Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sphingosine and Sphingosine 1-Phosphate Differentially Modulate Platelet-derived Growth Factor-BB-induced Ca Signaling in Transformed Oligodendrocytes (*)

The roles of sphingosine and sphingosine 1-phosphate in Ca signaling following platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) receptor stimulation were investigated in the oligodendrocyte cell line CEINGE cl3, using single-cell fura-2 microfluorimetry and videoimaging. Two different Ca responses were observed, which differed in their delays and kinetics. The first response, which occurred after a shorter delay, exhibited a single Ca peak often followed by a plateau, while the second type of response was characterized by a longer delay and by Ca spikes with different frequencies and amplitudes. The latter phenomenon was never observed after stimulation of G protein-coupled receptors for ATP, ET-1, and BK. The incubation with the inhibitor of sphingosine kinase, DL-threo-dihydrosphingosine, significantly increased the percentage of cells responding to PDGF-BB exposure with Ca spikes (87 versus 47%), while it did not modify the Ca response elicited by exposure to ATP, ET-1, or BK. Exposure to exogenous 10 μM sphingosine or 1 μM sphingosine 1-phosphate produced oscillatory and non-oscillatory Ca responses, respectively, similar to those elicited by PDGF-BB. A second application of PDGF-BB, 30 min after the first, was normally ineffective in producing a Ca response. However, if the second exposure was preceded by the inhibition of sphingosine 1-phosphate formation, an oscillatory Ca response occurred in all cells. We conclude that intracellular levels of sphingosine and sphingosine 1-phosphate may differentially modulate Ca signaling triggered by PDGF receptor stimulation in CEINGE cl3-transformed oligodendrocytes.
Robust ground plane detection and tracking in stereo sequences using camera orientation

The research on assisting visually impaired people to navigate in unknown environments commonly employs image processing or computer vision techniques. One key element that needs to be identified in the surrounding environment of a blind user is the ground plane. Its accurate detection is highly important because the user is able to move freely in that area. An assistive device should primarily assist the user in avoiding the obstacles that lie on the ground surface. The images that will be further processed are usually acquired using depth acquisition devices worn by the user. Therefore, in contrast with automotive or robotics applications, which also heavily rely on ground plane extraction for obstacle detection, the camera orientation has more degrees of freedom. This leads to the requirement of designing more complex solutions for the ground plane detection in the case of assistive systems for the visually impaired. In this paper we introduce an algorithm to detect the ground plane taking into consideration the orientation of the camera, namely its pitch and roll. The proposed algorithm is based on an efficient processing of the v-disparity map associated to each frame. A two-step decision making approach to determine the most suited area that corresponds to the ground plane is described. Experimental results with synthetic datasets are provided to prove the efficiency and robustness of the proposed approach.
Serum total immunoglobin-E and health hazards in workers involved in land fill and compost areas of hazardous waste management plants

Background: The exposures of bio-aerosols have reported higher occupational health hazards, the association between serum total IgE levels and job categories and occupational health hazards of waste disposal area was limited. The present study was undertaken to assess the relationship between occupational health hazards and Serum total IgE in waste disposal area. Materials and Methods: One hundred eighty subjects working in waste disposal areas in different parts of Bangalore at Karnataka, India were enrolled into the study in 2009. Using questionnaire the respiratory morbidity and other work related problems in HWW was carried. The levels of serum total IgE in study subjects were determined by using Enzyme–linked –immunosorbent assay kits (DRG International Inc, USA). The differences of serum total IgE levels between the groups were computed by using non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. SPSS 10.0 for windows version of statistical software was used in the analysis. Results: The levels of serum total IgE was significantly increased in landfill area (P=0.027) compose plant workers (P=0.020). The morbidity conditions such as respiratory and musculoskeletal found significantly higher in waste disposal workers as compared to controls. Conclusion: The levels of serum total IgE was significantly increased in land fill area and compose plant workers but no significant relationship was found between the levels of serum total IgE and occurrence of health related symptoms or past respiratory disease.
A Low-Cost Fault Tolerance Technique in Multi-media Applications through Configurability

