Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Varicella-Zoster Virus ORF63 Inhibits Apoptosis of Primary Human Neurons

ABSTRACT Virus-encoded modulation of apoptosis may serve as a mechanism to enhance cell survival and virus persistence. The impact of productive varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection on apoptosis appears to be cell type specific, as infected human sensory neurons are resistant to apoptosis, yet human fibroblasts readily become apoptotic. We sought to identify the viral gene product(s) responsible for this antiapoptotic phenotype in primary human sensory neurons. Treatment with phosphonoacetic acid to inhibit viral DNA replication and late-phase gene expression did not alter the antiapoptotic phenotype, implicating immediate-early (IE) or early genes or a virion component. Compared to the parental VZV strain (rOKA), a recombinant virus unable to express one copy of the diploid IE gene ORF63 (rOkaΔORF63) demonstrated a significant induction of apoptosis in infected neurons, as determined by three methods: annexin V staining, deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end label staining, and transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, neurons transfected with a plasmid expressing ORF63 resisted apoptosis induced by nerve growth factor withdrawal. These results show that ORF63 can suppress apoptosis of neurons and provide the first identification of a VZV gene encoding an antiapoptotic function. As ORF63 is expressed in neurons during both productive and latent infection, it may play a significant role in viral pathogenesis by promoting neuron survival during primary and reactivated infections.
Organizational Dependence: An Exploration of External Power Relationships of Companies

The concept of dependence is developed by explication of the concept used in the Aston Programme, and by elaboration from new data. Data from a study of 66 companies in The Netherlands go beyond the Aston dependence scales to construct indices for three different types of commercial binding mechanisms as used by companies: (1) striving for active control of 'partners', (2) reacting to relations of dependence, and (3) safeguarding production rationality. Mintzberg's hypothesis regarding external control is tested and a new one regarding commercial ties and autonomy is offered. The existence of a large variety of interorganizational control mechanisms is em phasized.
Le rôle des acteurs privés dans les processus de régulation : participation, autorégulation et régulation privée

The Role of Private Actors in Regulation Processes : Participation, Self-Regulation, and Private Regulation The recent development of private participation in regulatory activity must be understood as the advent of new models of rulemaking cooperations : co-regulation, delegated regulation, and recognized private regulation. These models reflect new convergences between regulation — usually considered in the public interest — and self regulation. On the basis of this observation, the author calls for the building of a new regulation law integrating these changes and redefining the distinction between public and private law.
Extremely Red Objects in the Field of QSO 1213−0017: A Galaxy Concentration at z = 1.31

We have discovered a concentration of extremely red objects (EROs; R-K > 6) in the field of the z = 2.69 quasar QSO 1213-0017 (UM 485), which is a significant overabundance compared with the field ERO surface density. The optical/near-IR colors of the EROs and numerous other red galaxies in this field are consistent with elliptical galaxies at z = 1–2. HST optical images for a subset of galaxies show regular morphologies, most of them being disky or diffuse and without any obvious evidence for interactions. Ground-based IR images show similar morphologies, indicating that any dust reddening in these objects is spatially uniform. Optical spectroscopy with the W. M. Keck Telescope has found that four of the red galaxies lie at z ≈ 1.31 and a fifth lies in the foreground at z = 1.20. Of the z ≈ 1.31 galaxies, one is a reddened AGN while the remaining three have rest-frame UV absorption-line spectra characteristic of old (a few gigayears) stellar populations, similar to the old red galaxy LBDS 53W091 at z = 1.55. Including the Mg II absorber seen in the QSO spectrum, we find five galaxies at z ≈ 1.31 spread over 1.5 h Mpc on the sky. These results suggest that we have discovered a coherent structure of old galaxies at high redshift, possibly associated with a massive galaxy cluster.
Acknowledging Intuition in Clinical Decision Making

