Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aquaporin 1, Nox1, and Ask1 mediate oxidant-induced smooth muscle cell hypertrophy.

AIMS Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated intracellular signalling is well described in the vasculature, yet the precise roles of ROS in paracrine signalling are not known. Studies implicate interstitial ROS hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) in vascular disease, and plasma H(2)O(2) levels in the micromolar range are detectable in animal models and humans with hypertension. Recently, H(2)O(2) was shown to cross biological membranes of non-vascular cells via aquaporin (Aqp) water channels. Previous findings suggest that H(2)O(2) activates NADPH oxidase (Nox) enzymes in vascular cells and apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (Ask1) in non-vascular cells. We hypothesized that extracellular H(2)O(2) induces smooth muscle cell (SMC) hypertrophy by a mechanism involving Aqp1, Nox1, and Ask1. METHODS AND RESULTS Treatment of rat aortic SMCs (rASMC) with exogenous H(2)O(2) resulted in a concentration-dependent increase in Nox-derived superoxide (O(2)(•-)), determined by L-012 chemiluminescence, cytochrome c and electron paramagnetic resonance. Nox1 was verified as the source of O(2)(·-) by siRNA. Aqp1 siRNA attenuated H(2)O(2) cellular entry and H(2)O(2)-induced O(2)(•-) production. H(2)O(2) treatment increased Ask1 activation and induced rASMC hypertrophy in a Nox1-dependent mechanism. Adenoviral-dominant-negative Ask1 attenuated H(2)O(2)-induced rASMC hypertrophy and adenoviral overexpression of Ask1 augmented it. CONCLUSION Our results demonstrate for the first time that extracellular H(2)O(2), at pathophysiological concentrations, stimulates rASMC Nox1-derived O(2)(•-), subsequent Ask1 activation and SMC hypertrophy. The data demonstrate a novel pathway by which H(2)O(2) enters vascular cells via aquaporins and activates Nox, leading to hypertrophy, and provide multiple novel targets for combinatorial therapeutics development targeting hypertrophy and vascular disease.
Inhibition of Rho Family GTPases Results in Increased TNF-α Production After Lipopolysaccharide Exposure 1

These studies demonstrate that treatment of macrophages with lovastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug that blocks farnesylation and geranylgeranylation of target proteins, increases LPS-induced TNF-α production. This is reversed by the addition of mevalonate, which bypasses the lovastatin block. Examination of membrane localization of RhoA, Cdc42, Rac1, and Ras demonstrated decreased membrane localization of the geranylgeranylated Rho family members (RhoA, Cdc42, and Rac1) with no change in the membrane localization of farnesylated Ras. LPS-induced TNF-α production in the presence of the Rho family-specific blocker (toxin B from Clostridium difficile) was significantly enhanced consistent with the lovastatin data. One intracellular signaling pathway that is required for TNF-α production by LPS is the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Significantly, we found prolonged ERK activation after LPS stimulation of lovastatin-treated macrophages. When we inhibited ERK, we blocked the lovastatin-induced increase in TNF-α production. As a composite, these studies demonstrate a negative role for one or more Rho family GTPases in LPS-induced TNF-α production.
Intraguild predation of Geocoris punctipes on Eretmocerus eremicus and its influence on the control of the whitefly Trialeurodes vaporariorum.

BACKGROUND Geocoris punctipes (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae) and Eretmocerus eremicus (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) are whitefly natural enemies. Previously, under laboratory conditions, we showed that G. punctipes engages in intraguild predation (IGP), the attack of one natural enemy by another, on E. eremicus. However, it is unknown whether this IGP interaction takes place under more complex scenarios, such as semi-field conditions. Even more importantly, the effect of this interaction on the density of the prey population requires investigation. Therefore, the present study aimed to establish whether this IGP takes place under semi-field conditions and to determine whether the predation rate of G. punctipes on the whitefly decreases when IGP takes place. RESULTS Molecular analysis showed that, under semi-field conditions, G. punctipes performed IGP on E. eremicus. However, although IGP did take place, the predation rate by G. punctipes on the whitefly was nevertheless higher when both natural enemies were present together than when the predator was present alone. CONCLUSION While IGP of G. punctipes on E. eremicus does occur under semi-field conditions, it does not adversely affect whitefly control. The concomitant use of these two natural enemies seems a valid option for inundative biological control programmes of T. vaporariorum in tomato. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.
Optimum DNA Curvature Using a Hybrid Approach Involving an Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm

