Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CYP17 (T-34C) and CYP19 (Trp39Arg) polymorphisms and their cooperative effects on breast cancer susceptibility.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the commonest cancer among women in industrialized countries. Most sporadic breast carcinomas are likely to be caused by low-penetrance genes. Genes encoding enzymes involved in estrogen and carcinogen metabolism are among these low-penetrance genes. In this study, for the first time the T/C (A1/A2) polymorphism at the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of CYP17 and the Arg/Trp (T/C) polymorphism at codon 39 of CYP19 among genes regulating endogenous estrogen levels was studied. PATIENTS AND METHODS Fifty-five female breast cancer patients and ninety-one controls took part in the study. DNA was extracted from paraffin-embedded tissues for the patients and from blood cells for the controls. The distribution of genotypes was determined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) techniques. RESULTS The frequency of the TC genotype of CYP19 was significantly higher in the patient group (p<0.001, kappa(2): 12.31, OR: 7.30, 95% CI: 2.29-25.64). CYP17 frequencies were similar to those in Caucasian populations. In combined analysis, when the high risk alleles were evaluated together, the results reached significance (p=0.006, kappa(2)=7.01, OR: 2.53, %95 CI: 1.26-5.07) for the A2 allele of CYP17 and the C allele of CYP19, being more frequent in the patient group compared to the control. The risk possesed by the TC varient of CYP19 was reduced when evaluated with A1, the protective allele of CYP17 (p=0.082). The cumulative protective effects of both A1 allele and the TT genotype were ascertained to occur significantly less frequently in the patient group (p=0.001, kappa(2): 10.53, OR: 8.47, %95 CI: 1.9-37.04). CONCLUSION The results were consistent with the individual studies of CYP17 and CYP19 in the literature, however, in combined analysis of the alleles of the two genes, the frequency of high risk alleles was higher and the frequencies of low risk alleles were lower in the patient group. The CYP17 A1 + CYP19 TT haplotype may be protective for breast cancer.
Supporting experiments in computer systems research

Systems research is an experimental science. Most research in computer systems follows the trend of innovate (e.g. build a novel garbage collector) and then evaluate (e.g. does it significantly speed up our programs). Researchers use experiments to drive their work; they use experiments to identify bottlenecks and then again to determine if their innovations for addressing those bottlenecks are effective. If their experiments are not carried out properly, researchers may draw incorrect conclusions; they may end up wasting time on something that is not really a problem and may conclude their innovations are beneficial even when they are not. A complicating factor in computer systems experiments is the fact that computer systems are nonlinear dynamical systems, capable of complex and even chaotic behavior. A hallmark of chaos is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions—small changes to the system lead to a large effect on its overall behavior. This sensitivity complicates both observations of our systems and evaluations of our innovations. It complicates our observations because our measurement tools perturb the system they are observing. It complicates our evaluations because small changes to the environment in which we carry out our experiments can cause large and dramatic changes in system behavior. In this dissertation, we argue the systems community needs to support experiments with tools that allow a researcher to accurately observe her system and methodologies that allow researchers to accurately evaluate the impact of their innovations. To support our argument, we introduce two tools that allow researchers to accurately observe their application’s behavior and one methodology that allows researchers to accurately evaluate the impact of their innovations.
Exogenous vascular endothelial growth factor induces malformed and hyperfused vessels during embryonic neovascularization.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent and specific endothelial mitogen that is able to induce angiogenesis in vivo [Leung, D. W. , Cachianes, G. , Kuang, W. -J., Goeddel, D. V. & Ferrara, N. (1989) Science 246 1306-1309]. To determine if VEGF also influences the behavior of primordial endothelial cells, we used an in vivo vascular assay based on the de novo formation of vessels. Japanese quail embryos injected with nanomolar quantities of the 165-residue form of VEGF at the onset of vasculogenesis exhibited profoundly altered vessel development. In fact, the overall patterning of the vascular network was abnormal in all VEGF-injected embryos. The malformations were attributable to two specific endothelial cell activities: (i) inappropriate neovascularization in normally avascular areas and (ii) the unregulated, excessive fusion of vessels. In the first instance, supernumerary vessels directly linked the inflow channel of the heart to the aortic outflow channel. The second aberrant activity led to the formation of vessels with abnormally large lumens. Ultimately, unregulated vessel fusion generated massive vascular sacs that obliterated the identity of individual vessels. These observations show that exogenous VEGF has an impact on the behavior of primordial endothelial cells engaged in vasculogenesis, and they strongly suggest that endogenous VEGF is important in vascular patterning and regulation of vessel size (lumen formation).
Monitoring of Total Chromium in Rat Fluids and Lymphocytes Following Intratracheal Administration of Soluble Trivalent or Hexavalent Chromium Compounds

