Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Global Food Security Support Analysis Data (GFSAD) Crop Dominance 2010 Global 1 km V001

The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Global Food Security Support Analysis Data (GFSAD) Crop Dominance Global 1 kilometer (km) dataset was created using multiple input data including: Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Satellite Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) vegetation, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) remote sensing data; crop type data, secondary elevation data; 50-year precipitation and 20-year temperature data; reference sub-meter to 5-meter resolution ground data; and country statistic data. The GFSAD1KCD data were produced for nominal 2010 by overlaying the five dominant crops of the world produced by Ramankutty et al. (2008), Monfreda et al. (2008), and Portman et al. (2009) over the remote sensing derived global irrigated and rainfed cropland area map of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI; Thenkabail et al., 2009a, 2009b, 2011, Biradar et al., 2009) to ultimately create eight classes of crop dominance. The GFSAD1KCD nominal 2010 product is based on data ranging from years 2007 through 2012.
The Littlefield Rhyolite, Eastern Oregon: Distinct Flow Units and Their Constraints on Age and Storage Sites of Grande Ronde Basalt Magmas

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Recommended Citation Webb, Brian McCulloch, "The Littlefield Rhyolite, Eastern Oregon: Distinct Flow Units and Their Constraints on Age and Storage Sites of Grande Ronde Basalt Magmas" (2017). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4022.
Characterization of the Molecular Mechanism of the Bone-Anabolic Activity of Carfilzomib in Multiple Myeloma

Carfilzomib, the next generation of proteasome inhibitor, may increase osteoblast-related markers in patients with multiple myeloma, but the molecular mechanism of its effect on mesenchymal stem cell differentiation to osteoblasts remains unknown. Herein, we demonstrated that carfilzomib significantly promoted mesenchymal stem cell differentiation into osteoblasts. In osteoprogenitor cells and primary mesenchymal stem cells from patients with myeloma, carfilzomib induced increases in alkaline phosphatase activity, matrix mineralization, and calcium deposition via Wnt-independent activation of β-catenin/TCF signaling. Using affinity pull-down assays with immunoblotting analysis and immunofluorescence, we found that carfilzomib induced stabilization of both free and active forms of β-catenin in a time- and dose-dependent manner that was not associated with β-catenin transcriptional regulation. Nuclear translocation of β-catenin protein was associated with TCF transcriptional activity that was independent of the effects of GSK3β-activation and of signaling induced by 19 Wnt ligands, 10 Frizzled receptors, and LRP5/6 co-receptors. Blocking activation of β-catenin/TCF signaling by dominant negative TCF1 or TCF4 attenuated carfilzomib-induced matrix mineralization. Thus, carfilzomib induced osteoblast differentiation via Wnt-independent activation of the β-catenin/TCF pathway. These results provide a novel molecular mechanism critical to understanding the anabolic role of carfilzomib on myeloma-induced bone disease.
Compartmentalization of superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1G93A) aggregates determines their toxicity

Neurodegenerative diseases constitute a class of illnesses marked by pathological protein aggregation in the brains of affected individuals. Although these disorders are invariably characterized by the degeneration of highly specific subpopulations of neurons, protein aggregation occurs in all cells, which indicates that toxicity arises only in particular cell biological contexts. Aggregation-associated disorders are unified by a common cell biological feature: the deposition of the culprit proteins in inclusion bodies. The precise function of these inclusions remains unclear. The starting point for uncovering the origins of disease pathology must therefore be a thorough understanding of the general cell biological function of inclusions and their potential role in modulating the consequences of aggregation. Here, we show that in human cells certain aggregate inclusions are active compartments. We find that toxic aggregates localize to one of these compartments, the juxtanuclear quality control compartment (JUNQ), and interfere with its quality control function. The accumulation of SOD1G93A aggregates sequesters Hsp70, preventing the delivery of misfolded proteins to the proteasome. Preventing the accumulation of SOD1G93A in the JUNQ by enhancing its sequestration in an insoluble inclusion reduces the harmful effects of aggregation on cell viability.
TELEMANIPULATION WITH IMPEDANCE CONTROL AND ITS APPLICATION IN HOMECARE ROBOTICS

