Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential Processing of Amyloid-β Precursor Protein Directs Human Embryonic Stem Cell Proliferation and Differentiation into Neuronal Precursor Cells*

The amyloid-β precursor protein (AβPP) is a ubiquitously expressed transmembrane protein whose cleavage product, the amyloid-β (Aβ) protein, is deposited in amyloid plaques in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer disease, Down syndrome, and head injury. We recently reported that this protein, normally associated with neurodegenerative conditions, is expressed by human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We now report that the differential processing of AβPP via secretase enzymes regulates the proliferation and differentiation of hESCs. hESCs endogenously produce amyloid-β, which when added exogenously in soluble and fibrillar forms but not oligomeric forms markedly increased hESC proliferation. The inhibition of AβPP cleavage by β-secretase inhibitors significantly suppressed hESC proliferation and promoted nestin expression, an early marker of neural precursor cell (NPC) formation. The induction of NPC differentiation via the non-amyloidogenic pathway was confirmed by the addition of secreted AβPPα, which suppressed hESC proliferation and promoted the formation of NPCs. Together these data suggest that differential processing of AβPP is normally required for embryonic neurogenesis.
Workers' Views of the Impact of Trade on Jobs

Although public policy is influenced by the perception that workers worry about the impact of trade on their jobs, there is little empirical evidence on what shapes such views. This paper uses new data to examine how workers’ perceptions of the impact of trade are related to their career paths, job characteristics, and local labor market conditions. Surprisingly, given prior literature, we find that workers’ perceptions primarily reflect local labor market conditions and education rather than labor market experiences or job characteristics.
Lectures on nongeometric flux compactifications

These notes present a pedagogical review of nongeometric flux compactifications. We begin by reviewing well-known geometric flux compactifications in Type II string theory, and argue that one must include nongeometric ‘fluxes’ in order to have a superpotential which is invariant under T-duality. Additionally, we discuss some elementary aspects of the worldsheet description of nongeometric backgrounds. This review is based on lectures given at the 2007 RTN Winter School at CERN.
Automatisation of the Activity of Term Collection in Different Languages

This article describes the use and development of a tool for grammar and terminology control (FLAG), for the purposes of automating the verification of terminology for a large-scale user of multilingual terminology. It describes the various advantages of the tool and shows a process for transforming a traditional terminology list into a list of inflected forms as well as patterns which can be used to find possible morpho-syntactic derivations of terms.
On the Relationships Between Lumpability and Filtering of Finite Stochastic Systems

The aim of this paper is to provide the conditions necessary to reduce the complexity of state filtering for finite stochastic systems (FSSs). A concept of lumpability for FSSs is introduced. In this paper we assert that the unnormalised filter for a lumped FSS has linear dynamics. Two sufficient conditions for such a lumpability property to hold are discussed. We show that the first condition is also necessary for the lumped FSS to have linear dynamics. Next, we prove that the second condition allows the filter of the original FSS to be obtained directly from the filter for the lumped FSS. Finally, we generalise an earlier published result for the approximation of a general FSS by a lumpable FSS.
Betalains, polyacetylenes and tocols as biocompounactives: A concise review for enriching the bioactivity concept

