Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Targeted UAS-RNAi Screen in Drosophila Larvae Identifies Wound Closure Genes Regulating Distinct Cellular Processes

Robust mechanisms for tissue repair are critical for survival of multicellular organisms. Efficient cutaneous wound repair requires the migration of cells at the wound edge and farther back within the epidermal sheet, but the genes that control and coordinate these migrations remain obscure. This is in part because a systematic screening approach for in vivo identification and classification of postembryonic wound closure genes has yet to be developed. Here, we performed a proof-of-principle reporter-based in vivo RNAi screen in the Drosophila melanogaster larval epidermis to identify genes required for normal wound closure. Among the candidate genes tested were kinases and transcriptional mediators of the Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway shown to be required for epithelial sheet migration during development. Also targeted were genes involved in actin cytoskeletal remodeling. Importantly, RNAi knockdown of both canonical and noncanonical members of the JNK pathway caused open wounds, as did several genes involved in actin cytoskeletal remodeling. Our analysis of JNK pathway components reveals redundancy among the upstream activating kinases and distinct roles for the downstream transcription factors DJun and DFos. Quantitative and qualitative morphological classification of the open wound phenotypes and evaluation of JNK activation suggest that multiple cellular processes are required in the migrating epidermal cells, including functions specific to cells at the wound edge and others specific to cells farther back within the epidermal sheet. Together, our results identify a new set of conserved wound closure genes, determine putative functional roles for these genes within the migrating epidermal sheet, and provide a template for a broader in vivo RNAi screen to discover the full complement of genes required for wound closure during larval epidermal wound healing.
Material standard of living, social class, and the prevalence of the common mental disorders in Great Britain.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that poor material standard of living is independently associated with the prevalence of the common mental disorders after adjusting for occupational social class, and to estimate the population impact of poor material standard of living on the prevalence of these disorders. DESIGN: Cross sectional survey. Prevalence of the common mental disorders was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire, a self administered measure of psychiatric morbidity. PARTICIPANTS: 9064 adults aged 16-75 living in private households in England, Wales, and Scotland. MAIN RESULTS: The common mental disorders were significantly associated with poor material standard of living, including low household income (OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.00, 1.54) and not saving from income (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.15, 1.45), after adjusting for occupational social class and other potential confounders. An independent association was also found with occupational social class of the head of household among women, but not men, after adjusting for material standard of living. The adjusted population attributable fraction for poor material standard of living (using a five item index) was 24.0%. CONCLUSIONS: Like mortality and physical morbidity, common mental disorders are associated with a poor material standard of living, independent of occupational social class. These findings support the view that recent widening of inequalities in material standards of living in the United Kingdom pose a substantial threat to health.
The status quo and development trend of smart water research

Smart Water uses sensor equipment to sense natural water and social water circulation system, to achieve real-time monitoring and dynamic collection, scheduling and remote management of water information through Internet of Things, and to realize the deep processing of multi-source heterogeneous data through the data mining and multi-dimensional analysis of the information system, which provides an important reference for the intelligent management and decision-making of urban water affairs. With the continuous innovation of information technology such as big data and cloud computing, smart water development has ushered in new opportunities. This paper mainly summarizes the status quo of smart water research at home and abroad from the perspective of application practice, and analyzes the main problems facing the development of smart water in China. the development trend of smart water is proposed according to the current technological development and industry needs.
Stress monitoring using a distributed wireless intelligent sensor system.

We are developing personal health monitors based on a wireless body area network (BAN) of intelligent sensors. Individual monitors will be integrated into a distributed wireless system for synchronized monitoring of a group of subjects. This system could be used during the selection process and as part of a psychophysiological evaluation of military members undergoing intense training. We use measures of heart-rate variability to quantify stress level prior to and during training as well as to predict stress resistance. This task requires reliable, high-precision instrumentation and synchronized measurements from a group of individuals over prolonged periods (days of training).
Testing with Model Checker: Insuring Fault Visibility

To detect a fault in software, a test case execution must enable an intermediate error to propagate to the output. We describe two specification-based mutation testing methods that use a model checker to guarantee propagation of faults to the visible outputs. We evaluate the methods empirically and show that they are better than the previous “direct reflection” approach. Key-Words: formal methods; model checking; specification-based testing; mutation testing
Scalable atomic visibility with RAMP transactions

