Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adipocyte-Derived Plasma Protein, Adiponectin, Suppresses Lipid Accumulation and Class A Scavenger Receptor Expression in Human Monocyte-Derived Macrophages

Background —Excessive lipid accumulation in macrophages plays an important role in the development of atherosclerosis. Recently, we discovered an adipocyte-specific plasma protein, adiponectin, that is decreased in patients with coronary artery disease. We previously demonstrated that adiponectin acts as a modulator for proinflammatory stimuli and inhibits monocyte adhesion to endothelial cells. The present study investigated the effects of adiponectin on lipid accumulation in human monocyte-derived macrophages. Methods and Results —Human monocytes were differentiated into macrophages by incubation in human type AB serum for 7 days, and the effects of adiponectin were investigated at different time intervals. Treatment with physiological concentrations of adiponectin reduced intracellular cholesteryl ester content, as determined using the enzymatic, fluorometric method. The adiponectin-treated macrophages contained fewer lipid droplets stained by oil red O. Adiponectin suppressed the expression of the class A macrophage scavenger receptor (MSR) at both mRNA and protein levels by Northern and immunoblot analyses, respectively, without affecting the expression of CD36, which was quantified by flow cytometry. Adiponectin reduced the class A MSR promoter activity, as measured by luciferase reporter assay. Adiponectin treatment dose-dependently decreased class A MSR ligand binding and uptake activities. The mRNA level of lipoprotein lipase as a marker of macrophage differentiation was decreased by adiponectin treatment, but that of apolipoprotein E was not altered. Adiponectin was detected around macrophages in the human injured aorta by immunohistochemistry. Conclusions —The adipocyte-derived plasma protein adiponectin suppressed macrophage-to-foam cell transformation, suggesting that adiponectin may act as a modulator for macrophage-to-foam cell transformation.
A Low Cost Potentiostat Device For Monitoring Aqueous Solution

This study developed a new design of a low cost potentiostat circuit device. This device is an alternative electrochemical instrument applied for monitoring heavy metal ion in environmental water. It was developed to alleviate the cost burden of equipment procurement and due to the requirement for in-situ application since the existing commercialize devices are bulky and expensive. The main component of the device consist of electronics configuration of operational amplifier. The device was first modelled and simulated to acquire the design parameters and performance. The potential control algorithm was developed on open-source microcontroller platform. A dummy cell was used to validate the capabilities of the device.
An association analysis at 2q36 reveals a new candidate susceptibility gene for juvenile absence epilepsy and/or absence seizures associated with generalized tonic–clonic seizures

Purpose: To further evaluate the previously shown linkage of absence epilepsy (AE) to 2q36, both in human and WAG/Rij absence rat models, a 160‐kb region at 2q36 containing eight genes with expressions in the brain was targeted in a case–control association study involving 205 Turkish patients with AE and 219 controls.
Perturbed Lignification Impacts Tree Growth in Hybrid Poplar—A Function of Sink Strength, Vascular Integrity, and Photosynthetic Assimilation1

The effects of reductions in cell wall lignin content, manifested by RNA interference suppression of coumaroyl 3′-hydroxylase, on plant growth, water transport, gas exchange, and photosynthesis were evaluated in hybrid poplar trees (Populus alba × grandidentata). The growth characteristics of the reduced lignin trees were significantly impaired, resulting in smaller stems and reduced root biomass when compared to wild-type trees, as well as altered leaf morphology and architecture. The severe inhibition of cell wall lignification produced trees with a collapsed xylem phenotype, resulting in compromised vascular integrity, and displayed reduced hydraulic conductivity and a greater susceptibility to wall failure and cavitation. In the reduced lignin trees, photosynthetic carbon assimilation and stomatal conductance were also greatly reduced, however, shoot xylem pressure potential and carbon isotope discrimination were higher and water-use efficiency was lower, inconsistent with water stress. Reductions in assimilation rate could not be ascribed to increased stomatal limitation. Starch and soluble sugars analysis of leaves revealed that photosynthate was accumulating to high levels, suggesting that the trees with substantially reduced cell wall lignin were not carbon limited and that reductions in sink strength were, instead, limiting photosynthesis.
A force-reflecting teleoperation system with magnetically levitated master and wrist

The authors present a force-reflecting teleoperation system. The system consists of a conventional manipulator equipped with a magnetically levitated teleoperation master identical to the wrist. Aspects of mechanical, system, computational, and controller design are discussed. An approach to the design of force-reflecting teleoperation controllers is also discussed. Admittance matrices and the parameterization of all stabilizing teleoperation system controllers are used to guarantee teleoperation system performance and stability. Some preliminary experimental results are presented. <<ETX>>
EOMETRY OF P OLYSEMY