Bioactive compound is “a compound which has the capability and the ability to interact with one or more component(s) of the living tissue by presenting a wide range of probable effects” . In a previous study; we discussed the bioactivity concepts and we used, for the first time, the term of "biocompounactive" to more simplify the use of bioactive compound/component in relation to their physicochemical and biological properties (e.g. chemical structure, bioavailability…etc.). The aim of this work is to prove different concepts discussed about “bioactivity” by giving some chosen examples (betalains, polyacetylenes and tocols) that demonstrate different bioactivities of these biocompounactives. Betalains, polyacetylenes and tocols are generally not categorized like the known classes of phytochemicals (phenolics, alkaloids, and terpenes), but exhibit important bioactivities such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and radioprotective properties… etc.
Age at natural menopause among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to estimate the age at natural menopause in women with SLE. METHODS One thousand and thirty-nine consecutive SLE patients <60 years of age were surveyed. Demographic and clinical data were queried by a single investigator. SLE characteristics and co-morbidities were retrieved from their medical records. Natural menopause was defined as amenorrhoea ≥12 months in the absence of previous hysterectomy, CYC exposure and severe chronic kidney disease (SCKD). Pregnant women and those with menses during the 12 months prior to interview were considered premenopausal. Median age at menopause was estimated by both logit and survival analyses. In addition, mean age at menopause was calculated for patients aged ≥40 years. Factors associated with age at natural menopause were assessed by Cox regression analysis. RESULTS A total of 961 SLE women were analysed. At interview, most patients (81.6%) were premenopausal, 7.9% had natural menopause, 6.3% were postmenopausal previously exposed to CYC, 4.1% had undergone hysterectomy before menopause and 0.1% presented with SCKD and amenorrhoea. The mean age at interview was 35.2 years (s.d. 10.1), the mean age at SLE diagnosis was 26.9 years (s.d. 8.6) and the mean duration of disease was 8.2 years (s.d. 7.1). The mean recalled age at menopause was 46.4 years (s.d. 4.7). Median age at menopause estimated by logit and survival analyses were 50.7 and 50.8 years, respectively. Only the age at SLE diagnosis was associated with age at natural menopause. CONCLUSION Median age at natural menopause in women with lupus is 50 years. This is consistent with the age at menopause reported in the general population.
Functional Selectivity of GPCR Ligand Stereoisomers: New Pharmacological Opportunities

It is now well established that any given ligand for a G-protein-couple receptor (GPCR) does not simply possess a single defined efficacy. Rather, a ligand possesses multiple efficacies, depending on the specific down-stream signal transduction pathway analyzed. This diversity may be based on ligand-specific GPCR conformations and is often referred to as “functional selectivity. ” It has been known for a century that stereoisomers of catecholamines differ in their potency and, in some systems, also in their efficacy. However, the molecular basis for efficacy differences of GPCR ligand stereoisomers has remained poorly defined. In an elegant study published in this issue of Molecular Pharmacology, Woo et al. (p. 158) show that stereoisomers of the β2-adrenoceptor selective agonist fenoterol differentially activates Gs- and Gi-proteins in native rat cardiomyocytes. This study is so important because it is the first report to show that even the subtle structural differences within a ligand stereoisomer pair are sufficient to discriminate between GPCR conformations with distinct G-protein coupling properties. The study highlights of how important it is to examine the “more active” (eutomer) and the “less active” (distomer) stereoisomer to understand the mechanisms of action and the cellular effects of GPCR ligands. The study by Woo et al. will ignite a renaissance of the analysis of ligand stereoisomers, using sensitive pharmacological and biophysical assays. The available literature supports the notion that meticulous analysis of ligand stereoisomers is a goldmine for understanding mechanisms of GPCR activation, analysis of signal transduction pathways, development of new therapies for important diseases, and drug safety.
The Columbia Multi-Document Summarizer for DUC 2002

The Columbia Summarizer for DUC 2002 is basedon the multi-document summarization system thatwe developed for DUC 2001 (McKeown et al.,2001). It is a composite system that uses differ-ent summarization strategies depending on the typeof documents in the input set. This year, we havefour different strategies, one for single events, onefor multiple related events, one for biographies andone for discussion of an issue with related events.The changes that we implemented this year fell intofour categories: routing of document sets to strate-gies, statistical techniques for determining similarityand important content, editing of text for productionof abstracts, and changes affecting formatting errors.In addition to producing abstracts as summaries, wealso created a version which produces extracts.
Fractalkine in Vascular Biology: From Basic Research to Clinical Disease