Telemanipulation concerns manual operation of a device from a remote location through suitable communication links. In haptics, the communication link is two-way with force feedback from the manipulated object to the human operator. This paper presents a new application of telemanipulation, as used in homecare robotics. For the specific application, a telemanipulation scheme with impedance control at both ends of the communication link—object interface (slave end) and human interface (master end)—is investigated. On the master side, impedance with damping is tuned with the environmental impedance to reduce the energy input by the operator. On the slave side, an adaptive impedance controllers based on estimation of the dynamics at the telemanipulated object interface is suggested. The proposed impedance controllers can guarantee desired force tracking in one direction. Simulation results show the applicability of the control strategy.
Application of Orp for the Evaluation of Water Contamination

Water pollution characterization consumes a lot time, facilities and materials. Application of easy applicable and accurate method for pollution determination is quiet actual still now. Redox reactions in water are usually biologically mediated and therefore, the oxidation reduction potential (ORP) of wastewater and groundwater systems depends upon biodegradation processes. Oxidation and reduction reactions control the behaviour of many chemical constituents in the water. The determination of ORP is advisable in water that contains a relatively high concentration of a redox-active species, e.g., organic carbon, the salts of many metals (Fe, Mn) and strong oxidising (chlorine, oxygen) and reducing (sulfite ion) agents. Water pollution characterization upon ORP and different types of polluted water was investigated. The main outcome of this research – ORP can be used as easy applicable measurement for different types of water as pollution indicator.
Reduced Baroreflex Sensitivity with Volume Loading in Conscious Dogs

The Bainbridge reflex, i.e., the effect of rapid saline infusion (1.1 ± 0.1 liters) on heart rate and arterial and atrial blood pressures, was examined in 12 intact conscious dogs; mean arterial blood pressure rose by 33 ± 3 (SE) mm Hg, mean atrial pressure by 14 ± 1 mm Hg, and heart rate by 75 ± 9 beats/min. After beta-receptor blockade, heart rate rose slightly less (+49 ± 5 beats/min, P = 0.05). Cholinergic blockade, combined cholinergic and beta-receptor, or beta-receptor blockade after vagotomy blocked the heart rate response to the infusion. The rise in heart rate in the face of an increase in arterial blood pressure with volume loading suggested that the arterial baroreceptor reflex was not responding appropriately to the increase in arterial blood pressure. In conscious dogs after denervation of the arterial baroreceptors, the increase in heart rate with volume loading was no greater than that in those dogs with their arterial baroreceptors intact, suggesting that the baroreceptor reflex was not restraining heart rate in the normal response to volume loading. The relationship between the pulse interval (PI) and the systolic arterial blood pressure (SAP) following an intravenous injection of methoxamine was used to evaluate the sensitivity of the baroreceptor reflex in intact conscious dogs. After a mild amount of volume loading, when atrial pressure was 8 ± 2 mm Hg, the PI/SAP slope was significantly depressed from normal. When atrial pressure was elevated further to 28 ± 1 mm Hg by volume loading, the slope was further depressed. Thus, arterial baroreflex sensitivity is reduced progressively as atrial pressure is raised by volume loading, an observation that explains how heart rate can rise strikingly in the face of an elevated arterial blood pressure.
A Three-Phase Controlled-Current PWM Converter with Leading Power Factor

Experimental tests performed on a three-phase bipolartransistor controlled-current PWM power modulator show that it can operate with near-sinusoidal currents at 60 Hz with a 360-degree power angle range. Because of its capability to operate with leading power factor and good waveform, the PWM converter is a promising alternative to the thyristor Graetz bridge. A theoretical method based on the concept of ``local average'' is presented.
An empirical evaluation of two memory-efficient directory methods