As chip densities and clock rates increases, processors are becoming more susceptible to transient faults that affect program correctness. Therefore, fault tolerance becomes increasingly important in computing system. Two major concerns of fault tolerance techniques are: a) improving system reliability by detecting transient errors and b) reducing performance overhead. In this study, we propose a configurable fault tolerance technique targeting both high reliability and low performance overhead for multi-media applications. The basic principle is applying different levels of fault tolerance configurability, which means that different degrees of fault tolerance are applied to different parts of the source codes in multi-media applications. First, a primary analysis is performed on the source code level to classify the critical statements. Second, a fault injection process combined with a statistical analysis is used to assure the partition with regards to a confidence degree. Finally, checksum-based fault tolerance and instruction duplication are applied to critical statements, while no fault tolerance mechanism is applied to non-critical parts. Performance experiment results demonstrate that our configurable fault tolerance technique can lead to significant performance gains compared with duplicating all instructions. The fault coverage of this scheme is also evaluated. Fault injection results show that about 90% of outputs are application-level correctness with just 20% of runtime overhead.
Physiological regulation of β-catenin stability by Tcf3 and CK1ε

The wnt pathway regulates the steady state level of β-catenin, a transcriptional coactivator for the Tcf3/Lef1 family of DNA binding proteins. We demonstrate that Tcf3 can inhibit β-catenin turnover via its competition with axin and adenomatous polyposis for β-catenin binding. A mutant of β-catenin that cannot bind Tcf3 is degraded faster than the wild-type protein in Xenopus embryos and extracts. A fragment of β-catenin and a peptide encoding the NH2 terminus of Tcf4 that block the interaction between β-catenin and Tcf3 stimulate β-catenin degradation, indicating this interaction normally plays an important role in regulating β-catenin turnover. Tcf3 is a substrate for both glycogen synthase kinase (GSK) 3 and casein kinase (CK) 1ε, and phosphorylation of Tcf3 by CKIε stimulates its binding to β-catenin, an effect reversed by GSK3. Tcf3 synergizes with CK1ε to inhibit β-catenin degradation, whereas CKI-7, an inhibitor of CK1ε, reduces the inhibitory effect of Tcf3. Finally, we provide evidence that CK1ε stimulates the binding of dishevelled (dsh) to GSk3 binding protein (GBP) in extracts. Along with evidence that a significant amount of Tcf protein is nonnuclear, these findings suggest that CK1ε can modulate wnt signaling in vivo by regulating both the β-catenin-Tcf3 and the GBP-dsh interfaces.
Efficient Quantization Of Statistically Normalized Vectors Using Multi-Option Partial-Order Bit-Assignment Schemes

In this paper we focus on new options for the efficient quantization of statistically normalized target vectors at low bitrates. This problem is fundamental to many low-rate speech and audio coder designs. Here many such coders follow a general principle of taking a structured speech or audio signal, applying a process of redundancy removal and then quantizing each of the resulting statistically normalized targets to a relevant distortion level. We look at this latter problem when some of these targets are to be quantized at very low bitrates ( 1 bit/target-scalar). The approach we take is to efficiently communicate a target-adaptive pattern of unequal bit-assignments (noise allocations) across each target. This can increase performance over an approach that has a constant noise allocation even when target vectors consist of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) scalars. We extend these schemes to multi-option schemes allowing further options to adapt and improve performance
Research progress in the treatment of small cell lung cancer

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for approximately 10-15% of all lung cancers. No significant improvement has been made for patients with SCLC in the past several decades. The main progresses were the thoracic radiation and prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) that improved the patient survival rate. For patients with limited disease and good performance status (PS), concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) followed by PCI should be considered. For extensive disease, the combination of etoposide and platinum-based chemotherapy remains the standard treatment and consolidative thoracic radiotherapy is beneficial for patients who have a significant respond to initial chemotherapy. However, the prognosis still remains poor. Recently, efforts have been focused on molecular targets and immunotherapy. But numerous molecular targets methods have failed to show a significant clinical benefit in patients with SCLC. It is anticipated that further development of research will depend on the on-going trials for molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy which are promising and may improve the outcomes for SCLC in the next decade.
Telomerase Efficiently Elongates Highly Transcribing Telomeres in Human Cancer Cells