Vector representations of words have heralded a transformational approach to classical problems in NLP; the most popular example is word2vec. However, a single vector does not suffice to model the polysemous nature of many (frequent) words, i.e., words with multiple meanings. In this paper, we propose a three-fold approach for unsupervised polysemy modeling: (a) context representations, (b) sense induction and disambiguation and (c) lexeme (as a word and sense pair) representations. A key feature of our work is the finding that a sentence containing a target word is well represented by a low rank subspace, instead of a point in a vector space. We then show that the subspaces associated with a particular sense of the target word tend to intersect over a line (one-dimensional subspace), which we use to disambiguate senses using a clustering algorithm that harnesses the Grassmannian geometry of the representations. The disambiguation algorithm, which we call K-Grassmeans, leads to a procedure to label the different senses of the target word in the corpus – yielding lexeme vector representations, all in an unsupervised manner starting from a large (Wikipedia) corpus in English. Apart from several prototypical target (word,sense) examples and a host of empirical studies to intuit and justify the various geometric representations, we validate our algorithms on standard sense induction and disambiguation datasets and present new state-of-the-art results.
Data Transmission Over Networks for Estimation and Control

We consider the problem of controlling a linear time invariant process when the controller is located at a location remote from where the sensor measurements are being generated. The communication from the sensor to the controller is supported by a communication network with arbitrary topology composed of analog erasure channels. Using a separation principle, we prove that the optimal linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) controller consists of an LQ optimal regulator along with an estimator that estimates the state of the process across the communication network. We then determine the optimal information processing strategy that should be followed by each node in the network so that the estimator is able to compute the best possible estimate in the minimum mean squared error sense. The algorithm is optimal for any packet-dropping process and at every time step, even though it is recursive and hence requires a constant amount of memory, processing and transmission at every node in the network per time step. For the case when the packet drop processes are memoryless and independent across links, we analyze the stability properties and the performance of the closed loop system. The algorithm is an attempt to escape the viewpoint of treating a network of communication links as a single end-to-end link with the probability of successful transmission determined by some measure of the reliability of the network.
Manipulating rumen microbiome and fermentation through interventions during early life: a review

The nutritional manipulations of the rumen microbiome to enhance productivity and health are rather limited by the resilience of the ecosystem once established in the mature rumen. Based on recent studies, it has been suggested that the microbial colonization that occurs soon after birth opens a possibility of manipulation with potential to produce lasting effects into adult life. This paper presents the state-of-the-art in relation to early life nutritional interventions by addressing three areas: the development of the rumen as an organ in regards to the nutrition of the new-born, the main factors that determine the microbial population that first colonizes and establishes in the rumen, and the key immunity players that contribute to shaping the commensal microbiota in the early stage of life to understand host-microbiome specificity. The development of the rumen epithelium and muscularization are differently affected by the nature of the diet and special care should be taken with regards to transition from liquid (milk) to solid feed. The rumen is quickly colonized by all type of microorganisms straight after birth and the colonization pattern may be influenced by several factors such as presence/absence of adult animals, the first solid diet provided, and the inclusion of compounds that prevent/facilitate the establishment of some microorganisms or the direct inoculation of specific strains. The results presented show how early life events may be related to the microbial community structure and/or the rumen activity in the animals post-weaning. This would create differences in adaptive capacity due to different early life experiences and leads to the idea of microbial programming. However, many elements need to be further studied such as: the most sensitive window of time for interventions, the best means to test long term effectiveness, the role of key microbial groups and host-immune regulations.
Dynamic Mechanical Analysis of Waste Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottle

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) led to the disposing and managing issue due to it extensively consumptions. Hence, its application in construction field particular on concrete production has become general. However, the preliminary study on PET itself is very limited. This study was focused on the investigation on mechanical properties of PET film using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) over a temperature range of 40-180°C at fixed frequency of 1 Hz. In the paper, glass transition temperature were analyzed with the curves of storage modulus (E’), loss modulus (E”) and tan delta. The results show decreasing curve of storage modulus, meanwhile loss storage and tan delta present same curve which is increases with temperature as glassy phase and radically decreases due to rubbery phase. From these curves, the glass transition temperature (Tg) of PET have been characterized which the value has been found to be 114°C. Generally, this study could provide better characterization of a material in order to examine the ability of a material to store or lose energy.
Amber: A zero-interaction honeypot and network enforcer with modular intelligence

