Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MicroRNA-196a Is a Putative Diagnostic Biomarker and Therapeutic Target for Laryngeal Cancer

Background MicroRNA (miRNA) is an emerging subclass of small non-coding RNAs that regulates gene expression and has a pivotal role for many physiological processes including cancer development. Recent reports revealed the role of miRNAs as ideal biomarkers and therapeutic targets due to their tissue- or disease-specific nature. Head and neck cancer (HNC) is a major cause of cancer-related mortality and morbidity, and laryngeal cancer has the highest incidence in it. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in laryngeal cancer development remain to be known and highly sensitive biomarkers and novel promising therapy is necessary. Methodology/Principal Findings To explore laryngeal cancer-specific miRNAs, RNA from 5 laryngeal surgical specimens including cancer and non-cancer tissues were hybridized to microarray carrying 723 human miRNAs. The resultant differentially expressed miRNAs were further tested by using quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) on 43 laryngeal tissue samples including cancers, noncancerous counterparts, benign diseases and precancerous dysplasias. Significant expressional differences between matched pairs were reproduced in miR-133b, miR-455-5p, and miR-196a, among which miR-196a being the most promising cancer biomarker as validated by qRT-PCR analyses on additional 84 tissue samples. Deep sequencing analysis revealed both quantitative and qualitative deviation of miR-196a isomiR expression in laryngeal cancer. In situ hybridization confirmed laryngeal cancer-specific expression of miR-196a in both cancer and cancer stroma cells. Finally, inhibition of miR-196a counteracted cancer cell proliferation in both laryngeal cancer-derived cells and mouse xenograft model. Conclusions/Significance Our study provided the possibilities that miR-196a might be very useful in diagnosing and treating laryngeal cancer.
Male androgenetic alopecia

Importance of the field: Androgenetic alopecia affects up to 80% of males by the age of 80. The synonym ‘male-pattern hair loss’ highlights the fact that hair loss occurs in a defined and reproducible pattern. Hair loss results in reduced self esteem, loss of confidence and anxiety in affected men. An effective treatment for hair baldness would be desirable. Areas covered in this review: In androgenetic alopecia, hair follicles undergo progressive miniaturization. Genetic factors and androgens play a major role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Polymorphism of the androgen receptor gene was first identified in association with androgenetic alopecia. Identification of new susceptibility genes on chromosomes 3q26 and 20p11 suggest that non-androgen-dependent pathways also are involved. What the reader will gain: Topical monoxidil and oral finasteride are commonly in use and have FDA approval for the treatment of male androgenetic alopecia; dutasteride, a type I and II 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, is on hold in Phase III trials. A combination of medical treatment and hair transplant surgery has shown superior efficacy. Take-home message: Androgenetic alopecia is a progressive condition and although the current available treatments are effective in arresting the progression of the disease, they allow only partial regrowth of hair at its best. Early treatment achieves the best desirable outcome.
Testing Deceptive Honeypots

Abstract : Deception can be a useful defensive technique against cyber attacks. It has the advantage of unexpectedness to attackers and offers a variety of tactics. Honeypots are a good tool for deception. They act as decoy computers to confuse attackers and exhaust their time and resources. The objective of this thesis was to test the effectiveness of some honeypot tools in real networks by varying their location and virtualization, and by adding more deception to them. We tested both a web honeypot tool and an SSH honeypot tool. We deployed the web honeypot in both a residential network and at the Naval Postgraduate School network; the NPS honeypot attracted more attackers. Results also showed that the virtual honeypots received attacks from more unique IP addresses, and that adding deception to the web honeypot generated more interest by attackers. For the purpose of comparison, we used examined log files of a legitimate website www.cmand. org. The traffic distributions for the web honeypot and the legitimate website showed similarities, but the SSH honeypot was different. It appears that both honeypot tools are useful for providing intelligence about cyber-attack methods.
Application Study on Visual Discussion Technique in Group Decision Making of Sudden Disasters

Emergency management of sudden disasters needs a quick and efficient decision made by a group. The authors propose a visual discussion technique in group decision making of sudden disasters and construct the main technique process based on visualization theory. Based on this, Through the key techniques are researched and implemented. As for Multiagents in the discussion, they can obtain more accurate cognition of current sudden disaster situation and form efficient emergency predetermined plan by discussion and analysis in the short time.
Metabolic Memory Phenomenon and Accumulation of Peroxynitrite in Retinal Capillaries