RNA polymerase II transcribes the physical ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes into a variety of long non-coding RNA molecules including telomeric repeat-containing RNA (TERRA). Since TERRA discovery, advances have been made in the characterization of TERRA biogenesis and regulation; on the contrary its associated functions remain elusive. Most of the biological roles so far proposed for TERRA are indeed based on in vitro experiments carried out using short TERRA-like RNA oligonucleotides. In particular, it has been suggested that TERRA inhibits telomerase activity. We have exploited two alternative cellular systems to test whether TERRA and/or telomere transcription influence telomerase-mediated telomere elongation in human cancer cells. In cells lacking the two DNA methyltransferases DNMT1 and DNMT3b, TERRA transcription and steady-state levels are greatly increased while telomerase is able to elongate telomeres normally. Similarly, telomerase can efficiently elongate transgenic inducible telomeres whose transcription has been experimentally augmented. Our data challenge the current hypothesis that TERRA functions as a general inhibitor of telomerase and suggest that telomere length homeostasis is maintained independently of TERRA and telomere transcription.
Small Intestinal Glucose Transport Proximal-Distal kinetic gradients

Previous investigations of the kinetics of glucose t ranspor t have shown differences a m o n g various organs and tissues. Studies r epor t ed here involved in situ perfusion of the r a t small intestine and demons t ra t e differences in transpor t kinetics in p rox imal and distal port ions of the same organ. M E T H O D S AND M A T E R I A L S Male albino rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain weighing 200-300 g were fasted for 20 hr. After anesthesia with intraperitoneal sodium pentobarbital (20 to 40 mg/kg), the abdomen was opened by a midline incision. The pylorus, common bile duet, and
Resummation of cactus diagrams in lattice QCD

We show how to perform a resummation, to all orders in perturbation theory, of a certain class of gauge invariant diagrams in Lattice QCD. These diagrams are often largely responsible for lattice artifacts. Our resummation leads to an improved perturbative expansion. Applied to a number of cases of interest, this expansion yields results remarkably close to corresponding nonperturbative estimates.
Using frequency-of-mention in public conversations for social filtering

We report on an investigation of using Usenet newsgroups for social filtering of Web resources. Our main empirical results are: (1) for the period of May ’96 to Jul ’96, about 23% of Usenet news messages mention Web resources, (2) 19% of resource mentions are recommendations (as opposed, e.g., to home pages), (3) we can’automatically recognize recommendations with at least 90% accuracy, and (4) in some newsgroups, certain resources are mentioned significantly more frequently than others and thus appear to play a central role for that community. We have created a Web site that summarizes the most frequently and recently mentioned Web resources for 1400 newsgroups.
Macrophage-Mediated Lymphangiogenesis: The Emerging Role of Macrophages as Lymphatic Endothelial Progenitors

It is widely accepted that macrophages and other inflammatory cells support tumor progression and metastasis. During early stages of neoplastic development, tumor-infiltrating macrophages (TAMs) mount an immune response against transformed cells. Frequently, however, cancer cells escape the immune surveillance, an event that is accompanied by macrophage transition from an anti-tumor to a pro-tumorigenic type. The latter is characterized by high expression of factors that activate endothelial cells, suppress immune response, degrade extracellular matrix, and promote tumor growth. Cumulatively, these products of TAMs promote tumor expansion and growth of both blood and lymphatic vessels that facilitate metastatic spread. Breast cancers and other epithelial malignancies induce the formation of new lymphatic vessels (i.e., lymphangiogenesis) that leads to lymphatic and subsequently, to distant metastasis. Both experimental and clinical studies have shown that TAMs significantly promote tumor lymphangiogenesis through paracrine and cell autonomous modes. The paracrine effect consists of the expression of a variety of pro-lymphangiogenic factors that activate the preexisting lymphatic vessels. The evidence for cell-autonomous contribution is based on the observed tumor mobilization of macrophage-derived lymphatic endothelial cell progenitors (M-LECP) that integrate into lymphatic vessels prior to sprouting. This review will summarize the current knowledge of macrophage-dependent growth of new lymphatic vessels with specific emphasis on an emerging role of macrophages as lymphatic endothelial cell progenitors (M-LECP).
Heparin and Carboxymethylchitosan Metal Nanoparticles: An Evaluation of Their Cytotoxicity

