Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Superoxide Generation from Endothelial Nitric-oxide Synthase

It has been previously shown that besides synthesizing nitric oxide (NO), neuronal and inducible NO synthase (NOS) generates superoxide (O⨪2) under conditions ofl-arginine depletion. However, there is controversy regarding whether endothelial NOS (eNOS) can also produce O⨪2. Moreover, the mechanism and control of this process are not fully understood. Therefore, we performed electron paramagnetic resonance spin-trapping experiments to directly measure and characterize the O⨪2 generation from purified eNOS. With the spin trap 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO), prominent signals of O⨪2 adduct, DMPO-OOH, were detected from eNOS in the absence of added tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), and these were quenched by superoxide dismutase. This O⨪2formation required Ca2+/calmodulin and was blocked by the specific NOS inhibitor N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME) but not its non-inhibitory enantiomerd-NAME. A parallel process of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent NADPH oxidation was observed which was also inhibited by l-NAME but notd-NAME. Pretreatment of the enzyme with the heme blockers cyanide or imidazole also prevented O⨪2 generation. BH4 exerted dose-dependent inhibition of the O⨪2 signals generated by eNOS. Conversely, in the absence of BH4 l-arginine did not decrease this O⨪2 generation. Thus, eNOS can also catalyze O⨪2formation, and this appears to occur primarily at the heme center of its oxygenase domain. O⨪2 synthesis from eNOS requires Ca2+/calmodulin and is primarily regulated by BH4 rather than l-arginine.
Effect of propan-2-ol on enzymic and structural properties of elongation factor G.

Elongation factor G (EF-G) can support a GTPase activity in vitro even in the absence of ribosomes when propan-2-ol is present [GTPasep; De Vendittis, Masullo & Bocchini (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 4445-4450]. In the present work the GTPasep activity of EF-G was further studied by investigating (i) the effect of ionic environment on GTPasep and (ii) the influence of propan-2-ol on the molecular structure of EF-G as determined by fluorescence and c.d. measurements. In the presence of 1-300 mM univalent cations (M+) alone, no detectable GTPasep activity was measured; however, in the presence of 1 mM-Mg2+ a considerable stimulation was observed at 40 mM-Li+ or 75 mM-NH4+. Among bivalent cations (M2+), 1 mM-Sr2+, 2-5 mM-Ca2+ and 1 mM-Ba2+ were the most effective, but, in the presence of 75 mM-NH4+, Mg2+ and Mn2+ became the most efficient, whereas the stimulation by other M2+ species was considerably decreased. C.d. measurements showed that the alcohol increased the mean molar residue ellipticity of EF-G at 285 nm, but not at 220 nm. As estimated from fluorescence measurements, in the presence of 20% (v/v) propan-2-ol the value of the dissociation constant of the complex formed between EF-G and 8-anilino-1-naphthalene-sulphonate decreased from 8 to 5 microM; similarly, the number of binding sites on EF-G for the fluorescent probe decreased from 13 to 6. Finally, the alcohol enhanced the quenching of the intrinsic fluorescence of EF-G caused by either acrylamide or KI. The data support the hypothesis that propan-2-ol induces moderate conformational changes of EF-G that make the catalytic centre accessible to the substrate even in the absence of ribosomes. Kinetics of GTPasep studied at different temperatures did not reveal additional structural changes of EF-G occurring with time or temperature.
Elevated soluble IL‐2Rα, IL‐8, and MIP‐1β levels are associated with inferior outcome and are independent of MIPI score in patients with mantle cell lymphoma