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a scale to measure nurses’ acknowledgment of using intuition in clinical decision making. Development and validation of the scale was carried out in three phases. In Phase 1, scale items were generated from the published literature in nursing and management and a Content Validity Index (CVI) of . 96 was computed on responses from a panel of five experts. In Phase 2, the scale was pilot-tested on a random sample of 106 psychiatric mental health nurses. In Phase 3, the revised scale was presented to a convenience sample of 112 nurses attending continuing education programs. Seven items were found to explain 40.6% of the variance in scores and were retained as the final unidimensional scale. Construct validity was supported by a difference in means of two groups that also differed on another measure of intuition.
Expression and clinical significance of Apollon in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Apollon, an unusually large member of the inhibitors of apoptosis protein family, may be important for oncogenesis development. The aim of the present study was to assess the association between esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and Apollon expression levels, and to highlight the association between Apollon and the occurrence, development and prognosis of ESCC. Apollon expression was detected by immunohistochemical staining and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction in ESCC tissues, adjacent non-cancerous tissues and paired normal tissues respectively, in order to analyze the association between Apollon expression and the clinicopathological features of ESCC. Survival analysis was used to assess the prognostic significance of Apollon expression. It was determined that the mRNA and protein expression levels of Apollon were significantly higher in the carcinoma tissues compared with the adjacent non-cancerous tissues and normal control tissues (P<0.001). There was a significant difference in lymph node involvement and the tumor, nodes, and metastases stage in patients categorized according to different Apollon expression levels. The prognostic significance of Apollon was also determined using the log-rank method. The overexpression of Apollon was associated with shorter overall survival and disease-free survival rates. The present study indicates that Apollon expression is associated with the biological characteristics of ESCC, and may be a valuable prognostic factor and a novel chemotherapeutic target for ESCC treatment.
Identification of anticancer drugs for hepatocellular carcinoma through personalized genome‐scale metabolic modeling

Genome‐scale metabolic models (GEMs) have proven useful as scaffolds for the integration of omics data for understanding the genotype–phenotype relationship in a mechanistic manner. Here, we evaluated the presence/absence of proteins encoded by 15,841 genes in 27 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients using immunohistochemistry. We used this information to reconstruct personalized GEMs for six HCC patients based on the proteomics data, HMR 2.0, and a task‐driven model reconstruction algorithm (tINIT). The personalized GEMs were employed to identify anticancer drugs using the concept of antimetabolites; i.e., drugs that are structural analogs to metabolites. The toxicity of each antimetabolite was predicted by assessing the in silico functionality of 83 healthy cell type‐specific GEMs, which were also reconstructed with the tINIT algorithm. We predicted 101 antimetabolites that could be effective in preventing tumor growth in all HCC patients, and 46 antimetabolites which were specific to individual patients. Twenty‐two of the 101 predicted antimetabolites have already been used in different cancer treatment strategies, while the remaining antimetabolites represent new potential drugs. Finally, one of the identified targets was validated experimentally, and it was confirmed to attenuate growth of the HepG2 cell line.
Characteristics of a bioflocculant produced by a consortium of Cobetia and Bacillus species and its application in the treatment of wastewaters

The characteristics of a bioflocculant produced by a consortium of 2 bacteria belonging to the genera Cobetia and Bacillus was investigated. The extracellular bioflocculant was composed of 66% uronic acid and 31% protein and showed an optimum flocculation (90% flocculating activity) of kaolin suspension at a dosage of 0.8 mg/m. , pH of 8, and with Ca 2+ as a coagulant aid. The bioflocculant is thermally stable, with a high residual flocculating activity of 86.7%, 89.3% and 87% after heating at 50 o C, 80 o C Keywords : Extracellular, bioflocculant, consortium, characteristic, Cobetia sp. , Bacillus sp.
Effects of execution duration on within-item strategy switching in young and older adults

This study aimed at determining whether previously found age-related differences in within-item strategy switching is modulated by duration of engagement in initial strategy execution. In a computational estimation task, young and older adults had to find estimates to arithmetic problems like 37×64 while either rounding down (i.e., 30×60) or rounding up (i.e., 40×70) both operands to the closest decades. Participants were asked to execute a cued strategy for different durations (i.e., 1, 2, or 3 s), before deciding whether the cued strategy was the best strategy and to switch to the best strategy if the cued strategy was not the best. The main findings revealed that (1) young and older adults were able to switch strategies, especially when they started to execute poorer strategy on a given item; (2) older adults switched strategy less often than young adults, and (3) both young and older participants switched strategy less frequently for long than for short durations. These findings suggest that to be able to switch strategy within item, participants should not be too much engaged in execution of the initially selected strategy, and that duration of engagement in initial strategy execution does not modulate age-related differences in within-item strategy execution.
WORD LEVEL FINITE FIELD MULTIPLIERS USING NORMAL BASIS

Finite field multipliers are widely used in elliptic curve cryptography as a basic building block. Normal basis is the most suitable for representation of binary field elements since squaring operation can be done by simple cyclic shift of its binary digits. In this paper, efficient word level multipliers using normal basis and reordered normal basis in Galois field is proposed, where Reordered Normal Basis (RNB) is referred to as certain permutation of optimal normal basis type-II. These architectures provide a better area and power efficiency when compared to the existing Word Level finite field multiplier using Normal Basis (WLNB) and Reordered Normal Basis (WLRNB). WLNB and WLRNB are coded in VHDL and simulated in Modelsim10.0b. Area and Power reports are obtained using Xilinx ISE 9.1i.
Hemodynamic effects of glucagon in portal hypertension

