Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aldosterone Promotes Vascular Remodeling by Direct Effects on Smooth Muscle Cell Mineralocorticoid Receptors

Objective—Vascular remodeling occurs after endothelial injury, resulting in smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation and vascular fibrosis. We previously demonstrated that the blood pressure–regulating hormone aldosterone enhances vascular remodeling in mice at sites of endothelial injury in a placental growth factor–dependent manner. We now test the hypothesis that SMC mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs) directly mediate the remodeling effects of aldosterone and further explore the mechanism. Approach and Results—A wire-induced carotid injury model was performed in wild-type mice and mice with inducible SMC-specific deletion of the MR. Aldosterone did not affect re-endothelialization after injury in wild-type mice. Deletion of SMC-MR prevented the 79% increase in SMC proliferation induced by aldosterone after injury in MR-Intact littermates. Moreover, both injury-induced and aldosterone-enhanced vascular fibrosis were attenuated in SMC-specific MR knockout mice. Further exploration of the mechanism revealed that aldosterone-induced vascular remodeling is prevented by in vivo blockade of the placental growth factor–specific receptor, type 1 vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR1), the receptor for placental growth factor. Immunohistochemistry of carotid vessels shows that the induction of VEGFR1 expression in SMC after vascular injury is attenuated by 72% in SMC-specific MR knockout mice. Moreover, aldosterone induction of vascular placental growth factor mRNA expression and protein release are also prevented in vessels lacking SMC-MR. Conclusions—These studies reveal that SMC-MR is necessary for aldosterone-induced vascular remodeling independent of renal effects on blood pressure. SMC-MR contributes to induction of SMC VEGFR1 in the area of vascular injury and to aldosterone-enhanced vascular placental growth factor expression and hence the detrimental effects of aldosterone are prevented by VEGFR1 blockade. This study supports exploring MR antagonists and VEGFR1 blockade to prevent pathological vascular remodeling induced by aldosterone.
Separability Number and Schurity Number of Coherent Configurations

To each coherent configuration (scheme) ${\cal C}$ and positive integer $m$ we associate a natural scheme $\widehat{\cal C}^{(m)}$ on the $m$-fold Cartesian product of the point set of ${\cal C}$ having the same automorphism group as ${\cal C}$. Using this construction we define and study two positive integers: the separability number $s({\cal C})$ and the Schurity number $t({\cal C})$ of ${\cal C}$. It turns out that $s({\cal C})\le m$ iff ${\cal C}$ is uniquely determined up to isomorphism by the intersection numbers of the scheme $\widehat{\cal C}^{(m)}$. Similarly, $t({\cal C})\le m$ iff the diagonal subscheme of $\widehat{\cal C}^{(m)}$ is an orbital one. In particular, if ${\cal C}$ is the scheme of a distance-regular graph $\Gamma$, then $s({\cal C})=1$ iff $\Gamma$ is uniquely determined by its parameters whereas $t({\cal C})=1$ iff $\Gamma$ is distance-transitive. We show that if ${\cal C}$ is a Johnson, Hamming or Grassmann scheme, then $s({\cal C})\le 2$ and $t({\cal C})=1$. Moreover, we find the exact values of $s({\cal C})$ and $t({\cal C})$ for the scheme ${\cal C}$ associated with any distance-regular graph having the same parameters as some Johnson or Hamming graph. In particular, $s({\cal C})=t({\cal C})=2$ if ${\cal C}$ is the scheme of a Doob graph. In addition, we prove that $s({\cal C})\le 2$ and $t({\cal C})\le 2$ for any imprimitive 3/2-homogeneous scheme. Finally, we show that $s({\cal C})\le 4$, whenever ${\cal C}$ is a cyclotomic scheme on a prime number of points.
Balancing latency and availability in geo-distributed cloud data stores