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a unique type of lymphoma with a prognosis intermediate between indolent and aggressive types. The purpose of this study was to study blood cytokine levels in newly diagnosed and relapsed MCL patients with respect to patterns of abnormalities and relationship to the MCL International Prognostic Index (MIPI) score. We analyzed blood levels of 30 cytokines using a multiplex ELISA in 88 patients with newly diagnosed MCL (pre‐treatment levels) and 20 with relapsed MCL and compared them with controls without known lymphoma. Elevated cytokine levels were compared with clinical outcome and the MIPI score. In the 88 newly diagnosed MCL patients, we found significantly elevated levels compared with controls of IL‐12, IP‐10, sIL‐2Rα, MIG, IL‐1RA, IL‐8, MIP‐1α, and MIP‐1β (all P < 0.05). Of these elevated cytokines, sIL‐2Rα, IL‐8, MIG, MIP‐1α, and MIP‐1β were predictive of inferior event‐free survival, and sIL‐2Rα (HR = 1.94; P = 0.038), IL‐8 (HR = 2.17; P = 0.015), and MIP‐1β (HR = 2.10; P = 0.016) were independent of MIPI score; only sIL‐2Rα (HR = 2.35; P = 0.041) was associated with overall survival after adjustment for MIPI. In the relapsed MCL patient group, the only significantly elevated plasma cytokines that predicted EFS were sIL‐2Rα (HR = 2.90; P = 0.04) and IL‐8 (HR = 3.75; P = 0.02). Elevated blood levels of sIL‐2Rα and the pro‐inflammatory cytokines IL‐8 and MIP‐1β are poor prognostic factors in MCL patients and independent of MIPI score. These factors, if validated, will provide important additions to the MIPI and guide the development of new therapies for patients with elevated levels of these cytokines. Am. J. Hematol. 89:E223–E227, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Reliability Enhanced Address Mapping Strategy for Three-Dimensional (3-D) NAND Flash Memory

The linear scaling down of NAND flash memory is approaching its physical, electrical, and reliability limitations. To maintain the current trend of increasing bit density and reducing bit per cost, 3-D flash memory is emerging as a viable solution to fulfill the ever-increasing demands of storage capacity. In 3-D NAND flash memory, multiple layers are stacked to provide ultrahigh density storage devices. However, the physical architecture of 3-D flash memory leads to a higher probability of disturbance to adjacent physical pages and greatly increases bit error rates. This paper presents a novel physical-location-aware address mapping strategy for 3-D NAND flash memory. It permutes the physical mapping of pages and maximizes the distance between the consecutively logical pages, which can significantly reduce the disturbance to adjacent physical pages and effectively enhance the reliability. The proposed mapping strategy is applied to a representative flash storage system. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can reduce uncorrectable page errors by 70.16% with less than 10.01% space overhead in comparison with the baseline scheme.
Complete Genome Sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolate Spoligotype SIT745/EAI1-MYS

ABSTRACT Mycobacterium tuberculosis is known to cause pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis. This organism showed special phylogeographical specificity. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of M. tuberculosis clinical isolate spoligotype SIT745/EAI1-MYS, which was isolated from a Malaysian tuberculosis patient.
Depth guided selection of adaptive region of interest for Grabcut-based image segmentation

Grabcut is an efficient image segmentation technique which facilitates easy user interaction by locating a rectangular bounding box to include the foreground objects. However, when the foreground objects exhibit similar colors to that of the background, it often fail to work to accurately classify the pixels within the interior region of the bonding box. In this paper, we propose an adaptive region of interest selection algorithm for Grabcut-based image segmentation. We first obtain an initial segmentation result by performing the Grabcut on the depth image aligned to an input color image. Then we shrink and enlarge the depth segmentation mask by using the erosion and dilation operations. We regard the outside of the enlarged mask as background pixels and regard the interior of the shrunken mask as foreground pixels. The remaining pixels are classified into the foreground objects and the background by performing the Grabcut using the four-channel Gaussian mixture model of RGB colors and depth. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm effectively suppress the false detection of objects and improves the segmentation performance compared with the existing algorithms by adaptively selecting the region of interest.
Wearable technology: role in respiratory health and disease

In the future, diagnostic devices will be able to monitor a patient’s physiological or biochemical parameters continuously, under natural physiological conditions and in any environment through wearable biomedical sensors. Together with apps that capture and interpret data, and integrated enterprise and cloud data repositories, the networks of wearable devices and body area networks will constitute the healthcare’s Internet of Things. In this review, four main areas of interest for respiratory healthcare are described: pulse oximetry, pulmonary ventilation, activity tracking and air quality assessment. Although several issues still need to be solved, smart wearable technologies will provide unique opportunities for the future or personalised respiratory medicine. Smart wearable technologies provide unique opportunities for assessing and monitoring respiratory function http://ow.ly/BHXY30cEfBl
Two Tunable Frequency Duplexer Architectures for Cellular Transceivers