For the greater part, security controls are based around the principle of Decision through Detection (DtD). The exception to this is a Honeypot, which analyses interactions between a third party and itself, while occupying a piece of unused information space. As honeypots are not located on productive information resources, any interaction with it can be assumed to be non-productive. This allows the honeypot to make decisions based simply on the presence of data, rather than on the behaviour of the data. But due to limited resources in human capital, honeypots' uptake in the South African market has been underwhelming. Amber attempts to change this by offering a zero-interaction security system, which will use the honeypot approach of Decision through Presence (DtP) to generate a blacklist of third parties, which can be passed on to a network enforcer. Empirical testing has been done proving the usefulness of this alternative and low cost approach in defending networks. The functionality of the system was also extended by installing nodes in different geographical locations, and streaming their detections into the central Amber hive.
Prediction of Pedestrian Chest Injury Severity Using BP Neural Network

Background: Chest is one of the three commonly injury parts for pedestrians in car-to-pedestrian crashes. Although many efforts and studies have been done on chest injuries, mathematical model relationship between chest injury risk factors and chest injury severity hasn't been widely identified. Objective: This paper is aimed to investigate and predict the severity of chest injuries caused by car-to-pedestrian crashes though establishing BP neural network prediction models. Method and Material: This study is carried out by conducting an in-depth investigation of car-to-pedestrian crashes from 2010 to 2014 in Chongqing and applying different training functions and hidden layer nodes in BP neural network training to determine the best prediction scheme. Results: The study results showed that the training function and the number of hidden layer nodes had great influence on the prediction accuracy of neural networks. The best prediction result for chest MAIS was obtained by using trainlm function with 11 hidden layer nodes. Conclusions: Models presented in the present study reflected the non-linear relationship between the severity of pedestrian chest injuries and the vehicle impact speed and pedestrian age. Further-more, study results fully testified the feasibility and effectiveness of predicting pedestrian chest injury severity by using BP neural networks.
A New Memory MapReduce Framework for Higher Access to Resources

The demand for highly parallel data processing platform was growing due to an explosion in the number of massive-scale data applications both in academia and industry. MapReduce was one of the most meaningful solutions to deal with big data distributed computing, This paper was based on the work of Hadoop MapReduce. In the face of massive data computing and calculation process, MapReduce generated a lot of dynamic data, but these data were discarded after the task completed. Meanwhile, a large number of dynamic data were written to HDFS during task execution, caused much unnecessary IO cost. In this paper, we analyzed existing distributed caching mechanism and proposed a new Memory MapReduce framework that has a real-time response to read or write request from task nodes, maintain related information about cache data. After performance testing, we could clearly find MapReduce with cache significantly improved in IO performance. PDF DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/ijeecs.v4. i3.pp629-636
Corneal neovascularization and biological therapy

Corneal avascularity is necessary for the preservation of optimal vision. The cornea maintains a dynamic balance between pro- and antiangiogenic factors that allows it to remain avascular under normal homeostatic conditions. Corneal neovascularization (NV) is a condition that can develop in response to inflammation, hypoxia, trauma, or limbal stem cell deficiency and it is a significant cause of blindness. New therapeutic options for diseases of the cornea and ocular surface are now being explored in experimental animals and clinical trials. Antibody based biologics are being tested for their ability to reduce blood and lymphatic vessel ingrowth into the cornea, and to reduce inflammation. Numerous studies have shown that biologics with specificity for VEGF A such as bevacizumab and ranibizumab (a recombinant antibody and an antibody fragment, respectively) or anti-tumor necrosis factor-α microantibody, are effective in the treatment of corneal neovascularization.
Stem Cell Reports Resource Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Endothelial Progenitor Cells on Laminins in Defined and Xeno-free Systems

SUMMARY A major hurdle for in vitro culturing of primary endothelial cells (ECs) is that they readily dedifferentiate, hampering their use for therapeutic applications. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) may provide an unlimited cell source; however, most current protocols deriving endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) from hESCs use direct differentiation approaches albeit on undefined matrices, yet final yields are insufficient. We developed a method to culture monolayer hESCs on stem cell niche laminin (LN) LN511 or LN521 matrix. Here, we report a chemically defined, xeno-free protocol for differentiation of hESCs to EPCs using LN521 as the main culture substrate. We were able to generate $95% functional EPCs defined as VEGFR2 + CD34 + CD31 + VE-Cadherin +. RNA-sequencing analyses of hESCs, EPCs, and primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells showed differentiation-related EC expression signatures, regarding basement membrane composition, cell-matrix interactions, and changes in endothelial lineage markers. Our results may facilitate production of stable ECs for the treatment of vascular diseases and in vitro cell modeling.
Loss of Mural Cells Leads to Wall Degeneration, Aneurysm Growth, and Eventual Rupture in a Rat Aneurysm Model