1 Intratracheal instillation of sodium dichromate (CrVI) and chromium acetate hydroxide (CrIII) to male Wistar rats gave rise to increased chromium concentrations in whole blood, plasma and urine up to 72 h post exposure; peak concentrations were reached at 6 h after exposure. 2 The ratio of whole blood chromium to plasma chromium concentrations was significantly different for Cr(VI) and CR(III) treatments. Both blood chromium and plasma chromium assays should therefore be used for the assessment of chromium exposure. 3 Chromium was also detected in peripheral lymphocytes. Cr(VI), but not Cr(lll) accumulated significantly in the lymphocytes after treatment. These cells have potential to be used for biomarkers of the assessment of exposure to chromium compounds.
Determination of the influence of IR radiation on the antioxidative network of the human skin

Production of free radicals in the human skin subsequent to IR irradiation has been demonstrated by means of two different methods. The first technique, based on resonance Raman spectroscopy, enables the non‐invasive measurements of the kinetics of cutaneous carotenoid antioxidants beta‐carotene and lycopene, subsequent to IR irradiation. Obtained degradation of the cutaneous carotenoids was a hint but not evidence that IR irradiation can produce free radicals in the skin. Therefore, the direct observation sustaining the production of free radicals subsequent to IR irradiation in the skin was performed in‐vitro by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. Enzymatic processes as well as heat shock‐induced radicals in the human skin are presumably involved in the energy transfer from IR irradiation into the molecules of the skin. Protection strategy for human skin against IR‐induced free radicals based on the increase in the concentration of antioxidants by means of antioxidant‐rich supplementation is discussed. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Dynamic Cell Seeding of Polymer Scaffolds for Cartilage Tissue Engineering

Cell seeding of three‐dimensional polymer scaffolds is the first step of the cultivation of engineered tissues in bioreactors. Seeding requirements of large scaffolds to make implants for potential clinical use include: (a) high yield, to maximize the utilization of donor cells, (b) high kinetic rate, to minimize the time in suspension for anchorage‐dependent and shear‐sensitive cells, and (c) high and spatially uniform distribution of attached cells, for rapid and uniform tissue regeneration. Highly porous, fibrous polyglycolic acid scaffolds, 5–10 mm in diameter and 2–5 mm thick, were seeded with bovine articular chondrocytes in well‐mixed spinner flasks. Essentially, all cells attached throughout the scaffold volume within 1 day. Mixing promoted the formation of 20–32‐μm diameter cell aggregates that enhanced the kinetics of cell attachment without compromising the uniformity of cell distribution. The kinetics and possible mechanisms of cell seeding were related to the formation of cell aggregates by a simple mathematical model that can be used to optimize seeding conditions for cartilage tissue engineering.
Blimp1 regulates development of the posterior forelimb, caudal pharyngeal arches, heart and sensory vibrissae in mice