Modern web applications face stringent requirements along many dimensions including latency, scalability, and avail ability. In response, several geo-distributed cloud stora ge systems have emerged in recent years. Customizing cloud data stores to meet application SLA requirements is a challenge given the scale of applications, and their diverse and dynamic workloads. In this paper, we tackle these challenges in the context of quorum-based systems (e.g. Amazon Dynamo, Cassandra), an important and widely used class of distributed cloud storage systems. We present models that seek to optimize percentiles of response time under normal operation and under a data-center (DC) failure. Our models consider a variety of factors such as the geographic spread of users, DC locations, relative priorities of read and writ e requests, application consistency requirements and inter -DC communication costs. We evaluate our models using realworld traces of three popular applications: Twitter, Wikipedia and Gowalla, and through experiments with a Cassandra cluster. Our results confirm the importance and effectiveness of our models, and offer important insights on the performance achievable with geo-distributed data stores.
Nation and national identity : the European experience in perspective

The contributions to this volume are divided into three parts, each introduced by one of the editors, and a general introduction which discusses the peculiarities of the Swiss case of state formation and nation building. The five chapters of Part I provide an idea of the variety of approaches and perspectives which currently exist in the study of nationhood and national identity. The authors of these contributions clarify basic concepts, show the deep and intractable ambiguity of classic distinctions, and point to new forces within nation-states which have seriously weakened their internal cohesion. All of these considerations give rise to new challenges for nationalist representations of the world and established institutions of social integration. Under present conditions, national identity and political solidarity have to compete with other, crosscutting ways of creating boundaries: ethnic and cultural fragmentation, gender and sexual divides, or divisions in the labor market. In Part II, the recent experiences of a selected number of countries-- Belgium, Austria, Germany, Croatia, and Israel --are presented to illustrate the great diversity of current challenges to national identities. Processes such as globalization and European integration have had an impact on all of them, but mobilization by regional move-ments, reunification of separate territorial parts, the differentiation of formerly homogeneous ethnic identities, the sequels of war, and the country-specific historical legacies, interact with these global processes to constitute many different challenges for national identities and nationhood. Finally, the two contributions in Part III show that the process of Europeanintegra- tion gives rise to different images and fulfills different functions for the various nations involved, but it has not yet been able to shape a new European identity. "
Uncovering a novel mechanism whereby NK cells interfere with glioblastoma virotherapy

Despite initial promising results, the success of clinical trials testing oncolytic viruses in glioblastoma patients has been limited. Innate immunity appears to be one among several barriers against successful viral oncolysis. Recent findings suggest a mechanism by which natural killer cells limit the efficacy of oncolytic viruses via natural cytotoxicity receptors.
Investigation of Residents’ Health Literacy Status and Its Risk Factors in Jiangsu Province of China

Health literacy has become an important public health concern. Multistage cluster random sampling was used to select 12 450 individuals. Using the 2009 Chinese Health Literacy questionnaire, participants were divided into groups with poor or not poor health literacy status. The knowledge rates for 6 areas of health literacy were determined with the following results: science concept of health (60.0%), literacy for preventing acute infectious disease (66.8%), literacy for preventing noncommunicable chronic disease (51.9%), safety and first aid (66.8%), obtaining and making use of basic medical care (55.3%), and comprehensive health literacy (52.5%). Multiple logistic regression showed that living in a rural area, fewer individuals in a household, younger age, low education, agricultural or rural migrant occupation workers, and low family income were associated with a poor health literacy status. Our results support the use of health education and promotion interventions to improve health literacy in this high-risk population in China.
Repeated exposure to ozone increases alveolar macrophage recruitment into asthmatic airways.