Aim. Diabetic retinopathy resists reversal after good glycemic control (GC) is reinitiated, and preexisting damage at the time of intervention is considered as the major factor in determining the outcome of the GC. This study is to investigate the role of peroxynitrite accumulation in the retinal capillaries in the failure of retinopathy to reverse after reestablishment of GC, and to determine the effect of this reversal on the activity of the enzyme responsible for scavenging mitochondrial superoxide, MnSOD. Methods. In streptozotocin-diabetic rats, 6 months of poor glycemic control (PC, glycated hemoglobin, GHb > 12.0%) was followed by 6 additional months of GC (GHb about 6%). The trypsin-digested retinal microvessels were prepared for immunostaining of nitrotyrosine (a measure of peroxynitrite) and for counting the number of acellular capillaries (a measure of histopathology). The retina from the other eye was used to quantify nitrotyrosine concentration, MnSOD activity and the total antioxidant capacity. Results. Reversal of hyperglycemia after 6 months of PC had no significant effect on nitrotyrosine concentration in the retina, on the nitrotyrosine-positive retinal capillary cells and on the number of acellular capillaries; the values were similar in PC-GC and PC groups. In the same rats retinal MnSOD activity remained inhibited and the total antioxidant capacity was subnormal 6 months after cessation of PC. Conclusions. Peroxynitrite accumulation in the retinal microvasculature, the site of histopathology, fails to normalize after reversal of hyperglycemia, and superoxide remains inadequately scavenged. This failure of reversal of peroxynitrite accumulation could be, in part, responsible for the resistance of diabetic retinopathy to reverse after termination of PC.
DIMINISHING FUNCTIONALS FOR NONCLASSICAL ENTROPY SOLUTIONS SELECTED BY KINETIC RELATIONS

We consider nonclassical entropy solutions to scalar conservation laws with concave- convex flux functions, whose set of left- and right-hand admissible states ul, ur across undercom- pressive shocks is selected by a kinetic function ur = ' ♭ (ul). We introduce a new definition for the (generalized) strength of classical and nonclassical shocks, allowing us to propose a generalized notion of total variation functional. Relying only upon the natural assumption that the composite function ' ♭ ◦ ' ♭ is uniformly contracting, we prove that the generalized total variation of front-tracking ap- proximations is non-increasing in time, and we conclude with the existence of nonclassical solutions to the initial-value problem. We also propose two definitions of generalized interaction potentials which are adapted to handle nonclassical entropy solutions and we investigate their monotonicity properties. In particular, we exhibit an interaction functional which is globally non-increasing along a splitting-merging interaction pattern.
An Explorative Approach for Crowdsourcing Tasks Design

Crowdsourcing applications are becoming widespread; they cover very different scenarios, including opinion mining, multimedia data annotation, localised information gathering, marketing campaigns, expert response gathering, and so on. The quality of the outcome of these applications depends on different design parameters and constraints, and it is very hard to judge about their combined effects without doing some experiments; on the other hand, there are no experiences or guidelines that tell how to conduct experiments, and thus these are often conducted in an ad-hoc manner, typically through adjustments of an initial strategy that may converge to a parameter setting which is quite different from the best possible one. In this paper we propose a comparative, explorative approach for designing crowdsourcing tasks. The method consists of defining a representative set of execution strategies, then execute them on a small dataset, then collect quality measures for each candidate strategy, and finally decide the strategy to be used with the complete dataset.
Pathology and biology of radiation-induced cardiac disease

Heart disease is the leading global cause of death. The risk for this disease is significantly increased in populations exposed to ionizing radiation, but the mechanisms are not fully elucidated yet. This review aims to gather and discuss the latest data about pathological and biological consequences in the radiation-exposed heart in a comprehensive manner. A better understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying radiation-induced damage in heart tissue and cardiac vasculature will provide novel targets for therapeutic interventions. These may be valuable for individuals clinically or occupationally exposed to varying doses of ionizing radiation.
Expression pattern of HIF 1 a mRNA in brain , heart and liver tissues of Tibet chicken embryos in hypoxia revealed with quantitative real-time PCR

