optimum results in the mean square error sense for very good channels, but is suboptimal for noisy channels. In this paper the performance of an improved decoder, the minimum mean square error (MMSE) decoder is assessed. As a special case of a 1:2 expansion case (rate 1/2) Shannon-Kotel'nikov mapping, the Archimedes spiral is considered. The properties of the ML and MMSE decoder are examined and a graphical interpretation of the superior performance of the MMSE decoder is given. Furthermore, the robustness of the MMSE decoder w.r. t. an inaccurate estimation of the channel quality is determined. The concepts of the MMSE decoder which lead to a superior performance to the ML decoder can be generalized and applied to all Shannon-Kotel'nikov mappings.
On the Use of As If, As Though, and Like in Present-Day English Complementation Structures

This investigation is part of the authors’ larger research project on so-called minor declarative complementizers in the history of English, that is, connectives recruited mostly in the adverbial domain that are occasionally used in complementation. The present study sheds light on the complementizer use of the three originally comparative links as if, as though, and like in Present-Day English complement structures. In the theoretical part of the article, the authors argue for the complement analysis of certain clauses depending on as if, as though, and like (e.g., It seemed as if the strange little man had never been there). The empirical part of the study analyzes data drawn from the Brown family of corpora (LOB, Brown, FLOB, and Frown), the Diachronic Corpus of Present-day Spoken English (DCPSE), and the Toronto English Archive (TEA), which are representative of both written and spoken language at different time periods (1960s, 1990s, and early 2000s) and in different varieties of English (British English, American English, and Canadian English). Taking the corpus data as a starting point, and with the aim of revealing what ongoing change is observable in the contemporary language, the authors attend to the following issues: (a) the predicates and construction types associated with these minor links, (b) the factors determining the variation between the three comparative complementizers, and (c) the variation between as if, as though, and like and the default declarative complementizer that.
Power-efficient scheduling method in sensor networks

Advances in micro-sensor and radio technology would enable the deployment of small but smart sensors for various environmental monitoring applications. Generally, the sensor node cannot recharge and the battery life is not expected to increase significantly in the future. Reducing power consumption and providing efficient power savings are crucial points in sensor networks. From the related research, this study generalizes four cases of power waste and consumption, as follows: collision, sparse node, overhead and listen. The proposed method can avoid those four case of power consumption and waste case. Numerous studies demonstrate that sleeping mode is merely a method for power saving. Thus This work utilized those previous related works results about power saving, every node according to schedule working, the other node enters the sleeping mode until it needs to work again. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed approach performs between 150% and 250% better than PEGASIS when 10%, 20%, 50%, and 100% of nodes die in different sensor network sizes and topologies.
Thermodynamics of interactions of urea and guanidinium salts with protein surface: Relationship between solute effects on protein processes and changes in water‐accessible surface area

To interpret effects of urea and guanidinium (GuH+) salts on processes that involve large changes in protein water‐accessible surface area (ASA), and to predict these effects from structural information, a thermodynamic characterization of the interactions of these solutes with different types of protein surface is required. In the present work we quantify the interactions of urea, GuHCl, GuHSCN, and, for comparison, KCl with native bovine serum albumin (BSA) surface, using vapor pressure osmometry (VPO) to obtain preferential interaction coefficients (Γμ3) as functions of nondenaturing concentrations of these solutes (0–1 molal). From analysis of Γμ3 using the local‐bulk domain model, we obtain concentration‐independent partition coefficients KnatP that characterize the accumulation of these solutes near native protein (BSA) surface: KnatP,urea= 1.10 ± 0.04, Knat P,SCN − = 2.4 ± 0.2, Knat P,GuH + = 1.60 ± 0.08, relative to Knat P,K + ≡ 1 and Knat P,Cl − = 1.0 ± 0.08. The relative magnitudes of KnatP are consistent with the relative effectiveness of these solutes as perturbants of protein processes. From a comparison of partition coefficients for these solutes and native surface (KnatP) with those determined by us previously for unfolded protein and alanine‐based peptide surface KunfP, we dissect KP into contributions from polar peptide backbone and other types of protein surface. For globular protein‐urea interactions, we find KnatP,urea = KunfP,urea. We propose that this equality arises because polar peptide backbone is the same fraction (0.13) of total ASA for both classes of surface. The analysis presented here quantifies and provides a physical basis for understanding Hofmeister effects of salt ions and the effects of uncharged solutes on protein processes in terms of KP and the change in protein ASA.
Beyond homogeneous decomposition: scaling long-range forces on Massively Parallel Systems