The authors present an empirical evaluation of two memory-efficient directory methods for maintaining coherent caches in large shared-memory multiprocessors. Both directory methods are modifications of a scheme proposed by L.M. Censier and P. Feautrier (1978) that does not rely on a specific interconnection network and can be readily distributed across interleaved main memory. The schemes considered here overcome the large amount of memory required for tags in the original scheme in two different ways. In the first scheme each main memory block is sectored into sub-blocks for which the large tag overhead is shared. In the second scheme a limited number of large tags are stored in an associative cache and shared among a much larger number of main memory blocks. Simulations show that in terms of access time and network traffic both directory methods provide significant performance improvements over a memory system in which shared-writable data are not cached. The large block sizes required for the sectored scheme, however, promote sufficient false sharing for its performance to be markedly worse than when a tag cache is used. <<ETX>>
Estimates of Chlamydia trachomatis Infections Among Men: United States

Objective: To describe the epidemiology of genital Chlamydia trachomatis infections among men in the United States. Study Design: Data from the notifiable disease case surveillance system, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), the National Job Training Program, the Men Having Sex with Men (MSM) Prevalence Monitoring Project, and adult and juvenile corrections facilities were used to summarize national chlamydia case and prevalence rates. Data were stratified by age and race/ethnicity. Results: In 2005, 232,781 chlamydia cases among men were reported, corresponding to a rate of 161.1 cases per 100,000 men, an increase of 43.5% compared with the case rate in 2001 (112.3). Population-based chlamydia prevalence rates from NHANES (1999–2002) were highest among men aged 20 to 29 years (3.2%); men aged 18 to 26 years participating in AddHealth (2001–2002) had a 3.7% prevalence rate. Rates were highest among black men in both NHANES (5.3%) and AddHealth (11.1%). The prevalence rate among men (aged 16–24 years) participating in the National Job Training Program was 8.1%. Among MSM, the 2005 median urethral chlamydia prevalence rate was 6%. Overall, chlamydia rates were highest in adult corrections facilities; the 2005 positivity rate among men aged 21 to 25 years was 7.8%. In juvenile corrections facilities, the 2005 positivity rate among men aged 15 to 17 years was 6.7%. Conclusions: Rates of genital C. trachomatis infections among men are persistently high, particularly among men entering the National Job Training Program and men in corrections facilities. The burden of disease is generally highest among young men and black men.
Inflammation and Disintegration of Intestinal Villi in an Experimental Model for Vibrio parahaemolyticus-Induced Diarrhea

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a leading cause of seafood-borne gastroenteritis in many parts of the world, but there is limited knowledge of the pathogenesis of V. parahaemolyticus-induced diarrhea. The absence of an oral infection-based small animal model to study V. parahaemolyticus intestinal colonization and disease has constrained analyses of the course of infection and the factors that mediate it. Here, we demonstrate that infant rabbits oro-gastrically inoculated with V. parahaemolyticus develop severe diarrhea and enteritis, the main clinical and pathologic manifestations of disease in infected individuals. The pathogen principally colonizes the distal small intestine, and this colonization is dependent upon type III secretion system 2. The distal small intestine is also the major site of V. parahaemolyticus-induced tissue damage, reduced epithelial barrier function, and inflammation, suggesting that disease in this region of the gastrointestinal tract accounts for most of the diarrhea that accompanies V. parahaemolyticus infection. Infection appears to proceed through a characteristic sequence of steps that includes remarkable elongation of microvilli and the formation of V. parahaemolyticus-filled cavities within the epithelial surface, and culminates in villus disruption. Both depletion of epithelial cell cytoplasm and epithelial cell extrusion contribute to formation of the cavities in the epithelial surface. V. parahaemolyticus also induces proliferation of epithelial cells and recruitment of inflammatory cells, both of which occur before wide-spread damage to the epithelium is evident. Collectively, our findings suggest that V. parahaemolyticus damages the host intestine and elicits disease via previously undescribed processes and mechanisms.
Riverine sources of bioreactive macroelements and their impact on bacterioplankton metabolism in a recipient boreal estuary