The problem of hypoxia adaptation in high altitudes is an unsolved brainteaser in the field of the life sciences. As one of the best chicken breeds with adaptability to highland environment, the Tibet chicken, is genetically different from lowland chicken breeds. It is well known that hypoxia has significant impact on growth by inducing the expression of the alpha subunit of the heterodimeric transcription factor, hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1a). In the present study, HIF1a expression in brain, heart and liver tissues of the Tibet and Dwarf Recessive White chicken embryos were investigated at the different development stages of days 10, 17 and 20 by real-time PCR, and the expression pattern of HIF1a in chicken embryos of the two chicken breeds incubated under conditions of hypoxia (13% O2) and normoxia (21% O2) was studied. The incubation mortality of the Tibet chicken was lower than the Dwarf Recessive White chicken during the whole incubation in hypoxia, and the mRNA expression of HIF1a had presented the differences in three tissues. The results implied that the hypoxia adaptability of the Tibet chicken embryo was higher than the Dwarf Recessive White chicken, especially in the early stage (day 10) and at a later time (day 20) during the incubation period, but the mechanism of the oxygen transfer of embryos of mountain species is not completely understood, and hypoxia adaptability of the Tibetan chicken remains to be studied further.
On winners and losers in procurement auctions

The use of auctions in procurement results in price reduction as well as the reduction in the cost and the time required to complete transactions. In many situations, price-only auctions resulted in the violation of the contracts or even contractors' bankruptcies. This is one reason for the introduction of multi-attribute auctions as well as auctions-followed-by negotiations. Auction theory is based on two assumptions which assure that auctions are efficient mechanisms, guarantee efficient solutions, and produce the best possible results for bid-takers. In practice these assumptions are often violated. The contribution of this paper is to propose a procedure for auctions-followed-by negotiations which retains important auction features such as process transparency and efficiency while allowing for increased social welfare. The unique feature of the procedure is the introduction of the win-win phase in which the market participants may attempt to make joint improvements to efficient solutions obtained from auctions.
Sectors at Different Speeds: Analyzing Transposition Deficits in the European Union

This article reports on a quantitative study of 1,117 cases of transposition of directives in five EU Member States and eight policy sectors between 1978 and 2002. It finds significant cross-sectoral performance differences, which complicate generalization from studies of only one sector. These differences can be partly explained by systematic cross-sectoral differences in transposition deadlines given, the share of Council versus Commission directives, and the legal implementation measures used.
Objective and Subjective Measures of Change Blindness: Where Are the Real Pitfalls?

What is the observer's conscious experience in a change blindness task? Overgaard, Jensen, and Sandberg argue that subjective measures are required for any conclusions about conscious experience. We will lay out how the choice of subjective or objective measures depends on the given research question and that objective measures allow inferences on experience given plausible assumptions regarding the relation between task performance and experience.
Modeling , Design , Development and Evaluation of a Hypervideo Application for Digital Systems Teaching

Hypervideos are multimedia files, which differ from traditional video files in that they can be navigated by using links that are embedded in them. Students can therefore easily access content that explains and clarifies certain points of the lectures that are difficult to understand, while at the same time not interrupting the flow of the original video presentation. In this paper we report on the design, development and evaluation of a hypermedia e-Learning tool for university students. First, the structure of the hypervideo model is presented; once the structure is known, the process of creating hypervideo content is described in detail, as are the various ways in which content can be linked together. Finally, an analysis involving N=88 students from a Digital Systems course is presented. In this study the students were randomly assigned to two groups; one group participated in the course as usual, whilst the second group participated in the same course while also combining the conventional learning with the hypervideo content developed for the course. The students’ learning results showed that the students who had access to the hypervideo content performed significantly better than the comparison group.
The Favorable Effect of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment on the Antioxidant Protective Mechanism in the Corneal Epithelium and Renewal of Corneal Optical Properties Changed after Alkali Burns

The aim of this study was to examine whether mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and/or corneal limbal epithelial stem cells (LSCs) influence restoration of an antioxidant protective mechanism in the corneal epithelium and renewal of corneal optical properties changed after alkali burns. The injured rabbit corneas (with 0.25 N NaOH) were untreated or treated with nanofiber scaffolds free of stem cells, with nanofiber scaffolds seeded with bone marrow MSCs (BM-MSCs), with adipose tissue MSCs (Ad-MSCs), or with LSCs. On day 15 following the injury, after BM-MSCs or LSCs nanofiber treatment (less after Ad-MSCs treatment) the expression of antioxidant enzymes was restored in the regenerated corneal epithelium and the expressions of matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), and vascular endothelial factor (VEGF) were low. The central corneal thickness (taken as an index of corneal hydration) increased after the injury and returned to levels before the injury. In injured untreated corneas the epithelium was absent and numerous cells revealed the expressions of iNOS, MMP9, α-SMA, TGF-β1, and VEGF. In conclusion, stem cell treatment accelerated regeneration of the corneal epithelium, restored the antioxidant protective mechanism, and renewed corneal optical properties.
Fourier-Motkzin Elimination software for Information Theory