Abstract—Fractalkine (now also called CX3CL1) is a unique chemokine that functions not only as a chemoattractant but also as an adhesion molecule and is expressed on endothelial cells activated by proinflammatory cytokines, such as interferon-&ggr; and tumor necrosis factor-&agr;. The fractalkine receptor, CX3CR1, is expressed on cytotoxic effector lymphocytes, including natural killer (NK) cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which contain high levels of intracellular perforin and granzyme B, and on macrophages. Soluble fractalkine causes migration of NK cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and macrophages, whereas the membrane-bound form captures and enhances the subsequent migration of these cells in response to secondary stimulation with other chemokines. Furthermore, stimulation through membrane-bound fractalkine activates NK cells, leading to increased cytotoxicity and interferon-&ggr; production. Recently, accumulating evidence has shown that fractalkine is involved in the pathogenesis of various clinical disease states or processes, such as atherosclerosis, glomerulonephritis, cardiac allograft rejection, and rheumatoid arthritis. In addition, polymorphisms in CX3CR1, which reduce its binding activity to fractalkine, have been reported to increase the risk of HIV disease and to reduce the risk of coronary artery disease. This review will examine new concepts underlying fractalkine-mediated leukocyte migration and tissue damage, focusing primarily on the pathophysiological roles of fractalkine in various clinical conditions, especially in atherosclerosis and vascular injury.
Novel compact two-dimensional CMOS vertical Hall sensor

We report a novel compact CMOS sensor enabling the measurement of both in-plane magnetic field components Bx and By at the same location. The sensor consists of four n-wells arranged essentially as a square and electrically interconnected into a conducting loop. Four contacts, one at the center of each n-well, serve as drive and sense contacts. The sensing principle is the same as in established vertical Hall sensors. By selectively switching the interconnections among the n-wells, the device is made sensitive alternatively to Bx and By. The sensitivity for both directions is about 5.6 mV/VT. At a nominal B field of 3.7 mT the RMS error of the measured magnitude and angle of B are 56 μT and 0.8°, respectively.
Meeting Today's Governance Challenges: A Synthesis of the Literature and Examination of a Future Agenda for Scholarship

Previous governance scholarship focused almost exclusively on structural and political theories and provided limited explanation of improving governance. This article reviews theoretical perspectives that have been applied to the study of governance to identify conceptual gaps, synthesizes what we know about governance from existing scholarship to understand new directions, and identifies new questions for study, encouraging a broad-based agenda of scholarship on governance.
A robust to PVT variations low-voltage low-power current mirror

In this paper the design of a very low-voltage current mirror with an enhanced output resistance is presented. The mirror is designed using transistors in weak-inversion region, which allows operating with reduced supply voltage. With the use of multiple feedback loops, parameters such as minimum output voltage and output resistance are kept constant with respect to supply voltage, temperature and fabrication process variations (PVT variations). The mirror is biased at 0.5 V and is designed in a standard 0.18 μm technology. As a result, the circuit needs only 60 mV and 80 mV to saturate for NMOS and PMOS implementations respectively, with a maximum variation of 10 mV for all process corners and temperatures between -40 °C and 120 °C, and supply voltages between 0.45 V and 0.55 V. Finally, the mirror was used in a one-stage fully-differential OTA, for which a gain of 75 dB was achieved.
Two decades of Ripple Down Rules research

Abstract Ripple Down Rules (RDR) were developed in answer to the problem of maintaining medium to large rule-based knowledge systems. Traditional approaches to knowledge-based systems gave little thought to maintenance as it was expected that extensive upfront domain analysis involving a highly trained specialist, the knowledge engineer, and the time-poor domain expert would produce a complete model capturing what was in the expert’s head. The ever-changing, contextual and embrained nature of knowledge were not a part of the philosophy upon which they were based. RDR was a paradigm shift, which made knowledge acquisition and maintenance one and the same thing by incrementally acquiring knowledge as domain experts directly interacted with naturally occurring cases in their domain. Cases played an integral part of the acquisition process by motivating the capture of new knowledge, framing the context in which new knowledge would apply and ensuring that previously correctly classified cases remained so by requiring that the classification of the new case distinguish it from the system’s classification and be justified by features of the new case. RDR has moved beyond its first representation which handled single classification tasks within the domain of pathology to support multiple conclusions across a wide range of domains such as help-desk support, email classification and RoboCup and problem types including configuration, simulation, planning and natural language processing. This paper reviews the history of RDR research over the past two decades with a view to its future.
A Compact Interface-Trapped-Charge-Induced Subthreshold Current Model for Surrounding-Gate MOSFETs