Databases can provide scalability by partitioning data across several servers. However, multi-partition, multi-operation transactional access is often expensive, employing coordination-intensive locking, validation, or scheduling mechanisms. Accordingly, many real-world systems avoid mechanisms that provide useful semantics for multi-partition operations. This leads to incorrect behavior for a large class of applications including secondary indexing, foreign key enforcement, and materialized view maintenance. In this work, we identify a new isolation model---Read Atomic (RA) isolation---that matches the requirements of these use cases by ensuring atomic visibility: either all or none of each transaction's updates are observed by other transactions. We present algorithms for Read Atomic Multi-Partition (RAMP) transactions that enforce atomic visibility while offering excellent scalability, guaranteed commit despite partial failures (via synchronization independence), and minimized communication between servers (via partition independence). These RAMP transactions correctly mediate atomic visibility of updates and provide readers with snapshot access to database state by using limited multi-versioning and by allowing clients to independently resolve non-atomic reads. We demonstrate that, in contrast with existing algorithms, RAMP transactions incur limited overhead---even under high contention---and scale linearly to 100 servers.
Expression and functional significance of tumor necrosis factor receptors in human myocardium.

BACKGROUND Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), a proinflammatory cytokine with potent negative inotropic properties, is elaborated in septic shock, acute myocarditis, reperfusion injury, and congestive heart failure. TNF-alpha acts by binding to two specific receptors: TNFR1 and TNFR2. However, neither the presence nor the significance of TNF receptors has been studied in the adult mammalian heart. METHODS AND RESULTS In the present study, we showed that the adult heart expresses mRNA and receptor proteins for TNFR1 and TNFR2. Moreover, immunohistochemical staining studies localized TNFR1 and TNFR2 to the cardiac myocyte, providing a potential signaling pathway for the deleterious effects of TNF-alpha. The functional significance of the expression of TNFR1 and TNFR2 was explored with the use of a simple cell motion assay in which we assessed the effect(s) of TNF-alpha mutants known to bind selectively to human TNFR1 and TNFR2. We showed that the negative inotropic effect of wild-type TNF-alpha in isolated feline cardiac myocytes was mimicked by the TNF mutant that binds to TNFR1, whereas the TNF mutant that binds to TNFR2 had no significant effect on cell motion. CONCLUSIONS Results of the present study show that the adult human heart expresses both mRNA and receptor proteins for TNFR1 and TNFR2; moreover, the negative inotropic effects of TNF-alpha in adult cardiac myocytes appear to be initiated by activation of TNFR1.
Gallegati . pdfristics of the Mediterranean Area Countries

In this paper we investigate the characteristics of business cycles fluctuations in the countries of the Mediterranean region by applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald bandpass filter to the output series of 12 Mediterranean countries over the period 1950-1998. The main properties of business cycle fluctuations (persistence, volatility, asymmetry and synchronization) are computed with reference to the deviation or growth cycle definition of the business cycle. Overall, the results of our analysis suggest, as expected, the existence of important differences in the characteristics of business cycle fluctuations among countries belonging to different economic level of development. Moreover, the average reduction of the degree of synchronization among Mediterranean countries seems to suggest a weakening of the economic links among Mediterranean countries, and thus a reduction of the economic importance of the links in this area in comparison to the European continental area.
TLR Agonists Selectively Promote Terminal Plasma Cell Differentiation of B Cell Subsets Specialized in Thymus-Independent Responses1

Naive murine B cells are known to proliferate and differentiate in response to LPS or CpG, which bind to TLR4 and TLR9, respectively. However, the naive murine B cell compartment is heterogeneous and comprises four different B cell subsets: B-1a, B-1b, marginal zone (MZ), and follicular (FO) B cells. B-1a, B-1b, and MZ B cells are specialized in the response to thymus-independent Ag, and FO B cells are involved in the response to thymus-dependent Ag. This study was undertaken to compare those four naive B cell subsets for their responses to TLR agonists. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that expression of TLR transcripts differs quantitatively but not qualitatively from one subset to the other. All TLR agonists, with the exception of flagellin and poly(I:C), stimulate B cell proliferation whatever the subset considered. However, TLR ligation leads to massive differentiation of B-1 and MZ B cells into mature plasma cells (PC) but only marginally promotes PC differentiation of FO B cells. Moreover, TLR stimulation strongly up-regulates expression of Blimp-1 and XBP-1S, two transcription factors known to be instrumental in PC differentiation, in B-1 and MZ B cells but not in FO B cells. Altogether, our findings suggest that B-1 and MZ B cells are poised to PC differentiation in response to the microbial environment and that TLR agonists can be instrumental in stimulating Ab-mediated innate immune protection during microbial infections.
How do We Understand other Humans?