In this paper, two architectures for tunable duplexers are presented. The tuning is accomplished through variable capacitance and resistance. The architectures are based on a three element series-parallel resonator, with one pass and one stop frequency. Both architectures rely on filtering as well as cancellation for good Tx to Rx isolation while maintaining low insertion loss. The first architecture, the filtered transformer balanced (FTB) isolator, has single ended transmit and antenna ports and a differential receive port. The second architecture, the cross coupled filtering (CCF) isolator, is fully differential. For a resonator $Q$ of 50, the impedance ratio of the resonator at pass and stop frequencies is 18.5 dB for 3GPP band-I. In the FTB isolator, this results in 1.65-dB Tx and 2.14-dB Rx insertion loss, and 53 dB isolation for a 20-MHz channel bandwidth. In the CCF isolator, this results in 1.9-dB Tx and 1.9-dB Rx insertion loss, and 59-dB isolation for a 20-MHz channel bandwidth. These figures are obtained with a 20% resistive mismatch, showing feasibility of good performance in an environment with changing impedance. As the operating frequencies of cellular systems increase, these structures will become fully integratable due to the reduced sizes of inductors and transformers.
Modeling Habitat Suitability for Moose in Coastal Northern Sweden: Empirical vs Process-oriented Approaches

Abstract Habitat models may provide viable tools for co-management of large ungulates and forest resources, yet their applicability has not been comprehensively evaluated in managed forest. We examined 2 inherently different approaches to model the relative winter habitat suitability for moose (Alces alces) in the coastal area of northern Sweden. An empirical approach based on GPS positions of 15 female moose was used to scrutinize the assumptions and functional mechanisms of a process-oriented, conceptual approach, based on published material on the species' preferences for habitat components related to food and cover. For both model approaches habitat was described using estimates of forest-stand characteristics based on satellite imagery. The empirical model also included variables relating to topographic properties of the landscape as well as distances to landscape features. The output from both models was a habitat suitability index (HSI) score, enabling the models to be compared with each other. The models showed different results, highlighting the need to include the spatially explicit distribution of environmental variables in future conceptual, process-oriented models.
Paraphrase Identification using Semantic Heuristic Features

Paraphrase Identification (PI) problem is to classify that whether or not two sentences are close enough in meaning to be termed as paraphrases. PI is an important research dimension with practical applications in Information Extraction (IE), Machine Translation, Information Retrieval, Automatic Identification of Copyright Infringement, Question Answering Systems and Intelligent Tutoring Systems, to name a few. This study presents a novel approach of paraphrase identification using semantic heuristic features envisaging improving the accuracy compared to state-of-the-art PI systems. Finally, a comprehensive critical analysis of misclassifications is carried out to provide insightful evidence about the proposed approach and the corpora used in the experiments.
Altered Endothelial Ca2+ Regulation After Ischemia/Reperfusion Produces Potentiated Endothelium-Derived Hyperpolarizing Factor–Mediated Dilations

Background and Purpose— Endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF)–mediated dilations are potentiated after several pathologies, including ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). However, no study to date has addressed the mechanism by which this potentiation occurs. This study tested the hypothesis that potentiated EDHF-mediated dilations are due to altered endothelial Ca2+ handling after I/R. Methods— Rat middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) were isolated after 2 hours of MCA occlusion and 24 hours of reperfusion (or sham surgery). This model has been previously demonstrated to produce potentiated EDHF-mediated dilations. MCAs were studied in a pressurized/perfused vessel chamber equipped for the simultaneous measurement of endothelial Ca2+ (with fura 2) and artery diameter. Measures were made after luminal administration of UTP (P2Y2 purinoceptor agonist), 2 MeS-ATP (P2Y1 purinoceptor agonist), and Br-A23187 (receptor-independent Ca2+ ionophore) for sham and I/R MCAs. Results— I/R resulted in significantly potentiated UTP-mediated dilations (through a P2Y2 purinoceptor) and endothelial Ca2+ responses in the presence of NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) and indomethacin. Endothelial Ca2+ and diameter responses were also significantly potentiated with 2 MeS-ATP (through a P2Y1 purinoceptor) when L-NAME and indomethacin were absent. Br-A23187, a receptor-independent Ca2+ ionophore, produced significantly potentiated endothelial Ca2+ responses after I/R in the presence of L-NAME/indomethacin. Evaluation of artery diameter as a function of endothelial Ca2+ demonstrated no differences between sham and I/R groups. Conclusions— These findings demonstrate that I/R results in augmented endothelial Ca2+ responses that appear to be downstream of the receptor level. Moreover, these data suggest that this augmented Ca2+ response contributes to the potentiated EDHF-mediated dilations after I/R.
Sphingosine Kinase-1 Is Central to Androgen-Regulated Prostate Cancer Growth and Survival