In the search for noninvasive diagnostic techniques and new therapies, “nanosystems”, which are capable of binding and targeting bioactive molecules, are becoming increasingly important. In this context, biocompatible coatings are gaining interest, not only for their biological effects but also because they are considered capable to mask nanoparticle toxicity. In this work, we have compared the toxicity of nanoparticles coated with heparin and carboxymethylchitosan in the SKOV-3 cell line. Our results indicate that heparin and carboxymethylchitosan coatings do not guarantee the decrease of nanoparticle intrinsic toxicity which is often envisaged. Nonetheless, these coatings provide the opportunity for further functionalization with a variety of biomolecules for their use in theranostics.
Lipoic Acid Gold Nanoparticles Functionalized with Organic Compounds as Bioactive Materials

Water soluble gold nanoparticles protected by lipoic acid were obtained and further functionalized by standard coupling reaction with 1-naphtylamine, 4-aminoantipyrine, and 4′-aminobenzo-15-crown-5 ether. Derivatives of lipoic acid with 1-naphtylamine, 4-aminoantipyrine, and 4′-aminobenzo-15-crown-5 ether were also obtained and characterized. All these were tested for their antimicrobial activity, as well as for their influence on mammalian cell viability and cellular cycle. In all cases a decreased antimicrobial activity of the obtained bioactive nanoparticles was observed as compared with the organic compounds, proving that a possible inactivation of the bioactive groups could occur during functionalization. However, both the gold nanoparticles as well as the functionalized bioactive nanosystems proved to be biocompatible at concentrations lower than 50 µg/mL, as revealed by the cellular viability and cell cycle assay, demonstrating their potential for the development of novel antimicrobial agents.
On Indexing of Lattice-Constellations for Wireless Network Coding with Modulo-Sum Decoding

We consider wireless (physical-layer) network coding 2-way relaying where both terminals use constellations curved from a common lattice structure and the relay node decodes modulo-sum operation of transmitted data symbols at the multiple-access stage. Performance of such a system with additive white Gaussian noise is strongly determined by used constellation indexing. For some indexing, the minimal distance of modulo-sum decoding is 0 (some points of superimposed- constellation are equal despite corresponding to unequal modulo-sum of data symbols) which causes considerable loss in alphabet-constrained capacity. In this paper, we show that if indices form a modulo-arithmetic progression along each lattice (real) dimension (denoted Affine Indexing (AI)), the minimal distance of modulo-sum decoding equals to minimal distance of primary terminal constellation. Some canonical constellation shapes prevent existence of AI, therefore we propose a greedy-sphere packing algorithm for constellation shape design which jointly maximises minimal distance and keeps existence of AI.
Modelling Business Cycles in Taiwan with Time-Varying Markov-Switching Models

This paper employs Hamilton’s (1989) original Markov-switching model and the time-varying Markov-switching model developed by Filardo (1994), respectively, to investigate the business cycle and evaluate the usefulness of the coincident and leading indexes in dating the business cycle and in predicting future GDP in Taiwan. The empirical results suggest that these two indexes help date the business cycle in Taiwan and improve precision in predicting turning points. As for forecasting future GDP, the coincident index is useful whereas the leading index is not.
Information Exploration System for Sickle Cell Disease and Repurposing of Hydroxyfasudil