The zinc-finger transcriptional repressor Blimp1 (Prdm1) controls gene expression patterns during differentiation of B lymphocytes and regulates epigenetic changes required for specification of primordial germ cells. Blimp1 is dynamically expressed at diverse tissue sites in the developing mouse embryo, but its functional role remains unknown because Blimp1 mutant embryos arrest at E10.5 due to placental insufficiency. To explore Blimp1 activities at later stages in the embryo proper, here we used a conditional inactivation strategy. A Blimp1-Cre transgenic strain was also exploited to generate a fate map of Blimp1-expressing cells. Blimp1 plays essential roles in multipotent progenitor cell populations in the posterior forelimb, caudal pharyngeal arches, secondary heart field and sensory vibrissae and maintains key signalling centres at these diverse tissues sites. Interestingly, embryos carrying a hypomorphic Blimp1gfp reporter allele survive to late gestation and exhibit similar, but less severe developmental abnormalities, whereas transheterozygous Blimp1gfp/- embryos with further reduced expression levels, display exacerbated defects. Collectively, the present experiments demonstrate that Blimp1 requirements in diverse cell types are exquisitely dose dependent.
Enhanced robust cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio

As wireless spectrum resources become more scarce while some portions of frequency bands suffer from low utilization, the design of cognitive radio (CR) has recently been urged, which allows opportunistic usage of licensed bands for secondary users without interference with primary users. Spectrum sensing is fundamental for a secondary user to find a specific available spectrum hole. Cooperative spectrum sensing is more accurate and more widely used since it obtains helpful reports from nodes in different locations. However, if some nodes are compromised and report false sensing data to the fusion center on purpose, the accuracy of decisions made by the fusion center can be heavily impaired. Weighted sequential probability ratio test (WSPRT), based on a credit evaluation system to restrict damage caused by malicious nodes, was proposed to address such a spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack at the price of introducing four times more sampling numbers. In this paper, we propose two new schemes, named enhanced weighted sequential probability ratio test (EWSPRT) and enhanced weighted sequential zero/one test (EWSZOT), which are robust against SSDF attack. By incorporating a new weight module and a new test module, both schemes have much less sampling numbers than WSPRT. Simulation results show that when holding comparable error rates, the numbers of EWSPRT and EWSZOT are 40% and 75% lower than WSPRT, respectively. We also provide theoretical analysis models to support the performance improvement estimates of the new schemes.
Guanylyl cyclase/natriuretic peptide receptor-A signaling antagonizes phosphoinositide hydrolysis, Ca2+ release, and activation of protein kinase C

Thus far, three related natriuretic peptides (NPs) and three distinct sub-types of cognate NP receptors have been identified and characterized based on the specific ligand binding affinities, guanylyl cyclase activity, and generation of intracellular cGMP. Atrial and brain natriuretic peptides (ANP and BNP) specifically bind and activate guanylyl cyclase/natriuretic peptide receptor-A (GC-A/NPRA), and C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) shows specificity to activate guanylyl cyclase/natriuretic peptide receptor-B (GC-B/NPRB). All three NPs bind to natriuretic peptide receptor-C (NPRC), which is also known as clearance or silent receptor. The NPRA is considered the principal biologically active receptor of NP family; however, the molecular signaling mechanisms of NP receptors are not well understood. The activation of NPRA and NPRB produces the intracellular second messenger cGMP, which serves as the major signaling molecule of all three NPs. The activation of NPRB in response to CNP also produces the intracellular cGMP; however, at lower magnitude than that of NPRA, which is activated by ANP and BNP. In addition to enhanced accumulation of intracellular cGMP in response to all three NPs, the levels of cAMP, Ca2+ and inositol triphosphate (IP3) have also been reported to be altered in different cells and tissue types. Interestingly, ANP has been found to lower the concentrations of cAMP, Ca2+, and IP3; however, NPRC has been proposed to increase the levels of these metabolic signaling molecules. The mechanistic studies of decreased and/or increased levels of cAMP, Ca2+, and IP3 in response to NPs and their receptors have not yet been clearly established. This review focuses on the signaling mechanisms of ANP/NPRA and their biological effects involving an increased level of intracellular accumulation of cGMP and a decreased level of cAMP, Ca2+, and IP3 in different cells and tissue systems.
Impact of Modern Process Technologies on the Electrical Parameters of Interconnects