It has been suggested that glucagon contributes to the pathogenesis of portal hypertension by increasing portal blood flow. This study examined this issue by assessing the hemodynamic effects of a pharmacological dose of glucagon (1 mg, intravenously) in patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension (n = 10) and in subjects without significant liver disease (controls = n = 5). Patients with cirrhosis had much higher glucagon levels than control subjects (875 ± 167 vs. 186 ± 25 pg/ml, p < 0.01) and showed blunted hemodynamic responses after glucagon administration. This occurred despite greater circulating glucagon levels, probably because of a significant prolongation of the plasma half‐life of exogenously administered glucagon (4.9 ± 0.4 vs. 2.7 ± 0.1 min, p < 0.1). Control subjects had marked increases in heart rate (+19% ± 4%, p < 0.01), cardiac index (+16% ± 4%, p = 0.01) and arterial pressure (+ 10% ± 3%, p < 0.05), but corresponding changes in patients with cirrhosis (+ 7% ± 1%, +6% ± 1%, and +6% ± 2%, respectively) were significantly less pronounced (p = 0.05), and there was a negative correlation between basal glucagon levels and the response of heart rate to glucagon injection (r = ‐0.804, p < 0.001). Resistance to the systemic effects of glucagon in cirrhosis may thus be caused by a down‐regulation of vascular glucagon receptors. In addition, glucagon adminstration caused a significant increase in portal pressure (from 18.1 ± 1.1 to 19.0 ± 1.2 mm Hg, p < 0.01), as well as in azygos blood flow (from 0.54 ± 0.03 to 0.64 ± 0.04 L/min, +19% ± 4%, p < 0.02), reflecting increased portocollateral blood flow. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that glucagon is one of the factors contributing to the splanchnic vasodilatation and increased portal pressure of cirrhosis.
Profile of Ectopic Pregnancy in Tertiary Level Hospital in Uttarakhand, India

Introduction: Ectopic pregnancy is an emergency in obstetric wards and a significant cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Incidences of ectopic pregnancy are increasing. Life can be saved with quickness and alertness. Objective: The objective of this study is to find out and evaluate the incidence, clinical presentation, risk factors, and management outcomes of ectopic pregnancies at Sri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences (SGRRIMHS), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. Method: We did a retrospective study of the patients admitted in our hospital (SMI Hospital, SGRRIMHS) and study period was January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2013. Medical records were studied for management, total admission in obstetric wards, total births. Data were collected with the aid of data-entry forms designed for study. There were 4040 ANC patients admitted, out of which 202 cases were ectopic pregnancies. The relevant data collected were analyzed with SPSS for Windows. Result: Ectopic pregnancy constituted 5.0% of all ANC cases admitted in our Hospital. The mean age of patients was 25 ± 2 years, 192 of 202 (95.04%) had ruptured pregnancies, and remaining 10 (4.96%) were unruptured. The commonest clinical presentation was abdominal pain (162 of 20280.19%). The commonest (120 of 202, 59.4%) cause was past history of induced abortion. 4 deaths (1.98%) were recorded. Conclusion: Ecotopic pregnancy is common and recognized cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. It is a recognized risk of induced abortion.
Adaptation as a Normative Concept

Historically speaking, few scientific theories have exercised a greater appeal to ethical thinkers than the Darwinian theory of evolution with its attendant notions of "fitness" and "adaptation. " Ethical theorists in both the Utilitarian and Pragmatist traditions have seen in it a scientific support for the contention that some forms of behavior, are preferable to other forms of behavior. ' At the same time, there has never been any shortage of thinkers who are quite willing to call our attention to the weaknesses of the so-called evolutionary approach to ethics. These men have pointed out quite effectively that equating the fitness of a mode of behavior with its moral value depends upon some previous value judgments.2 That is to say, one must first have assented to the proposition "Adaptation is a value" before one can assent to the proposition "This mode of behavior is valuable because it is adaptive. " One can hardly argue with such observations, since they must of necessity apply to any nontautologous value statements. Yet the fact remains that it is precisely the nontautologous value statements which are of practical interest to men. In the final analysis, it may well be the case that a logical justification of nontautologous value statements is impossible. Given this situation, however, at least three courses of action remain open. One is to refrain from any nontautologous value statements for fear of being accused of having committed the naturalistic fallacy. Another is to dismiss arbitrarily the naturalistic fallacy as a pseudoproblem. The former course of action would reduce ethical discourse to a series of vacuous assertions. The latter would ignore what appears to be the positive contribution of the notion of the naturalistic fallacy, namely, the realization that all synthetic value statements are based on certain unstated assumptions involving value judgments. The third alternative is to discern the evaluative assumptions underlying any given synthetic statement and to try to build a case for the general applicability of these evaluative assumptions. I propose to follow this third course of action here with specific reference to the evaluative assumptions underlying the use of adaptation as a normative principle. This will require a three-part analysis of the problem in question. First, we shall determine the meaning of the term 'adaptation' within the context of modern evolutionary theory. Second, we shall have to determine the evaluative assumptions underlying the ascription of value to adaptation thus understood. Having resolved these issues, we will then be in a position to determine just how strong a case can be built in favor of the general applicability of these assumptions.
Distinguish Polarity in Bag-of-Words Visualization