RATIONALE Repeated, short-term exposures to ozone (O3) lead to attenuation of the acute lung function and airway inflammatory responses seen after a single exposure in healthy subjects, but it is unclear whether these acute responses also attenuate in subjects with asthma. OBJECTIVE To address this question by exposing 14 subjects with asthma to 0.2 ppm O3 for either 4 hours on a single day or 4 hours on 4 consecutive days (multiday [MD]). At least 3 weeks later, subjects underwent the alternate exposure. METHODS Spirometry was performed immediately pre- and postexposure and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was obtained 18 hours after each exposure. MAIN RESULTS The decrease in FEV1 was greatest across Day 2 of the MD (MD2) exposure and then gradually declined on successive days of the MD exposure (mean +/- SD decrease in FEV1 of 25.4 +/- 18.0% across MD2 compared with 4.2 +/- 6.5% across MD4). Respiratory symptoms followed a similar pattern to that of FEV1. Although the concentration of neutrophils in BAL after the MD4 exposure was not significantly different from that after the single-day exposure (1.7 +/- 1.3 x 10(4) cells/ml vs. 1.2 +/- 0.8 x 10(4) cells/ml, p = 0.20), the concentration of alveolar macrophages did significantly increase in BAL after the MD exposure (19.9 +/- 9.7 x 10(4) cells/ml after MD4 vs. 12.1 +/- 6.4 x 10(4) cells/ml after the single day). CONCLUSIONS Alveolar macrophages are recruited to the airways of subjects with asthma with repeated short-term exposures to O3, suggesting a possible role for these cells in the chronic response to oxidant-induced injury.
On the Sentential Logics Associated with Strongly Nice and Semi-Nice General Logics

The purpose of this paper is to compare two very general approaches to the algebraic study of logics. One is the approach of the so-called Budapest school of Algebraic Logic, lead by H. Andreka, I. Nemeti and I. Sain, which can be found in its original form in [1, 3, 4]; recently a less general but more understandable setting has been circulated by the same authors as the course material [7], of which [5] and [6] are preliminary or abridged versions; [2] also contains part of the same material. This approach originated with Tarski and others' process of algebraization of first-order logic by using cylindric algebras, and shows a strong influence of Abstract Model Theory; see [20, §5.6]. The other approach has been developed, in its modern form, by W. Blok and D. Pigozzi [8, 10, 11] and by J. Czelakowski [12, 13, 14, 15]; this approach has its roots in the work done by many (mainly Polish) researchers on logical matrices, since Lukasiewicz, Tarski and Post's initial discoveries in the twenties and Los' pioneering paper [23] (see also [25, 28, 29, 30], and [16, 17] for a generalization); this explains the 'rather irritating cliche' (cf. [30, p. xi]) of 'Polish Logic' that has often been applied to this approach. Both approaches set up a very general definition of logic and develop methods for associating a class of algebraic structures with each logic in such a way that some logical properties become equivalent to some algebraic properties. In both cases it happens that the links between logic and algebra are rather weak in general, and several classes of logics are distinguished for which these links are increasingly better.
Vagal Hyperactivity Due to Ventromedial Hypothalamic Lesions Increases Adiponectin Production and Release

In obese humans and animals, adiponectin production and release in adipose tissue are downregulated by feedback inhibition, resulting in decreased serum adiponectin. We investigated adiponectin production and release in ventromedial hypothalamic (VMH)-lesioned animals. VMH-lesioned mice showed significant increases in food intake and body weight gain, with hyperinsulinemia and hyperleptinemia at 1 and 4 weeks after VMH-lesioning. Serum adiponectin was elevated in VMH-lesioned mice at 1 and 4 weeks, despite adipocyte hypertrophy in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissues and increased body fat. Adiponectin production and mRNA were also increased in both adipose tissues in VMH-lesioned mice at 1 week. These results were replicated in VMH-lesioned rats at 1 week. Daily atropine administration for 5 days or subdiaphragmatic vagotomy completely reversed the body weight gain and eliminated the increased adiponectin production and release in these rats, with reversal to a normal serum adiponectin level. Parasympathetic nerve activation by carbachol infusion for 5 days in rats increased serum adiponectin, with increased adiponectin production in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues without changes of body weight. These results demonstrate that activation of the parasympathetic nerve by VMH lesions stimulates production of adiponectin in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues and adiponectin release, resulting in elevated serum adiponectin.
The alpha-hemolysin of Streptococcus gordonii is hydrogen peroxide