Abstract In the present paper, a hybrid technique involving artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) has been proposed for performing modeling and optimization of complex biological systems. In this approach, first an ANN approximates (models) the nonlinear relationship(s) existing between its input and output example data sets. Next, the GA, which is a stochastic optimization technique, searches the input space of the ANN with a view to optimize the ANN output. The efficacy of this formalism has been tested by conducting a case study involving optimization of DNA curvature characterized in terms of the RL value. Using the ANN-GA methodology, a number of sequences possessing high RL values have been obtained and analyzed to verify the existence of features known to be responsible for the occurrence of curvature. A couple of sequences have also been tested experimentally. The experimental results validate qualitatively and also near-quantitatively, the solutions obtained using the hybrid formalism. The ANN-GA technique is a useful tool to obtain, ahead of experimentation, sequences that yield high RL values. The methodology is a general one and can be suitably employed for optimizing any other biological feature.
Effect of Beauveria bassiana infection on detoxification enzyme transcription in pyrethroid resistant Anopheles arabiensis: a preliminary study.

BACKGROUND Fungal biopesticides are of great interest to vector control scientists as they provide a novel and environmentally friendly alternative to insecticide use. The aim of this study was to determine whether genes associated with pyrethroid resistance in Anopheles arabiensis from Sudan and South Africa are further induced following exposure to the entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana (strain GHA). METHODS Following B. bassiana bioassays, RNA was extracted from infected mosquitoes and the transcription of four important insecticide resistance genes, CYP9L1, CYP6M2 and CYP4G16 (cytochrome P450s) and TPX4 (thioredoxin peroxidase) was investigated using quantitative real-time PCR. RESULTS Beauveria bassiana strain GHA was highly infective and virulent against An. arabiensis. In terms of changes in gene transcription, overall, the fold change (FC) values for each gene in the infected strains, were lower than 1.5. The FC values of CYP9L1, CYP6M2 and TPX4, were significantly lower than the FC values of the same genes in uninfected resistant An. arabiensis. CONCLUSION These data suggest that B. bassiana does not enhance the pyrethroid resistant phenotype on a molecular level as the two An. arabiensis strains used here, with different pyrethroid resistance mechanisms, revealed no increase in pre-existing metabolic transcripts. This supports the fact that fungal pathogens are suitable candidates for vector control, particularly with regard to the development of novel vector control strategies.
Simulating Low-Cost Cameras for Augmented Reality Compositing

Video see-through Augmented Reality adds computer graphics to the real world in real time by overlaying graphics onto a live video feed. To achieve a realistic integration of the virtual and real imagery, the rendered images should have a similar appearance and quality to those produced by the video camera. This paper describes a compositing method which models the artifacts produced by a small low-cost camera, and adds these effects to an ideal pinhole image produced by conventional rendering methods. We attempt to model and simulate each step of the imaging process, including distortions, chromatic aberrations, blur, Bayer masking, noise, sharpening, and color-space compression, all while requiring only an RGBA image and an estimate of camera velocity as inputs.
Balloon dilation angioplasty of aortic coarctations in infants and children.