This paper presents the results obtained from an experimental study of the impact of modern process technologies on the electrical parameters of interconnects. Variations in parasitic capacitances and resistances due to dummy metal fills, chemical mechanical polishing, multiple thin inter-layer dielectrics and trapezoidal conductor cross-sections are presented. Accurate variations in the parasitics are reported for a set of timing critical nets using 3d field solvers for extraction. Results obtained on a set of industrial designs show that the impact of dummy fills and trapezoidal conductor cross-sections are significant
A Nonlinear Derivative Scheme Applied to Edge Detection

This paper presents a nonlinear derivative approach to addressing the problem of discrete edge detection. This edge detection scheme is based on the nonlinear combination of two polarized derivatives. Its main property is a favorable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at a very low computation cost and without any regularization. A 2D extension of the method is presented and the benefits of the 2D localization are discussed. The performance of the localization and SNR are compared to that obtained using classical edge detection schemes. Tests of the regularized versions and a theoretical estimation of the SNR improvement complete this work.
Stress-Induced Cell-Cycle Activation in Tip60 Haploinsufficient Adult Cardiomyocytes

Background Tat-interactive protein 60 (Tip60) is a member of the MYST family of histone acetyltransferases. Studies using cultured cells have shown that Tip60 has various functions including DNA repair, apoptosis and cell-cycle regulation. We globally ablated the Tip60 gene (Htatip), observing that Tip60-null embryos die at the blastocyst stage (Hu et al. Dev.Dyn.238:2912;2009). Although adult heterozygous (Tip60+/−) mice reproduce normally without a haploinsufficient phenotype, stress caused by Myc over-expression induced B-cell lymphoma in Tip60+/− adults, suggesting that Tip60 is a tumor suppressor (Gorrini et al. Nature 448:1063;2007). These findings prompted assessment of whether Tip60, alternative splicing of which generates two predominant isoforms termed Tip60α and Tip60β, functions to suppress the cell-cycle in adult cardiomyocytes. Methodology/Principal Findings Western blotting revealed that Tip60α is the predominant Tip60 isoprotein in the embryonic heart, transitioning at neonatal stages to Tip60β, which is the only isoprotein in the adult heart wherein it is highly enriched. Over-expression of Tip60β, but not Tip60α, inhibited cell proliferation in NIH3T3 cells; and, Tip60-haploinsufficient cultured neonatal cardiomyocytes exhibited increased cell-cycle activity. To address whether Tip60β suppresses the cardiomyocyte cell-cycle in the adult heart, hypertrophic stress was induced in Tip60+/+ and Tip+/− littermates via two methods, Myc over-expression and aortic banding. Based on immunostaining cell-cycle markers and western blotting cyclin D, stress increased cardiomyocyte cell-cycle mobilization in Tip60+/− hearts, in comparison with Tip60+/+ littermates. Aortic-banded Tip60+/− hearts also exhibited significantly decreased apoptosis. Conclusions/Significance These findings provide evidence that Tip60 may function in a tumor suppressor pathway(s) to maintain adult cardiomyocytes in replicative senescence.
Early maladaptive schemas and cognitive distortions in psychopathy and narcissism

iv CHAPTER 1: Psychopathy and Narcissism 1 1.1 Personality Disorders 1 1.2 Psychopathy 9 1.2. 1 Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD): Historical Background 9 1.2. 2 Modern Conceptualisations: Primary and Secondary Psychopathy 14 1.2. 3 Hare’s Two-Factor Conceptualisation of Psychopathy and the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R) 15 1.2. 4 Levenson’s Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP) 19 1.3 Narcissism 22 1.3. 1 The Origins of Narcissism 22 1.3. 2 Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) 23 1.3. 3 Measurement of Overt and Covert Narcissism 27 1.3. 4 The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) 28 1.3. 5 The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS) 28 1.3. 6 Conclusions 30
Lysyl oxidase mediates hypoxia-induced radioresistance in non-small cell lung cancer A549 cells