With the effects of equivalent oxide charges on the flatband voltage, we report a compact interface-trapped-charge-induced subthreshold current model for the surrounding-gate (SRG) MOSFETs based on the scaling equation and the drift-diffusion approach. It is found that a thin gate oxide can effectively reduce the subthreshold current degradation caused by the positive/negative trapped charges. In contrast to the thin gate oxide, a thick silicon film is required to alleviate the subthreshold current degradation caused by the negative trapped charges. In comparison with the fresh device, the damaged device with negative/positive trapped charges can decrease/increase more subthreshold current roll-up caused by the short-channel effects (SCEs). The model can be used to explore the hot-carrier-induced subthreshold current degradation for the SRG MOSFETs for its memory cell application.
Emotion Detection from Text

Emotion can be expressed in many ways that can be seen such as facial expression and gestures, speech and by written text. Emotion Detection in text documents is essentially a content - based classification problem involving concepts from the domains of Natural Language Processing as well as Machine Learning. In this paper emotion recognition based on textual data and the techniques used in emotion detection are discussed.
Failure of Neuronal Maturation in Alzheimer Disease Dentate Gyrus

The dentate gyrus, an important anatomic structure of the hippocampal formation, is one of the major areas in which neurogenesis takes place in the adult mammalian brain. Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus is thought to play an important role in hippocampus-dependent learning and memory. Neurogenesis has been reported to be increased in the dentate gyrus of patients with Alzheimer disease, but it is not known whether the newly generated neurons differentiate into mature neurons. In this study, the expression of the mature neuronal marker high molecular weight microtubule-associated protein (MAP) isoforms MAP2a and b was found to be dramatically decreased in Alzheimer disease dentate gyrus, as determined by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. The total MAP2, including expression of the immature neuronal marker, the MAP2c isoform, was less affected. These findings suggest that newly generated neurons in Alzheimer disease dentate gyrus do not become mature neurons, although neuroproliferation is increased.
Identification of reference genes for microRNAs of extracellular vesicles isolated from plasma samples of healthy dogs by ultracentrifugation, precipitation, and membrane affinity chromatography methods.

OBJECTIVE To compare ultracentrifugation, precipitation, and membrane affinity chromatography methods for isolation of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from canine plasma samples and to identify suitable reference genes for incorporation into a quantitative reverse transcription PCR assay of microRNA expression in plasma EVs of healthy dogs. ANIMALS 6 healthy Beagles. PROCEDURES Plasma samples were obtained from each dog, and EVs were isolated from 0.3 mL of these samples via ultracentrifugation, precipitation, and membrane-affinity chromatographic methods. Nanoparticle tracking analysis was performed to determine the concentration and size distribution of EVs isolated by the ultracentrifugation method. Expression levels (cycle threshold values) of 4 microRNAs (let-7a, miR-16, miR-26a, and miR-103) were then compared by means of quantitative reverse transcription PCR assay. Three statistical programs were used to identify the microRNAs most suitable for use as reference genes. RESULTS Results indicated that ultracentrifugation was the most stable of all 3 methods for isolating microRNAs from 0.3 mL of plasma. Nanoparticle tracking revealed that EV samples obtained by the ultracentrifugation method contained a mean ± SD of approximately 1.59 × 1010 vesicles/mL ± 4.2 × 108 vesicles/mL. Of the 4 microRNAs in plasma EVs isolated by ultracentrifugation, miR-103 was the most stable. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE The ultracentrifugation method has potential as a stable method for isolating EVs from canine plasma samples with a high recovery rate, and miR-103 may provide the most stable reference gene for normalizing microRNA expression data pertaining to plasma EVs isolated by ultracentrifugation.
A Culture of Collaborative Inquiry: Learning to Develop and Support Professional Learning Communities