Background Sphingosine kinase-1 (SphK1) is an oncogenic lipid kinase notably involved in response to anticancer therapies in prostate cancer. Androgens regulate prostate cancer cell proliferation, and androgen deprivation therapy is the standard of care in the management of patients with advanced disease. Here, we explored the role of SphK1 in the regulation of androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell growth and survival. Methodology/Principal Findings Short-term androgen removal induced a rapid and transient SphK1 inhibition associated with a reduced cell growth in vitro and in vivo, an event that was not observed in the hormono-insensitive PC-3 cells. Supporting the critical role of SphK1 inhibition in the rapid effect of androgen depletion, its overexpression could impair the cell growth decrease. Similarly, the addition of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) to androgen-deprived LNCaP cells re-established cell proliferation, through an androgen receptor/PI3K/Akt dependent stimulation of SphK1, and inhibition of SphK1 could markedly impede the effects of DHT. Conversely, long-term removal of androgen support in LNCaP and C4-2B cells resulted in a progressive increase in SphK1 expression and activity throughout the progression to androgen-independence state, which was characterized by the acquisition of a neuroendocrine (NE)-like cell phenotype. Importantly, inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway—by negatively impacting SphK1 activity—could prevent NE differentiation in both cell models, an event that could be mimicked by SphK1 inhibitors. Fascinatingly, the reversability of the NE phenotype by exposure to normal medium was linked with a pronounced inhibition of SphK1 activity. Conclusions/Significance We report the first evidence that androgen deprivation induces a differential effect on SphK1 activity in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer cell models. These results also suggest that SphK1 activation upon chronic androgen deprivation may serve as a compensatory mechanism allowing prostate cancer cells to survive in androgen-depleted environment, giving support to its inhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy to delay/prevent the transition to androgen-independent prostate cancer.
On Computing Greyscale Morphology with Large Exact Spheres in Arbitrary Dimensions via 1-D Distance Transforms

We present a novel constant time algorithm for greyscale (hyper- )spherical flat dilations and erosions. This algorithm is built around our modifications to a recently published fast distance transform for sampled functions. Our method embeds the greyscale image as a binary ``umbra'' in a higher dimensional space and thresholds the distance transform in this new space. The method is: exactly isotropic, time-independent of the structuring function size, and inherently parallelizable at several levels of granularity. Subsequent different size dilations (or erosions) of the same image may also be performed at insignificant further cost. Our testing on a 3D medical image indicates that the method shows advantages for structuring elements with radius greater-than 15 voxels, when compared to some methods from well-known contemporary packages.
IntelliAd Understanding In-APP Ad Costs From Users Perspective

Ads are an important revenue source for mobile app development, especially for free apps, whose expense can be compensated by ad revenue. The ad benefits also carry with costs. For example, too many ads can interfere the user experience, leading to less user retention and reduced earnings ultimately. In the paper, we aim at understanding the ad costs from users perspective. We utilize app reviews, which are widely recognized as expressions of user perceptions, to identify the ad costs concerned by users. Four types of ad costs, i.e., number of ads, memory/CPU overhead, traffic usage, and bettery consumption, have been discovered from user reviews. To verify whether different ad integration schemes generate different ad costs, we first obtain the commonly used ad schemes from 104 popular apps, and then design a framework named IntelliAd to automatically measure the ad costs of each scheme. To demonstrate whether these costs indeed influence users reactions, we finally observe the correlations between the measured ad costs and the user perceptions. We discover that the costs related to memory/CPU overhead and battery consumption are more concerned by users, while the traffic usage is less concerned by users in spite of its obvious variations among different schemes in the experiments. Our experimental results provide the developers with suggestions on better incorporating ads into apps and, meanwhile, ensuring the user experience.
Systems of linear forms and covers for star bodies