With supercomputers anticipated to expand from thousands to millions of cores, one of the challenges facing scientists is how to effectively utilize this ever-increasing number. We report here an approach that creates a heterogeneous decomposition by partitioning effort according to the scaling properties of the component algorithms. We demonstrate our strategy by developing a capability to model hot dense plasma. We have performed benchmark calculations ranging from millions to billions of charged particles, including a 2.8 billion particle simulation that achieved 259.9 TFlop/s (26% of peak performance) on the 294,912 cpu JUGENE computer at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany. With this unprecedented simulation capability we have begun an investigation of plasma fusion physics under conditions where both theory and experiment are lacking-in the strongly-coupled regime as the plasma begins to burn. Our strategy is applicable to other problems involving long-range forces (i.e., biological or astrophysical simulations). We believe that the flexible heterogeneous decomposition approach demonstrated here will allow many problems to scale across current and next-generation machines.
Integrative approaches to morphogenesis: Lessons from dorsal closure

Although developmental biology has been dominated by the genetic analysis of embryonic development, in recent years genetic tools have been combined with new approaches such as imaging of live processes, automated and quantitative image analysis, mechanical perturbation and mathematical modeling, to study the principles underlying the formation of organisms. Here we focus on recent work carried out on Dorsal Closure, a morphogenetic process during Drosophila embryogenesis, to illustrate how this multidisciplinary approach is yielding new and unexpected insights into how cells organize themselves through the activity of their molecular components to give rise to the stereotyped and macroscopic movements observed during development. genesis 49:522–533, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Functional proteomics of failed filtering blebs

Purpose To identify and determine the function of the proteins associated with failed filtering blebs following trabeculectomy. Methods Tenon's tissues, obtained during surgery for failed filtering blebs or obtained during cataract surgery on normal eyes, were analyzed by proteomics. The proteins showing significant differences between the two tissues were selected for identification by mass spectrometry. The location and expression pattern of ribosomal S6 kinase 2 (RSK2), one of the altered proteins, were determined. The effect of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on the expression pattern and function of RSK2 in NIH3T3 fibroblast cells was then investigated by an RNA knockdown technique. Results Eight proteins were found differentially expressed in failed filtering blebs; the identified proteins included those associated with intracellular signaling pathways. The expression of RSK2, one of the identified proteins, was found to be decreased compared with that of the control. RSK2 was located in Tenon’s tissue using an immunohistochemical technique. In culture, the bFGF-induced cell proliferation was inhibited by the RNA knockdown of RSK2. The level of mRNA and protein expression of actin was increased by RSK2 RNA knockdown, but bFGF-induced protein expression of actin was not promoted by RSK2 RNA knockdown. Whereas RSK2 RNA knockdown increased the expression and activity of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), activation of MAPK induced by bFGF was not promoted by RSK2 knockdown. Conclusions The expression of eight proteins in the failed filtering blebs was significantly different from that in the Tenon’s capsules used as a control. The effect of RSK2 expression on fibroblast cells suggests that RSK2 may be associated with wound healing in filtering blebs.
What Predicts Mental Health in Religious and Nonreligious Social Work Students?

This study examined religiosity, spirituality, mindfulness, and their association with mental health in religious and nonreligious social work students. A total of 65 MSW students participated in a paper‐and‐pencil survey. Of these, 25 were religious, i.e., claimed membership in an organized religion, and 33 did not. Religious students endorsed religious comfort and strain and spiritual involvement more strongly than nonreligious students. Religious comfort was associated with spiritual involvement in both groups, but religious comfort and strain were related only in nonreligious students. Using multivariate analysis, mindfulness emerged as the only significant predictor of reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms in both religious and nonreligious students alike. Implications of study findings are discussed. The study was supported by a faculty grant from the University of California, Berkeley. Rufina Wu assisted with the literature search; Cheryl Francisconi and Amy Benton assisted with the data collection; and Amanda Lehning and Jing Guo performed the data analysis.
EXTENDING ONTOLOGY TREE USING NLP TECHNIQUE

This paper proposes a method of creating a web document representation using a web ontology concepts instead of ‘bag-ofwords’. However, since the web domain has a very small vocabulary, we are unable to transform all or most of the keywords of the web document into web ontology concepts. This particular problem is solved by creating an extended part of the web ontology with words obtained from an external linguistics knowledgebase. The promising outcome as the result of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR) fields being merged together convinces us to create the extended ontology using NLP technique.
Design of the boundary reflection properties to minimize the energy flows