The alpha-hemolysin of viridans group streptococci, which causes greening of intact erythrocytes, is a potential virulence factor as well as an important criterion for the laboratory identification of these bacteria; however, it has never been purified and characterized. The alpha-hemolysin of Streptococcus gordonii CH1 caused characteristic shifts in the A403, A430, A578, and A630 of sheep hemoglobin. A spectrophotometric assay was developed and used to monitor purification of alpha-hemolysin during extraction in organic solvents and separation by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The alpha-hemolysin was identical to hydrogen peroxide with respect to its effects on erythrocyte hemoglobin, oxygen-dependent synthesis by streptococci, insensitivity to proteases, inactivation by catalase, differential solubility, failure to adsorb to ion-exchange chromatography resins, and retention time on a reverse-phase HPLC column. The amount of hydrogen peroxide present in HPLC-fractionated spent culture medium was sufficient to account for all alpha-hemolytic activity observed.
ANNALS OF PURE AND APPLIED LOGIC

A new process logic is defined, called computation paths logic (CPL). which treats lbnn~~la~ and programs essentially alike. CPL is a pathwlse extension of PDL. following the basic pt-ocess logic of Harel. Kozen and Parikh. and is close in spirit to the logic R of Hare1 and Peleg. It enjoys most of the advantages of previous process logics. yet is decidable in elementary tlmc. We also ofrcr extensions for modeling asynchronouaisynchronous concurrency and infinite computanons. All extensions are also shown to be decidable in elementary time. :g 1999 Elsevicr Scicncr B.V. All rights reserved. K<S~~l~,ort/. s: Process logic: Dynamic logic: Temporal logic: Computation paths
Control of Uncertain Systems under Constraints: Switching Horizon Predictive Control of Persistently Disturbed Input-Saturated Plants

Abstract : In order to provide computationally affordable predictive control algorithms, predictive switching logic schemes are considered whereby a feedback-gain is switched-on at any time from a family of candidate feedback-gains so as to control a discrete-time input-saturated LTI system possibly subject to persistent bounded disturbances of unknown arbitrary magnitude. It is constructively shown that such schemes do exist which ensure, along with good tracking performance, global asymptotic and semi-global exponential stability in the noiseless case, as well as finite l(infinity)-induced gain to the disturbance-to-state map, whenever the structure of the disturbed plant can make such properties conceptually achievable.
Exploring subdomain cooperativity in T4 lysozyme I: Structural and energetic studies of a circular permutant and protein fragment

Small proteins are generally observed to fold in an apparent two‐state manner. Recently, however, more sensitive techniques have demonstrated that even seemingly single‐domain proteins are actually made up of smaller subdomains. T4 lysozyme is one such protein. We explored the relative autonomy of its two individual subdomains and their contribution to the overall stability of T4 lysozyme by examining a circular permutation (CP13*) that relocates the N‐terminal A‐helix, creating subdomains that are contiguous in sequence. By determining the high‐resolution structure of CP13* and characterizing its energy landscape using native state hydrogen exchange (NSHX), we show that connectivity between the subdomains is an important determinant of the energetic cooperativity but not structural integrity of the protein. The circular permutation results in a protein more easily able to populate a partially unfolded form in which the C‐terminal subdomain is folded and the N‐terminal subdomain is unfolded. We also created a fragment model of this intermediate and demonstrate using X‐ray crystallography that its structure is identical to the corresponding residues in the full‐length protein with the exception of a small network of hydrophobic interactions. In sum, we conclude that the C‐terminal subdomain dominates the energetics of T4 lysozyme folding, and the A‐helix serves an important role in coupling the two subdomains.
Motion and Deformation Analysis of the Myocardium using Density and Velocity Encoded MR Images