Neural network-based BOW models reveal that word-embedding vectors encode strong semantic regularities. However, such models are insensitive to word polarity. We show that, coupled with simple information such as word spellings, word-embedding vectors can preserve both semantic regularity and conceptual polarity without supervision. We then describe a nontrivial modification to the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) algorithm that visualizes these semantic- and polarity-preserving vectors in reduced dimensions. On a real Facebook corpus, our experiments show significant improvement in t-SNE visualization as a result of the proposed modification.
Interdependency of MHC Class II/Self-Peptide and CD1d/Self-Glycolipid Presentation by TNF-Matured Dendritic Cells for Protection from Autoimmunity1

Dendritic cells (DC) are key regulators of T cell immunity and tolerance. NKT cells are well-known enhancers of Th differentiation and regulatory T cell function. However, the nature of the DC directing T and NKT cell activation and polarization as well as the role of the respective CD1d Ags presented is still unclear. In this study, we show that peptide-specific CD4+IL-10+ T cell-mediated full experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) protection by TNF-treated semimatured DCs was dependent on NKT cells recognizing an endogenous CD1d ligand. NKT cell activation by TNF-matured DCs induced high serum levels of IL-4 and IL-13 which are absent in NKT cell-deficient mice, whereas LPS plus anti-CD40-treated fully mature DCs induce serum IFN-γ. In the absence of IL-4Rα chain signaling or NKT cells, no complete EAE protection was achieved by TNF-DCs, whereas transfer of NKT cells into Jα281−/− mice restored it. However, activation of NKT cells alone was not sufficient for EAE protection and early serum Th2 deviation. Simultaneous activation of NKT cells and CD4+ T cells by the same DC was required for EAE protection. Blocking experiments demonstrated that NKT cells recognize an endogenous glycolipid presented on CD1d on the injected DC. Together, this indicates that concomitant and interdependent presentation of MHC II/self-peptide and CD1d/self-isoglobotrihexosylceramide to T and NKT cells by the same partially or fully matured DC determines protective and nonprotective immune responses in EAE.
The teen tobacco epidemic in Asia: Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand

This paperxs examines the prevalence of smoking, the age pattern of initiation of smoking, and factors associated with current smoking status among 15–19 year olds in five Asian societies, using data from large‐scale youth surveys. The life‐table method is used to examine the age pattern of initiation of smoking and logistic regression is used to examine factors associated with current smoking status. Smoking prevalence is high among boys but very low among girls. Among boys, 82 percent in Indonesia, 73 percent in Thailand, 70 percent in the Philippines, and 35 percent in Nepal begin smoking by age 20. In all countries, smoking is much more prevalent among teens who have experienced some transitions to adulthood. In Indonesia and Nepal, teen smoking is more prevalent in less developed regions. Among Filipino girls, residence in metro Manila is associated with high probability of smoking. In most countries, teens who have close relationships with parents are less likely to smoke.
The PLA2G6 gene in early‐onset Parkinson's disease

The definite etiology of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) is still unknown. Because of its role in the generation of reactive oxygen species and its association with neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation, a possible involvement of calcium‐independent group VI phospholipase A2 (iPLA2‐VI) in the pathogenesis of PD has been proposed.
The SOM Robustness Capacity for Phonemes Recognition in Adverse Environment

In this paper, we describe the formatting guidelines for IJCA Journal Submission. The SOM, for kohonen Self Organizing Map, has proven to be a classifier of high caliber in the field of speech recognition signals breasts. Thus, several versions and enhancements were applied on this tool such as recurrent SOM ‘RSOM’, the growing recurrent SOM ‘GRSOM’ and the growing hierarchical SOM GHSOM, to consider the integration of sound variability. This paper aims to detect the ability of the SOM robustness in terms of phonemes recognition for continuous speech in a noisy environment. This idea represents, in fact, the real case for speech recognition.
Security Weakness in the Smart Grid Key Distribution Scheme Proposed by Xia and Wang

In this paper, we show that the cryptographic key generation and distribution scheme for the smart gird proposed by Xia and Wang is vulnerable to the impersonation attack by which the adversary is able to impersonate the responder to the initiator. Furthermore, on the basis of this vulnerability, we point out that Xia and Wang's argument for resistance against the unknown key share (UKS) attack is incorrect.