An optimal control problem of steady-state complex heat transfer with monotone objective functionals is under consideration. The problem can be interpreted as a problem of the thermal masking. A parameter describing the reflection properties of the boundary is considered as the control. The concept of strong maximizing (resp. strong minimizing) optimal controls, i.e., controls that are optimal for all monotone objective functionals, is introduced. The existence of strong optimal controls is proven, and optimality conditions for such controls are derived. An iterative algorithm for computing the strong optimal controls is proposed.
Motion planning in a plane using generalized Voronoi diagrams

An algorithm for planning a collision-free path for a rectangle in a planar workspace populated with polygonal obstacles is presented. Heuristic techniques are used to plan the motion along a nominal path obtained from a generalized Voronoi diagram (GVD). The algorithm was demonstrated to be quite fast with execution times comparable to, or exceeding, those of the freeway method. Unlike the freeway method, the GVD technique can be successfully applied to difficult problems which arise in cluttered workspaces. The planned paths stay well away from the obstacles when possible and are somewhat shorter than the freeway paths due to parabolic arcs around corners. Furthermore, motion along the paths is smooth in the sense that rotations are performed during translation, not just at isolated points in the workspace. >
Beliefs About Inflation and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We study how differences in beliefs about expected inflation affect the nominal term structure when investors have "catching up with the Joneses'' preferences. In the model, "catching up with the Joneses'' preferences help to match the level and slope of yields as well as the level of yield volatilities. Disagreement about expected inflation helps to match the dynamics of yields and yield volatilities. Expected inflation disagreement induces a spillover effect to the real side of the economy with a strong impact on the real yield curve. When investors share common preferences over consumption relative to the habit with a coefficient of relative risk aversion greater than one, real average yields across all maturities rise as disagreement increases. Real yield volatilities also rise with disagreement. To develop intuition concerning the role of different beliefs between investors, we consider a case where the real and nominal term structures can be computed as weighted-averages of quadratic Gaussian term structure models. We numerically find increased disagreement about expected inflation between the investors increases nominal yields and nominal yield volatilities at all maturities. We find empirical support for these predictions.
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES FOR EMERGING WRITERS AND SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS AT KINDERGARTEN AND GRADE 1 LEVELS

ABSTRACT This article describes six instructional techniques that support emerging or struggling writers. The techniques are first modeled in a vignette of a kindergarten writing conference and then explicitly defined. A writing scale is presented for tracking the development of emerging writers with suggestions for the type and timing of instruction supportive of a particular level of writing development.
Analysing global economic organization: embedded networks and global chains compared

Abstract This article analyses the network epistemologies that underlie several frameworks for studying global economic organization. Specifically, the embedded network of the new economic sociology is compared with various global chain constructs that seek to emphasize the connectedness of actors and activities across space. I argue that the micro-sociological foundations of the new economic sociology make embeddedness a problematic concept for analysing economic organization at a global level. I then contrast the embedded network as a trust-based governance structure with the construct of the global commodity chain, which understands network governance in terms of power relations or ‘drivenness’. Finally, I explain how the recent theory of global value chain governance by Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon (2005) departs from the macro-sociological tradition that oriented earlier chain frameworks: this theory, which focuses on the coordination of inter-firm dyads in a global value chain, returns to a micro-oriented understanding of governance, but one that draws more from transaction cost theory than from the new economic sociology.
Polyhydroxyalkanoate‐associated phasins as phylogenetically heterogeneous, multipurpose proteins

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are natural polyesters of increasing biotechnological importance that are synthesized by many prokaryotic organisms as carbon and energy storage compounds in limiting growth conditions. PHAs accumulate intracellularly in form of inclusion bodies that are covered with a proteinaceous surface layer (granule‐associated proteins or GAPs) conforming a network‐like surface of structural, metabolic and regulatory polypeptides, and configuring the PHA granules as complex and well‐organized subcellular structures that have been designated as ‘carbonosomes’. GAPs include several enzymes related to PHA metabolism (synthases, depolymerases and hydroxylases) together with the so‐called phasins, an heterogeneous group of small‐size proteins that cover most of the PHA granule and that are devoid of catalytic functions but nevertheless play an essential role in granule structure and PHA metabolism. Structurally, phasins are amphiphilic proteins that shield the hydrophobic polymer from the cytoplasm. Here, we summarize the characteristics of the different phasins identified so far from PHA producer organisms and highlight the diverse opportunities that they offer in the Biotechnology field.