In last two decades we had an intense discussion about which theory best describes how we understand other human beings. I will argue that neither Simulation Theory nor TheoryTheory nor Interaction-Theory do offer us an adequate analysis. Despite the fact that they highlight some relevant aspects, the generalization made by each theory cannot do justice to the varieties of social understanding we can actually observe. Thus, we need an alternative theory. I suggest the person model theory as an alternative and will defend it by distinguishing two question which we need to distinguish in the debate: 1. which epistemic strategy do we use to register the others’ mental state: simulation, theory-based inferences, interaction or direct perception? I argue for a multiplicity view that we in fact to use all these strategies depending on the context (Newen 2015). But the focus of this paper is question 2: How is prior information – that we usually rely on when understanding others – stored and organized: in form of a folk psychological theory or as narratives? My answer is that we essentially rely on person models to understand others. Person models can be implicitly represented (person schema) or explicitly available (person image). A person schema is an implicitly represented unity of sensory-motor abilities and basic mental phenomena related to one human being (or a group of humans). We also develop person images while this is a unity of explicitly registered mental and physical phenomena related to one human being (or a group). My aim is to show that the person model theory is more powerful than the alternative candidates.
Social Media in Crisis Management: Role, Potential, and Risk

The paper explores the role of social media during large scale crises and disasters, as investigated by the COSMIC project. Based on a typology of crises and on case studies, we examine communication challenges and societal dynamics in conjunction with interactions among new media, officials and first responders, and the public. A number of technology issues associated with new media applications, such as their vast size, fast updates and semantic richness--albeit at semi-structured representations--are considered. Finally, we refer to features of the relationship between social media and the wider public, the associated ethics, risks and benefits and the potential role of citizens as first responders/volunteers, social activists and journalists/reporters.
Hemorrhagic shock occurring due to a concealed hematoma after insertion of a subclavian venous catheter in a patient undergoing anticoagulation therapy: a case report

A 74-year-old man who had been receiving warfarin for atrial fibrillation, underwent emergency thrombectomy. A central venous catheter (CVC) was inserted via the left subclavian vein, and heparin was administered to prevent preoperative and postoperative thrombotic events. After an uneventful thrombectomy, the patient was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU). On the second postoperative day, the patient developed syncope and his blood pressure and oxygen saturation decreased. A computed tomography (CT) revealed a huge hematoma under the pectoralis major muscle. The patient was then treated with continuous renal replacement therapy and mechanical ventilation for multiorgan dysfunction syndrome, which developed due to hemorrhagic shock in the ICU. These findings suggest that when a CVC is inserted in patients requiring anticoagulant therapy, the possible risk of excessive bleeding must be carefully considered. Further, choosing a proper insertion site and performing an ultrasound-guided aspiration may be helpful in preventing these complications.
Non-homologous end joining, but not homologous recombination, enables survival for cells exposed to a histone deacetylase inhibitor

Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR) are pathways that repair DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the repair of these breaks is influenced by histone acetylation. Therefore, we tested mammalian cells deleted for NHEJ (Ku80 or DNA Ligase IV) or altered for HR (breast cancer associated gene, Brca2, or Bloom's syndrome, Blm) for sensitivity to trichostatin A (TSA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor that is being investigated as an anti-cancer therapeutic. We show that cells mutated for Ku80 (ku80−/−) or DNA Ligase IV (lig 4−/−), but not cells mutated for Brca2 (brca2lex1/lex2) or Blm (blmtm3Brd/tm4Brd), are hypersensitive to TSA in a dose-dependent manner. TSA-induced toxicity stimulates apoptosis and cell cycle checkpoint responses independent of p53, but does not increase phosphorylated histone H2AX (γ-H2AX) as compared with a clastogenic agent, camptothecin, indicating that the quantity of DSBs is not the primary cause of TSA-induced cell death. In addition, we show that potential anti-cancer drugs (LY-294002 and vanillin) that inhibit the family of phosphatidylinositol 3 kinases that include the NHEJ protein, DNA–PKCS act in synergy with TSA to reduce the viability of HeLa cells in tissue culture presenting the possibility of using the two drugs in combination to treat cancer.
S-nitrosoglutathione reductases are low-copy number, cysteine-rich proteins in plants that control multiple developmental and defense responses in Arabidopsis