Background/Context The type of professional development provided for teachers has been undergoing change from a one-time workshop approach to a more embedded, long-term, reflective, and collaborative structure. Although findings on the impact of new forms of professional development (PD) are beginning to emerge in the literature, there is little research on the professional development of those who design and support these PD efforts. Purpose/Focus of Study To better understand how to support secondary teachers’ engagement in collaborative inquiry, a group of 12 professional development providers deliberately set out to use the same processes and structures in their development and implementation of a PD model. This research examines what this group learned about fostering and sustaining a culture of collaborative inquiry and considers how this can inform PD providers’ support of teachers’ engagement in a collaborative inquiry cycle. Research Design A narrative case study design was used to examine the evolution of the professional development group from its inception in March 2004 through December 2005, halfway through the project's duration. The particular timeframe was targeted to explore the developmental phase of the group and critical decisions that shaped the group structure and direction. Data Collection and Analysis Traditional qualitative data sources were collected and analyzed in the construction of the narrative, including interviews with the professional developers, archived documents, and video and audio recordings of meetings. Conclusions/Recommendations The PD group's focus on how to foster and sustain a culture of collaborative inquiry provides insights into the structures and processes that support this kind of collaborative endeavor. Assuming an inquiry stance toward the work was challenged by the ongoing business of implementing a large-scale project and the demands of people's other work in school districts and universities. Difficulties related to communication between and during meetings also occurred. An explicit reliance on collaborative norms and explicitly using processes such as dialogue structured by protocols, distributing leadership responsibilities, and co-constructing an inquiry focus based on data analysis helped the group develop and maintain an inquiry stance. These findings inform the support of teachers undertaking collaborative inquiry for professional growth.
Evolino: Hybrid Neuroevolution/Optimal Linear Search for Sequence Learning

Current Neural Network learning algorithms are limited in their ability to model non-linear dynamical systems. Most supervised gradient-based recurrent neural networks (RNNs) suffer from a vanishing error signal that prevents learning from inputs far in the past. Those that do not, still have problems when there are numerous local minima. We introduce a general framework for sequence learning, EVOlution of recurrent systems with LINear outputs (Evolino). Evolino uses evolution to discover good RNN hidden node weights, while using methods such as linear regression or quadratic programming to compute optimal linear mappings from hidden state to output. Using the Long Short-Term Memory RNN Architecture, the method is tested in three very different problem domains: 1) context-sensitive languages, 2) multiple superimposed sine waves, and 3) the Mackey-Glass system. Evolino performs exceptionally well across all tasks, where other methods show notable deficiencies in some.
An Expert System on Linguistics to Support Natural Multilingual Collaborative Management of Interlingual Semantic Web Knowledge bases

We are interested in bridging the world of natural language and the world of the semantic web in particular to support multilingual access to the web of data. In this paper we introduce the ULiS project, that aims at designing a pivot-based NLP technique called Universal Linguistic System, 100% using the semantic web formalisms, and being compliant with the Meaning-Text theory. Through the ULiS, a user could interact with an interlingual knowledge base (IKB) in controlled natural language. Linguistic resources themselves are part of a specific IKB: The Universal Lexical Knowledge base (ULK) , so that actors may enhance their controlled natural language, through requests in controlled natural language. We describe a basic interaction scenario at the system level, and provide an overview of the architecture of ULiS. We then introduce the core of the ULiS: the interlingual lexical ontology (ILexicOn), in which each interlingual lexical unit class (ILU ) supports the projection of its semantic decomposition on itself. We validate our model with a standalone ILexicOn, and introduce and explain a concise human-readable notation for it.