Balloon dilation angioplasty (BDA) was attempted nine times in eight infants and children with aortic coarctation. In three infants (all with associated ventricular septal defect or atrioventricular canal and marked hemodynamic instability) dilation was attempted at a site of aortic narrowing that had not been operated on previously. Although the coarctation gradient fell 40% or more over the short term in two of the three, there was no angiographic or late gradient evidence of improvement. All three underwent subsequent coarctation surgery. Five dilations were performed in four infants and children who had previously undergone coarctation surgery (end-to-end anastomosis, attempted jump graft, and subclavian flap) and had residual gradients. Dilation was successful in all five cases, resulting in an increase in the diameter at the coarctation site (4.7 +/- 2.6 to 7.7 +/- 4.0 mm, p less than .05) and a decrease in the gradient measured 24 hr after dilation (42.0 +/- 15.5 to 11.8 +/- 11.2 mm Hg, p less than .05). In one child with a long area of hypoplasia of the thoracic aorta and similar lesions of the brachiocephalic vessels, a preliminary attempt to dilate a severely narrowed subclavian artery was unsuccessful. Postdilation angiography demonstrated evidence of intimal tears in three of five successful dilations. Follow-up (1 to 6 months) has demonstrated continued gradient relief in four of five children. BDA is frequently, but not always, a successful treatment for human aortic coarctation. The chief determinant of success appears to be the nature of the lesion; short-term changes in coarctation gradient are unreliable indicators of success of failure. Although BDA was not associated with mortality or significant morbidity in this group of patients, its role in the management of children with coarctation is yet to be determined.
Modeling Intersections of Geospatial Lifelines

Modeling moving objects involves spatio-temporal reasoning. The continuous movements of objects in space-time captured as discrete samples form geospatial lifelines. Existing lifeline models can represent the movement of objects between samples from most likely location to all possible locations. This thesis builds on a model called lifeline bead and necklace that captures all the possible locations of moving objects. Beads are 3-dimensional representations of an object's movements and a series of beads form a necklace. The extent of finding the possible locations is constrained by the speed of movement of the objects. Intersections of lifelines occur when two or more objects meet in space-time. Lifeline intersections are determined by testing the intersection of lifeline beads and necklaces. This thesis introduces a computational model that calculates the intersection of beads and necklaces. This model reduces the complexity of calculating 3-dimensional intersections to 2-dimensional simple geometric figures. The bead and necklace model is useful to various applications such as tracking of individuals, animals, vehicles, soldiers passing through hazardous spills, or the analysis of criminal activities. Lifeline bead intersections is applicable to interesting situations such as finding out the possibility of two individuals present in a meeting or traveling together, the incidence of an individual with environmental hazards, and determining the spatial and temporal clusters for disease patterns. Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude towards my thesis advisor Dr. Max J. Egenhofer for his encouragement, support, guidance, and patience, and the members of my thesis advisory committee, Dr. for their support and guidance. I would like to specially thank Dr. Kathleen Hornsby who always encouraged me in all my efforts towards this thesis with valuable suggestions that were very helpful in the successful outcome of this thesis. were great friends and guides who helped me a lot in adjusting to the new environment and adapting myself to the department. Special mention goes to James Wilusz. My sincere and heartfelt thanks to Chitra who was always there for any kind of support. I would like to thank my professors at Anna University, where I had the first opportunity to step into professional studies, for all their help in making my pursuit for higher education a successful one. I am very grateful to my parents and my family, especially my mother, who wholeheartedly supported all my efforts in life and being responsible for my present status. Not but the least, …
Multi-scale Conditional Random Fields for first-person activity recognition

We propose a novel pervasive system to recognise human daily activities from a wearable device. The system is designed in a form of reading glasses, named `Smart Glasses', integrating a 3-axis accelerometer and a first-person view camera. Our aim is to classify user's activities of daily living (ADLs) based on both vision and head motion data. This ego-activity recognition system not only allows caretakers to track on a specific person (such as patient or elderly people), but also has the potential to remind/warn people with cognitive impairments of hazardous situations. We present the following contributions in this paper: a feature extraction method from accelerometer and video; a classification algorithm integrating both locomotive (body motions) and stationary activities (without or with small motions); a novel multi-scale dynamic graphical model structure for structured classification over time. We collect, train and validate our system on a large dataset containing 20 hours of ADLs data, including 12 daily activities under different environmental settings. Our method improves the classification performance (F-Score) of conventional approaches from 43.32%(video features) and 66.02%(acceleration features) by an average of 20-40% to 84.45%, with an overall accuracy of 90.04% in realistic ADLs.
Commercial Honeybush (Cyclopia spp.) Tea Extract Inhibits Osteoclast Formation and Bone Resorption in RAW264.7 Murine Macrophages—An in vitro Study