S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) is believed to modulate effects of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species through catabolism of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO). We combined bioinformatics of plant GSNOR genes, localization of GSNOR in Arabidopsis thaliana, and microarray analysis of a GSNOR null mutant to gain insights into the function and regulation of this critical enzyme in nitric oxide (NO) homeostasis. GSNOR-encoding genes are known to have high homology across diverse eukaryotic taxa, but contributions of specific conserved residues have not been assessed. With bioinformatics and structural modeling, we show that plant GSNORs likely localize to the cytosol, contain conserved, solvent-accessible cysteines, and tend to be encoded by a single gene. Arabidopsis thaliana homozygous for GSNOR loss-of-function alleles exhibited defects in stem and trichome branching, and complementation with Green fluorescent protein (GFP) -tagged GSNOR under control of the native promoter quantitatively rescued these phenotypes. GSNOR-GFP showed fluorescence throughout Arabidopsis seedlings, consistent with ubiquitous expression of the protein, but with especially high fluorescence in the root tip, apical meristem, and flowers. At the cellular level we observed cytosolic and nuclear fluorescence, with exclusion from the nucleolus. Microarray analysis identified 99 up- and 170 down-regulated genes (≥2-fold; p ≤ 0.01) in a GSNOR null mutant compared to wild type. Six members of the plant specific, ROXY glutaredoxins and three BHLH transcription factors involved in iron homeostasis were strongly upregulated, supporting a role for GSNOR in redox and iron metabolism. One third of downregulated genes are linked to pathogen resistance, providing further basis for the reported pathogen sensitivity of GSNOR null mutants. Together, these findings indicate GSNOR regulates multiple developmental and metabolic programs in plants and offer insight into putative routes of post-translational GSNOR regulation.
A prescriptive approach for playing games

Decision-Making lies in the foundations of fields such as Economics, Operations Research, and Artificial Intelligence. The question of what should be the action to be taken by a decision-maker when facing an uncertain environment, potentially including other decision makers, is a fundamental problem which has led to a wide variety of models and solutions. One of the only types of situations (of more than a single agent) for which this question got an agreed-upon answer is in the context of two-player zero-sum games. This setting can model any situation in which a decision-maker aims at maximizing her guaranteed payoff. When mixed strategies are allowed, such desired behavior, termed an agent's maximin (or safety level) strategy, leads to a well defined expected payoff (known as the value of the game). Moreover, when presented explicitly in a matrix form, the computation of a maximin strategy is polynomial (by solving a linear program).
A New Lower Bound Via Projection for the Quadratic Assignment Problem

New lower bounds for the quadratic assignment problem QAP are presented. These bounds are based on the orthogonal relaxation of QAP. The additional improvement is obtained by making efficient use of a tractable representation of orthogonal matrices having constant row and column sums. The new bound is easy to implement and often provides high quality bounds under an acceptable computational effort.
A Parametric Optimization Approach to Walking Pattern Synthesis

Walking pattern synthesis is carried out using a spline-based parametric optimization technique. Generalized coordinates are approximated by spline functions of class C3fitted at knots uniformly distributed along the motion time. This high-order differentiability eliminates jerky variations of actuating torques. Through connecting conditions, spline polynomial coefficients are determined as a linear function of the joint coordinates at knots. These values are then dealt with as optimization parameters. An optimal control problem is formulated on the basis of a performance criterion to be minimized, representing an integral quadratic amount of driving torques. Using the above spline approximations, this primary problem is recast into a constrained non-linear optimization problem of mathematical programming, which is solved using a computing code implementing an SQP algorithm. As numerical simulations, complete gait cycles are generated for a seven-link planar biped. The only kinematic data to be accounted for are the walking speeds. Optimization of both phases of gait is carried out globally; it includes the optimization of transition configurations of the biped between successive phases of the gait cycle.
Design of low power wake-up circuits applied to OBU system chip

With supplied by the battery, the low power consumption of OBU system chip in ETCS is demanded. This paper designs a low power wake-up circuits applied to OBU system chip. The circuit system extracts envelope signal from an amplitude shift keying (ASK) modulated 5.8 GHz carrier and converts it to digital signal. Only the envelop signal that the frequency of it is 14 KHz can produce the wake-up pulse, which effectively prevents error wake-up caused by other frequency signals. By incorporating an input impedance matching network, the wake-up circuits achieve input sensitivity of -35 dBm and the S11 of the match network is -19 dB with 50 Ω input impedance. Measurement results show the dc current is 6 μA from 2.4 V to 5 V supply. The wake-up circuits is fabricated in TSMC 0.18 μm RF CMOS 1P6M process and the entire chip occupies an areas of 375×330 μm2.
Trichoptera adult seasonality analysis in Doi Suthep-Pui National Park, Thailand

Seasonality influences the interaction of light, temperature, and moisture (SMITH 1996). Seasonality studies have been conducted mainly in temperate and arctic regions, with extreme changes in light and temperature. The seasonality of tropical Asian insects is poorly known, with the exception of some Trichoptera seasonality in Japan (HAYASHI et al. 1999). The population dynamics of lotic insects in Hong Kong are known in detail for Calamoceratids, while data on other caddisflies are scarce (DUDGEON 1992, 1999a,b). CHANTARAMONGKOL et al. (1999) conducted analysis o f Trichoptera adult seasonality. The objectives of the present study were to investigate the seasonality of adult caddisflies inhabiting a permanent and temporary stream, and to correlate the occurrence of Trichoptera with physico--chemical parameters.