We have developed a new approach for analyzing the regional motion and deformation of the myocardium. The proposed method uses density and velocity encoded cardiac MR images. First the inner and outer wall of the left ventricle muscle are segmented in the density images. A set of homogeneously distributed points on these contours of the myocardium wall is automatically generated and used as a set of landmarks. Based on the velocity information of the MR images, we predict the evolved position of these landmarks at time t 0 = t + dt. Secondly, by means of a thin-plate spline interpolation deened by the original landmarks and their evolved counterparts, we create a mapping F of the landmarks at time t into an evolved (or deformed) set of landmarks at time t 0. By using this mapping to warp the original density image at time t into the evolved density image at time t 0 , we can assess the instantaneous deformation and motion of the myocardium avoiding the oo-plane error introduced by scanning the moving heart with a xed imaging plane. From the interpolation function we compute the total and local values of the bending energy, translation and rotation of the image, so that a description of the global and local behaviour of the myocardium during the cardiac cycle can be provided. Finally, the interpolation function provides an ideal tool for visualizing the motion and shape variability of the myocardium by means of a distorted grid that describes the deformation of the cardiac muscle.
Endopolyploidy as a potential alternative adaptive strategy for Arabidopsis leaf size variation in response to UV-B

The extent of endoreduplication in leaf growth is group- or even species-specific, and its adaptive role is still unclear. A survey of Arabidopsis accessions for variation at the level of endopolyploidy, cell number, and cell size in leaves revealed extensive genetic variation in endopolyploidy level. High endopolyploidy is associated with increased leaf size, both in natural and in genetically unstructured (mapping) populations. The underlying genes were identified as quantitative trait loci that control endopolyploidy in nature by modulating the progression of successive endocycles during organ development. This complex genetic architecture indicates an adaptive mechanism that allows differential organ growth over a broad geographic range and under stressful environmental conditions. UV-B radiation was identified as a significant positive climatic predictor for high endopolyploidy. Arabidopsis accessions carrying the increasing alleles for endopolyploidy also have enhanced tolerance to UV-B radiation. UV-absorbing secondary metabolites provide an additional protective strategy in accessions that display low endopolyploidy. Taken together, these results demonstrate that high constitutive endopolyploidy is a significant predictor for organ size in natural populations and is likely to contribute to sustaining plant growth under high incident UV radiation. Endopolyploidy may therefore form part of the range of UV-B tolerance mechanisms that exist in natural populations.
Negotiating requirements for COTS-based systems

Selecting COTS products is a process that inherently involves tradeoffs. In this position paper, we highlight the challenges of the requirements process for COTS-based system where the negotiation of requirements plays a critical task. In particular, it is necessary to perform a careful balancing between stakeholders requirements and COTS features. We analyse the processes of COTS matching and balancing using a goal-driven approach.
On the efficient use of uncertainty when performing expensive ROC optimisation

When optimising receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves there is an inherent degree of uncertainty associated with the operating point evaluation of a model parameterisation x. This is due to the finite amount of training data used to evaluate the true and false positive rates of x. The uncertainty associated with any particular x can be reduced, but only at the computation cost of evaluating more data. Here we explicitly represent this uncertainty through the use of probabilistically non-dominated archives, and show how expensive ROC optimisation problems may be tackled by only evaluating a small subset of the available data at each generation of an optimisation algorithm. Illustrative results are given on data sets from the well known UCI machine learning repository.
Nuclear localization signal domain of HDAC3 is necessary and sufficient for the expression regulation of MDR1

Histone acetylation/deacetylation has been known to be associated with the transcriptional regulation of various genes. The role of histone deacetylase-3 in the expression regulation of MDR1 was investigated. The expression level of HDAC3 showed an inverse relationship with the expression level of MDR1. Wild-type HDAC3, but not catalytic mutant HDAC3S424A, negatively regulated the expression of MDR1. Wild-type HDAC3, but not catalytic mutant HDAC3S424A, showed binding to the promoter sequences of HDAC3. HDAC3 regulated the expression level, and the binding of Ac-H3K9/14 and Ac-H4K16 around the MDR1 promoter sequences. The nuclear localization signal domain of HDAC3 was necessary, and sufficient for the binding of HDAC3 to the MDR1 promoter sequences and for conferring sensitivity to microtubule-targeting drugs. [BMB Reports 2014; 47(6): 342-347]