Honeybush tea, a sweet tasting caffeine-free tea that is indigenous to South Africa, is rich in bioactive compounds that may have beneficial health effects. Bone remodeling is a physiological process that involves the synthesis of bone matrix by osteoblasts and resorption of bone by osteoclasts. When resorption exceeds formation, bone remodeling can be disrupted resulting in bone diseases such as osteoporosis. Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells derived from hematopoietic precursors of monocytic lineage. These precursors fuse and differentiate into mature osteoclasts in the presence of receptor activator of NF-kB ligand (RANKL), produced by osteoblasts. In this study, the in vitro effects of an aqueous extract of fermented honeybush tea were examined on osteoclast formation and bone resorption in RAW264.7 murine macrophages. We found that commercial honeybush tea extract inhibited osteoclast formation and TRAP activity which was accompanied by reduced bone resorption and disruption of characteristic cytoskeletal elements of mature osteoclasts without cytotoxicity. Furthermore, honeybush tea extract decreased expression of key osteoclast specific genes, matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) and cathepsin K. This study demonstrates for the first time that honeybush tea may have potential anti-osteoclastogenic effects and therefore should be further explored for its beneficial effects on bone.
Invasive fungal infection in renal transplant recipients demonstrated by panfungal polymerase chain reaction.

OBJECTIVES Invasive fungal infections following renal transplant are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. This study reports our experience using molecular assay to diagnose invasive fungal infections in renal graft recipients. PATIENTS AND METHODS One hundred twenty patients who had undergone renal transplant at the Organ Transplant Unit of Nemazi Hospital in Shiraz, Iran, between September 2004 and January 2006 were followed up for fungal infections for 6 months following transplant. Blood samples were cultured by bedside inoculation to BACTEC fungal medium. Whole blood specimens were collected prospectively once per week and were evaluated for any invasive fungal infections using panfungal polymerase chain reaction and polymerase chain reaction-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The female-to-male ratio was 44.2% to 55.8%, the mean age of the recipients was 34.7 years, and the mean length of hospitalization was 10.92 days. RESULTS The sensitivity and specificity for proven and probable infections were 80% and 95.6%, respectively. Using panfungal polymerase chain reaction- enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, 4 recipients were diagnosed as having invasive fungal infections. The etiologic agents were C. albicans in 3 patients, and C. albicans and A. fumigatus in 1 patient. The mean interval of polymerase chain reaction-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay positivity in blood samples before clinical signs was 27 days (range, 7-60 days). CONCLUSIONS Polymerase chain reaction-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay may improve early diagnosis of invasive fungal infections; however, correlating the results of polymerase chain reaction-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with clinical outcomes in renal transplant recipients will require further evaluation.
An SDN-Based Architecture for Next-Generation Wireless Networks

With the increase of new devices and applications, the past decade has witnessed exponential growth of traffic volume in communication networks. This triggers much effort for designing NWNs in both academia and industry. To gain natural evolution and meet emerging requirements, it is widely agreed that NWNs shall be multi-tier with overlay coverage and small cell deployment. However, dense deployment of small cells introduces numerous challenges, including inconsistent interfaces, frequent handovers, and extensive backhauling. By decomposing the control plane and data plane, SDN offers a new direction to address the above challenges. In this article, by introducing SDNC, we propose an intelligent wireless network architecture for NWNs. In our architecture, virtual RATs design using interface sets is brought up to support diverse services. Along with our earlier handover approach, low handover latency between heterogeneous networks is achieved. Furthermore, we present SH mechanisms targeted at different failure cases in backhaul connections. With programmability provided by SDN, the aforementioned functions can be deployed as modules in the SDNC. Experimental results validate the efficiency of our proposal.
DEPOLARIZATION OF OPTIC WAVE BACKSCATTERING FROM DIELECTRIC ROUGH SURFACES