In this paper Diophantine approximation involving general distance and error functions will be considered for systems of linear forms. Distance functions will be denoted by F : R → R and are continuous, non-negative and satisfy F (ux) = uF (x) for all u ≥ 0 ([3], p. 103). An error function ψ : R \ {0} → R is positive and satisfies ψ(x) → 0 as |x| → ∞, where |x| = max{|x1|, . , |xn|}. An upper bound depending on a cover for a star body associated with the distance function F (see [8]) and a restriction ψ1 of the error function ψ for the Hausdorff dimension of sets of linear forms (regarded as points in R) is obtained. The Hausdorff dimension is also expressed in terms of the Hausdorff dimension of sets of vectors (in R) and of the lower order (defined below) of the error function ψ1 (corresponding to the case m = 1) when the functions ψ and ψ1 satisfy suitable decay conditions. This combines and extends the results of [4], [5] and [13]. Definitions and properties of Hausdorff dimension are given in [7]. First some notation and definitions are needed. Throughout m,n and N will be positive integers and q ∈ Z. The system a1x1j + . + amxmj , 1 ≤ j ≤ n , of n real linear forms in m real variables a1, . , am will be written more concisely as aX where a ∈ R and where X is an m×n real matrix. The set of real m× n matrices will be identified with R in the usual way (i.e., by identifying the matrix X = (xij) with the point (x11, . . . , x1n, x21, . . . , xmn) in R). For each x in R, denote the symmetrised fractional part of x by 〈x〉 = x − kx , where kx is the unique integer vector such that x − kx ∈ (− 1 2 , 1 2 ] . Thus |〈x〉| = max{‖x1‖, . , ‖xn‖} ,
EMERGENCE, CREATIVITY, AND THE LOGIC OF FOLLOWING AND NEGATING

The characteristics of emergence connect it to the study of creative processes and vice versa. But both fields are also connected by a unique kind of “logic” having to do with how radically novel outcomes are generated. Because innovation is fundamentally about bringing about the novel - the “nova” inside “innovation” – research into the logic of emergence and creative process cannot but shed light on innovation as well. To explicate this logic, the paper links emergence to emergent cognition.
Nonlocal hydrodynamic influence on the dynamic contact angle: slip models versus experiment.

Experiments reported by Blake [Phys. Fluids. , 11, 1995 (1999)] suggest that the dynamic contact angle formed between the free surface of a liquid and a moving solid boundary at a fixed contact-line speed depends on the flow field and geometry near the moving contact line. We examine quantitatively whether or not it is possible to attribute this effect to the bending of the free surface due to hydrodynamic stresses acting upon it and hence interpret the results in terms of the so-called "apparent" contact angle. It is shown that this is not the case. Numerical analysis of the problem demonstrates that, at the spatial resolution reported in the experiments, the variations of the "apparent" contact angle (defined in two different ways) caused by variations in the flow field, at a fixed contact-line speed, are too small to account for the observed effect. The results clearly indicate that the actual (macroscopic) dynamic contact angle--i.e., the one used in fluid mechanics as a boundary condition for the equation determining the free surface shape--must be regarded as dependent not only on the contact-line speed but also on the flow field and geometry in the vicinity of the moving contact line.
Dependency-based Analysis for Tagalog Sentences

Interest in dependency parsing increased because of its efficiency to represent languages with flexible word order. Many research have applied dependency-based syntactic analysis to different languages and results vary depending on the nature of the language. Languages with more flexible word order structure tend to have lower performances compared to more fixed word order languages. This work presents, for the first time, a dependencybased parsing for Tagalog language, a free word order language. The parser is tested using manually assigned POS and auto-assigned POS data. Experiment results show an average of about 78% accuracy on unlabeled attachment scores, and about 24% on complete dependency scores. As the position of the sentence head is not fixed, we look into sentence head accuracy as assigned by the parser. Results show that around 83% 84% of the sentence head are assigned correctly.