Hypoxia-induced radioresistance has been well known as the main obstacle in cancer radiotherapy. Lysyl oxidase (LOX) was previously demonstrated to play an important role in hypoxia-induced biological behaviors, such as metastasis and angiogenesis, through hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), which is an important contributing factor to radioresistance in tumor cells. However, how LOX plays a role in hypoxia-induced radioresistance has yet to be determined. Here, we found that LOX expression was in accordance with HIF-1α expression, and LOX expression at the mRNA and protein level, and enzymatic activity were remarkably upregulated in the hypoxic A549 cells, compared with normoxic A549 cells. Inhibition of LOX resulted in the reduction of the ability to repair double-stranded breaks (DSBs), promotion of apoptosis, relief of G2/M cycle arrest, and eventually reduction of hypoxia-induced radioresistance in the hypoxic A549 cells. This suggests that LOX may play an important role in hypoxia-induced radioresistance. Together, our results might suggest a novel potential therapeutic target in the management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
A Software-Defined Green Framework for Hybrid EV-Charging Networks

EVs provide a promising green solution to reduce dependence on fossil fuel and the emission of greenhouse gas. This article concerns hybrid EV systems that contain both wired charging and wireless charging vehicles. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to discuss how to jointly use these two types of charging methods whose advantages are complementary to each other; for example, wireless charging has better user friendliness and flexibility, while wired charging can provide higher charging efficiency and bidirectional energy transmission. We believe such a hybrid system can benefit us much more than either a pure wireless or pure wired EV charging system. On the other hand, we also pay attention to a practically important problem with DSM. The existing schemes can hardly ensure efficient and stable charging services in the foreseeable future due to the rapidly increasing number of electric vehicles and the limited capacity of local grids. To address this issue, we propose a software-defined green framework for hybrid EV charging networks, which consists of three planes: the application plane provides customized services for users; the control plane aims to guide both data flow and energy flow to implement an efficient and economic strategy for EV charging; and the physical plane collects the information from a large number of EVs and other infrastructures. Furthermore, we present a DSM approach for EV charging as a case study. Simulation results reveal that our proposals could achieve delightful DSM performance in the proposed software-defined EV charging networks. Although the proposed hybrid framework offers promising opportunities, we still face some technical challenges that solicit further research efforts from both academia and industry, which are discussed in detail at the end of this article.
A Primary Theoretical Study on Decomposition-Based Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms

Decomposition-based multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) have been studied a lot and have been widely and successfully used in practice. However, there are no related theoretical studies on this kind of MOEAs. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the MOEAs based on decomposition. First, we analyze the runtime complexity with two basic simple instances. In both cases the Pareto front have oneto-one map to the decomposed subproblems or not. Second, we analyze the runtime complexity on two difficult instances with bad neighborhood relations in fitness space or decision space. Our studies show that: 1) in certain cases, polynomialsized evenly distributed weight parameters-based decomposition cannot map each point in a polynomial sized Pareto front to a subproblem; 2) an ideal serialized algorithm can be very efficient on some simple instances; 3) the standard MOEA based on decomposition can benefit a runtime cut of a constant fraction from its neighborhood coevolution scheme; and 4) the standard MOEA based on decomposition performs well on difficult instances because both the Pareto domination-based and the scalar subproblem-based search schemes are combined in a proper way.
In the Eye of the Beholder: The Science of Face Perception

1: Introduction: The face - organ of communication. 2: Light, Colour, and shape: The science of vision. 3: Physical differences between faces: Age, sex, and race. 4: The mating game: attractiveness and the sociobiology. 5: Whose face is it? How individual faces are recognised. 6: Messages from the face: Lipreading, gaze, and expression. 7: In the brain of the beholder: The neuroscience of face perception