The loading of terrestrially derived macroelements, such as dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total nitrogen (N), and total phosphorus (P), to inland and estuarine waters is increasing in the northern hemisphere. Thesemacroelements often limit heterotrophic bacterioplankton metabolism (production and respiration), which in turn influence food web structures, exchange of greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and aquatic systems and oxygen consumption in estuarine ecosystems. In order to predict the impact of increasing macroelement inflows on the function and structure of boreal aquatic ecosystems it is vital to understand the potential sources of macroelements and their regulation of bacterioplankton metabolism. In this thesis, I aimed to determine whether terrestrially derived macroelement loadings to inland and estuarine waters can be utilized by bacterioplankton. In addition, I assessed how riverine influxes of DOC, N and P, alone or combined, regulate estuarine bacterioplankton metabolism. For this purpose, I applied a bioassayapproach to measure bacterioplankton respiration (BR) and production (BP) on samples from boreal freshwaters and estuarine systems. Terrestrially derived macroelement availability in brown-water lakes increased from DOC to N to P and averaged 2%, 31% and 49%, respectively. Although extremely low, relativeDOC bioreactivity increased with downstream transit for rivers with long water residence time and high fractions of urban and agricultural land use. Riverine bioreactive DOC was not the primary source of energy supporting bacterioplankton respiration at the Ore estuary, confirming the low bioreactive DOC exports expected for the Ore river. Instead riverine nutrients showed a more important effect on BR through stimulation of primary production, which in turn derived the organic carbon utilized by the bacterioplankton in the estuary.However, BP at the Ore estuary was in general limited by P and BR by carbon. In light of expected increases in riverine loadings of DOC and P, and decreases of estuarine primary production, estuarine BP is expected to increase, as well as estuarine BR of riverine DOC inputs. These bacterioplankton responses may beexacerbated by combined increases of riverine inflows of DOC, N and P. In summary, terrestrially derived macroelements can have a substantial impact on freshwater and estuarine bacterioplankton metabolism. Given the large role of bacterioplankton on the structure and function of aquatic systems, continuous changes in the input of terrestrial macroelements may have large consequences for boreal aquatic ecosystems. (Less)
Assessing the Pathogenicity of Insertion and Deletion Variants with the Variant Effect Scoring Tool (VEST‐Indel)

Insertion/deletion variants (indels) alter protein sequence and length, yet are highly prevalent in healthy populations, presenting a challenge to bioinformatics classifiers. Commonly used features—DNA and protein sequence conservation, indel length, and occurrence in repeat regions—are useful for inference of protein damage. However, these features can cause false positives when predicting the impact of indels on disease. Existing methods for indel classification suffer from low specificities, severely limiting clinical utility. Here, we further develop our variant effect scoring tool (VEST) to include the classification of in‐frame and frameshift indels (VEST‐indel) as pathogenic or benign. We apply 24 features, including a new “PubMed” feature, to estimate a gene's importance in human disease. When compared with four existing indel classifiers, our method achieves a drastically reduced false‐positive rate, improving specificity by as much as 90%. This approach of estimating gene importance might be generally applicable to missense and other bioinformatics pathogenicity predictors, which often fail to achieve high specificity. Finally, we tested all possible meta‐predictors that can be obtained from combining the four different indel classifiers using Boolean conjunctions and disjunctions, and derived a meta‐predictor with improved performance over any individual method.
Arabic Phrase-Level Contextual Polarity Recognition to Enhance Sentiment Arabic Lexical Semantic Database Generation

Most of opinion mining works need lexical resources for opinion which recognize the polarity of words (positive/ negative) regardless their contexts which called prior polarity. The word prior polarity may be changed when it is considered in its contexts, for example, positive words may be used in phrases expressing negative sentiments, or vice versa. In this paper, we aim at generating sentiment Arabic lexical semantic database having the word prior coupled with its contextual polarities and the related phrases. To do that, we study first the prior polarity effects of each word using our Sentiment Arabic Lexical Semantic Database on the sentence-level subjectivity and Support Vector Machine classifier. We then use the seminal English two-step contextual polarity phrase-level recognition approach to enhance word polarities within its contexts. Our results achieve significant improvement over baselines.
A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF RESIDENTS' PERCEPTION OF THEIR TRAINING AND KNOWLEDGE ON THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGING.