Background Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a fatal monogenic disorder with no effective cure and thus high rates of morbidity and sequelae. Efforts toward discovery of disease modifying drugs and curative strategies can be augmented by leveraging the plethora of information contained in available biomedical literature. To facilitate research in this direction we have developed a resource, Dragon Exploration System for Sickle Cell Disease (DESSCD) (http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/desscd/) that aims to promote the easy exploration of SCD-related data. Description The Dragon Exploration System (DES), developed based on text mining and complemented by data mining, processed 419,612 MEDLINE abstracts retrieved from a PubMed query using SCD-related keywords. The processed SCD-related data has been made available via the DESSCD web query interface that enables: a/information retrieval using specified concepts, keywords and phrases, and b/the generation of inferred association networks and hypotheses. The usefulness of the system is demonstrated by: a/reproducing a known scientific fact, the “Sickle_Cell_Anemia–Hydroxyurea” association, and b/generating novel and plausible “Sickle_Cell_Anemia–Hydroxyfasudil” hypothesis. A PCT patent (PCT/US12/55042) has been filed for the latter drug repurposing for SCD treatment. Conclusion We developed the DESSCD resource dedicated to exploration of text-mined and data-mined information about SCD. No similar SCD-related resource exists. Thus, we anticipate that DESSCD will serve as a valuable tool for physicians and researchers interested in SCD.
Speaker verification using Gaussian Mixture Model

In this paper, speaker verification system using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is proposed. The proposed system consists of pre-processing, feature extraction, modelling and classification stage. The pre-processing is used to remove silent part of signal to reduce computational complexity. Pitch frequency and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients(MFCC)are used as a feature vector for speaker verification system. Modelling is done using different combination of Gaussian mixture models. Simple distance measures are used for the classification between reference and the test signal.
Distribution of Execution Times for Sorting Algorithms Implemented in Java

Algorithm performance coverage in textbooks emphasizes patterns of growth in execution times, relative to the size of the problem. Variability in execution times for a given problem size is usually ignored. In this research study, our primary focus is on the empirical distribution of execution times for a given algorithm and problem size. We examine CPU times for Java implementations of five sorting algorithms for arrays: selection sort, insertion sort, shell sort, merge sort
Genetics of Myasthenia Gravis: A Case-Control Association Study in the Hellenic Population

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an heterogeneous autoimmune disease characterized by the production of autoantibodies against proteins of the postsynaptic membrane, in the neuromuscular junction. The contribution of genetic factors to MG susceptibility has been evaluated through family and twin studies however, the precise genetic background of the disease remains elusive. We conducted a case-control association study in 101 unrelated MG patients of Hellenic origin and 101 healthy volunteers in order to assess the involvement of common genetic variants in susceptibility to MG. We focused on three candidate genes which have been clearly associated with several autoimmune diseases, aiming to investigate their potential implication in MG pathogenesis. These are interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF-5), TNFα-induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3), also known as A20, and interleukin-10 (IL-10), key molecules in the regulation of immune function. A statistical trend of association (P = 0.068) between IL-10 promoter single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the subgroups of early and late-onset MG patients was revealed. No statistically significant differences were observed in the rest of the variants examined. As far as we are aware, this is the first worldwide attempt to address the possible association between IRF-5 and TNFAIP3 common genetic variants and the genetic basis of MG.
Suppression of 1/f noise in near-ballistic h-BN-graphene-h-BN heterostructure field-effect transistors

We have investigated low-frequency 1/f noise in the boron nitride–graphene–boron nitride heterostructure field-effect transistors on Si/SiO2 substrates (f is a frequency). The device channel was implemented with a single layer graphene encased between two layers of hexagonal boron nitride. The transistors had the charge carrier mobility in the range from ∼30 000 to ∼36 000 cm2/Vs at room temperature. It was established that the noise spectral density normalized to the channel area in such devices can be suppressed to ∼5 × 10−9 μm2 Hz−1, which is a factor of ×5 – ×10 lower than that in non-encapsulated graphene devices on Si/SiO2. The physical mechanism of noise suppression was attributed to screening of the charge carriers in the channel from traps in SiO2 gate dielectric and surface defects. The obtained results are important for the electronic and optoelectronic applications of graphene.