In the study of wave scattering from terrain, ice, sea water, and other features on the earth surfaces, the use of the integral equation method for the backscattering coefficient from the tangential surface field leads to solutions that are valid over a broad range of roughness scale. A model presented in this paper method provides a new method for describing the characteristics of depolarization backscatter from inhomogeneous dielectric rough surfaces. The model developed for the backscatter coefficient from two-dimensional random rough surfaces characterized by the Gaussian surface height spectral density function is based upon the integral equation model. The existing model can not predict the scattering behavior of scatter and rescatter waves from random rough surfaces for ignoring the phase term of Greenâ€™s function. In this paper we discriminate the scattering coefficient into two terms on the scattering direction and finally compare the model prediction with the measured data. The model prediction results in excellent agreement with the experimental measurements performed with a dual-polarized laser light backscattering measurement system. The difference between the model prediction and the measured data is within a dB.
Visfatin expression and genetic polymorphism in patients with traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE To discover the expression of visfatin and its genetic mutation and clinical significance in patients with traumatic brain injury. METHODS 99 cases of traumatic brain injury patients admitted to Chongqing Emergency Medical Center from June 2013 to December 2014. There were 56 male and 43 female with an average age of 45.2 years. Through diagnosis, the 99 patient's conditions were all relatively in accordance with traumatic brain injury standard; meanwhile, the patients were divided into mild, moderate and severe traumatic brain injury according to GCS criteria when they admitted to clinics. 33 people were enrolled in each group. To highlight the results, 40 healthy people were enrolled in the control group with 25 males and 15 females. ELISA was used to detect serum visfatin level in 99 patients. Single base extension was used to detect visfatin gene promoter -1535C/T polymorphism. RESULTS By examination we found that visfatin gene -1535C > T locus had three genotypes: TT, TC and CC, respectively. By examination we obtained that genotype distribution and allele frequency showed no significance between the experimental group and the control group (P > 0.05). Through analysis we can get that serum visfatin level in patients with traumatic brain injury was significantly higher than that in the control group. CC genotype are mostly patients with severe traumatic brain injury, and its serum visfatin level was higher than that with CT and TT genotype (all P < 0.05). CT and TT genotype carriers were most mild and moderate traumatic brain injury patients. CONCLUSION Expression of visfatin and its gene mutation in patients with traumatic brain injury were closely related to the severity of the disease.
Soft Biometrics: Globally Coherent Solutions for Hair Segmentation and Style Recognition Based on Hierarchical MRFs

Markov Random Fields (MRFs) are a popular tool in many computer vision problems and faithfully model a broad range of local dependencies. However, rooted in the Hammersley–Clifford theorem, they face serious difficulties in enforcing the global coherence of the solutions without using too high order cliques that reduce the computational effectiveness of the inference phase. Having this problem in mind, we describe a multi-layered (hierarchical) architecture for MRFs that is based exclusively in pairwise connections and typically produces globally coherent solutions, with 1) one layer working at the local (pixel) level, modeling the interactions between adjacent image patches; and 2) a complementary layer working at the object (hypothesis) level pushing toward globally consistent solutions. During optimization, both layers interact into an equilibrium state that not only segments the data, but also classifies it. The proposed MRF architecture is particularly suitable for problems that deal with biological data (e.g., biometrics), where the reasonability of the solutions can be objectively measured. As test case, we considered the problem of hair / facial hair segmentation and labeling, which are soft biometric labels useful for human recognition in-the-wild. We observed performance levels close to the state-of-the-art at a much lower computational cost, both in the segmentation and classification (labeling) tasks.