UNLABELLED The aim of this preliminary study was to assess the residents' perception on their training program and on their knowledge regarding the use and interpretation of three-dimensional imaging techniques in their clinical practice. MATERIAL AND METHODS A multi-item questionnaire was distributed among 104 residents training in four medical specialties at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Grigore T. Popa" in Iaşi. RESULTS Fifty-five residents agreed to fill in the questionnaire, achieving a participating rate of 52.88%. The majority of the respondents (74.5%) declared to indicate classic CT scans to their patients. A significantly lower fraction of the participating residents (32.7%) affirmed to indicate CBCT scans. Electronic literature was the most common information source on the use of three-dimensional imaging (52.7%). Most of the residents declared that they cannot interpret correctly CT and CBCT scans (78.2%, respectively 83.6%). A significant percentage of the respondents considered that the level of training provided on the interpretation of CT and CBCT results is very low (49.1%, respectively 60.0%). CONCLUSIONS The residents' perception of the quality of their education regarding 3D imaging modalities, along with their perception of their knowledge in this area, indicates the necessity to improve their didactic and practical training. A further extended survey will be conducted to evaluate the educational experience of residents from all medical specialties that use 3D imaging techniques in neck and head imaging.
Immunoglobulin G Locus Events in Soft Tissue Sarcoma Cell Lines

Recently immunoglobulins (Igs) have been found to be expressed by cells other than B lymphocytes, including various human carcinoma cells. Sarcomas are derived from mesenchyme, and the knowledge about the occurrence of Ig production in sarcoma cells is very limited. Here we investigated the phenomenon of immunoglobulin G (IgG) expression and its molecular basis in 3 sarcoma cell lines. The mRNA transcripts of IgG heavy chain and kappa light chain were detected by RT-PCR. In addition, the expression of IgG proteins was confirmed by Western blot and immunofluorescence. Immuno-electron microscopy localized IgG to the cell membrane and rough endoplasmic reticulum. The essential enzymes required for gene rearrangement and class switch recombination, and IgG germ-line transcripts were also identified in these sarcoma cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation results demonstrated histone H3 acetylation of both the recombination activating gene and Ig heavy chain regulatory elements. Collectively, these results confirmed IgG expression in sarcoma cells, the mechanism of which is very similar to that regulating IgG expression in B lymphocytes.
Human Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells Express Functionally Active Endothelial Cell Protein C Receptor

The endothelial cell protein C receptor (EPCR) is expressed on endothelial cells and regulates the protein C anticoagulant pathway via the thrombin-thrombomodulin complex. Independent of its anticoagulant activity, activated protein C (APC) can directly signal to endothelial cells and upregulate antiapoptotic and antiinflammatory genes. Here we show that vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) also express EPCR. EPCR protein on SMCs was detected by flow cytometry and Western blotting. EPCR mRNA was identified by quantitative RT-PCR. To examine the functionality of EPCR, intracellular signaling in APC-stimulated SMCs was analyzed by determination of intracellular free calcium transients using confocal laser scanning microscopy. Phosphorylation of extracellular signal–regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK-1/2) was detected by immunoblotting. APC-induced ERK-1/2 phosphorylation was inhibited by an anti-EPCR antibody and by a cleavage site blocking anti–PAR-1 antibody, indicating that binding of APC to EPCR and cleavage of protease-activated receptor-1 (PAR-1) were involved. APC elicited an increase in [3H]-thymidine incorporation. The mitogenic effect of APC was significantly enhanced in the presence of thrombin. EPCR expression was also detected in SMCs in the fibrous cap of human carotid artery plaques. The present data demonstrate functionally active EPCR in SMCs and suggest that EPCR-bound APC might modulate PAR-1-mediated responses of SMCs to vascular injury.