Background and Purpose— The biological mechanisms predisposing intracranial saccular aneurysms to growth and rupture are not yet fully understood. Mural cell loss is a histological hallmark of ruptured cerebral aneurysms. It remains unclear whether mural cell loss predisposes to aneurysm growth and eventual rupture. Methods— Sodium dodecyl sulfate decellularized and nondecellularized saccular aneurysm from syngeneic thoracic aortas were transplanted to the abdominal aorta of Wistar rats. Aneurysm patency and growth was followed up for 1 month with contrast-enhanced serial magnetic resonance angiographies. Endoscopy and histology of the aneurysms were used to assess the role of periadventitial environment, aneurysm wall, and thrombus remodeling. Results— Nondecellularized aneurysms (n=12) showed a linear course of thrombosis and remained stable. Decellularized aneurysms (n=12) exhibited a heterogeneous pattern of thrombosis, thrombus recanalization, and growth. Three of the growing aneurysms (n=5) ruptured during the observation period. Growing and ruptured aneurysms demonstrated marked adventitial fibrosis and inflammation, complete wall disruption, and increased neutrophil accumulation in unorganized intraluminal thrombus. Conclusions— In the presented experimental setting, complete loss of mural cells acts as a driving force for aneurysm growth and rupture. The findings suggest that aneurysms missing mural cells are incapable to organize a luminal thrombus, leading to recanalization, increased inflammatory reaction, severe wall degeneration, and eventual rupture.
Viscoelastic, thermo-mechanical and environmental properties of composites based on polypropylene/poly(lactic acid) blend and copper modified nanoclay

Abstract Poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/polypropylene (PP) blends composites were prepared by incorporating 3 wt. % of copper modified montmorillonite (MMT-Cu2+), obtained using cation exchange in a CuSO4 solution, and 10 wt. % of polypropylene-graft-maleic anhydride (PP-g-MA) as a compatibilizer then varying the PLA content until 50 wt. %. These materials were subjected to several investigations such as X-rays diffraction, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and tensile and environmental tests. The DMTA analysis showed that the glassy PLA high stiffness and the PP crystalline phase compensate the decrease in the storage modulus occurring during the PP and PLA glass transitions, respectively. The variations of tan δ revealed no changes on the PP and PLA phases glass transitions temperatures which indicate the immiscibility of the two polymers, as supported by DSC analysis. Blends composites SEM micrographs stated the immiscibility of the system resulting in the poor adhesion of the PLA droplets to the PP matrix. Also, the blends composites exhibited intermediate tensile properties between those of PP and PLA. The incorporation of MMT-Cu2+ to the (50/50) PP/PLA blend accentuated its aptitude to water absorption and ensured an efficient antimicrobial activity over a satisfactorily long period of around six months.
Reliable Subpixel Ground Control Point Estimation Algorithm Using Vector Roads

This letter proposes a novel algorithm for reliable and accurate ground control point (GCP) estimation, which uses vector road network data as a reference. Roads are detected in satellite images, and road patches are used as a template, which is matched against the vector road data by using a nonlinear criterion based on the distance transform. The proposed approach is compared with the standard correlation-based template matching in terms of the reliability and accuracy of localization on a test set of five RapidEye images with 380 reference control points. The experiments demonstrate superior reliability with respect to the size of the search window and the variable image acquisition conditions. While the subpixel accuracy is achieved by the cross-correlation method over the search area up to 20% of the template size, the proposed method achieves comparable accuracy over a search area that is ten times larger than the template image.
Simulator of Ocular Motion and Expression

motion and expressions suitable for: (1) character animation applications to game design, film production, HCI (Human Computer Interface), conversational animated agents, and virtual reality; (2) medical applications (ophthalmic neurological and muscular pathologies: research and education); and (3) real time simulation of unconscious cognitive and emotional responses (for use, e.g., in psychological research). Using state-of-the-art computer animation technology we have modeled and rigged a physiologically accurate 3D model of the eyes, eyelids, and eyebrow regions and we have 'optimized' it for use with an interactive and web deliverable platform. In addition, we have realized a prototype device for real-time control of eye motions and expressions, including unconsciously produced expressions, for application as in (1), (2), and (3) above. The 3D simulator of eye motion and ocular expression is, to our knowledge, the most advanced/realistic available so far for applications in character animation and medical pedagogy.
Microfluidic Technologies for Synthetic Biology

Microfluidic technologies have shown powerful abilities for reducing cost, time, and labor, and at the same time, for increasing accuracy, throughput, and performance in the analysis of biological and biochemical samples compared with the conventional, macroscale instruments. Synthetic biology is an emerging field of biology and has drawn much attraction due to its potential to create novel, functional biological parts and systems for special purposes. Since it is believed that the development of synthetic biology can be accelerated through the use of microfluidic technology, in this review work we focus our discussion on the latest microfluidic technologies that can provide unprecedented means in synthetic biology for dynamic profiling of gene expression/regulation with high resolution, highly sensitive on-chip and off-chip detection of metabolites, and whole-cell analysis.