Fourier-Motzkin elimination (FME) procedure is often used in information theoretic context in order to simplify rate regions, e.g., by eliminating auxiliary rates. The procedure results in a system of constraints, some of which may be inactive. By incorporating the notion of Shannon-type inequalities (a class of information inequalities that are provable via a computer program), an algorithm that executes FME and removes redundant constraints is implemented. This document gives a mathematical background on the Fourier-Motkzin elimination, Shannon-type inequalities and identification of redundant constraints. The FME-IT package was implemented in MATLAB according to these theorems.
EQUIVALENCES OF MONOIDAL MODEL CATEGORIES PRELIMINARY VERSION

We show that there are Quillen equivalences between the model categories of monoids (rings), modules and algebras over two Quillen equivalent model categories under certain conditions. This is a continuation of our earlier work where we established model categories of monoids, modules and algebras [SS00]. As an application we extend the Dold-Kan equivalence to show that the model categories of simplicial rings, modules and algebras are Quillen equivalent to the associated model categories of connected differential graded rings, modules and algebras. We also show the analogous Quillen equivalences of rings, modules and algebras hold over Z-graded chain complexes and HZ-module spectra. We use this in turn to produce algebraic models for rational stable model categories. We also show that our classification results from [SS] translate to any one of the known symmetric monoidal model categories of spectra.
Genetic Epidemiology Research Article a Note on the Efficiencies of Sampling Strategies in Two-stage Bayesian Regional Fine Mapping of a Quantitative Trait

In focused studies designed to follow up associations detected in a genome-wide association study (GWAS), investigators can proceed to fine-map a genomic region by targeted sequencing or dense genotyping of all variants in the region, aiming to identify a functional sequence variant. For the analysis of a quantitative trait, we consider a Bayesian approach to fine-mapping study design that incorporates stratification according to a promising GWAS tag SNP in the same region. Improved cost-efficiency can be achieved when the fine-mapping phase incorporates a two-stage design, with identification of a smaller set of more promising variants in a subsample taken in stage 1, followed by their evaluation in an independent stage 2 subsample. To avoid the potential negative impact of genetic model misspecification on inference we incorporate genetic model selection based on posterior probabilities for each competing model. Our simulation study shows that, compared to simple random sampling that ignores genetic information from GWAS, tag-SNP-based stratified sample allocation methods reduce the number of variants continuing to stage 2 and are more likely to promote the functional sequence variant into confirmation studies.
Vincent Ostrom’s Revolutionary Science of Association [post-print]

Vincent Ostrom challenged epistemic choices at the foundation of modern political science and proposed an alternative conceptualization of democracy based on a theory of federalism he derived from The Federalist and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. This essay examines Vincent Ostrom’s critique of contemporary mainstream political theorizing, relates his original theoretical work to the empirical research Elinor Ostrom, other colleagues, and he conducted, advised, or sponsored at The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis Indiana University, and concludes that “Ostrom’s democratic alternative” constitutes an alternative scientific paradigm as defined by Thomas Kuhn. The paper concludes with a comment on the continuing relevance of Ostrom’s critique in the post-9/11 era. Author name for publication: Michael A. Fotos, III Yale University and Trinity College Contact information: US Mail: Yale University P.O. Box 208301 New Haven CT 06520-8301 Parcel delivery: Yale University Department of Political Science 115 Prospect Street New Havent CT 06511 Email: Michael.fotos@yale.edu Mobile phone: (860)690-8614 Office phone: (203)436-5190 Title Page (With all Author Contact Information)
An Economical Power Management for High Performance Computers

The large amount of energy consumption of high performance computers represent significant financial cost. If we consider the specific situation of electricity price, a measure which makes the energy consumption the lowest is usually not the best on economy. This paper proposes an economical approach for designing a power management plan that reduces the assessment of energy consumption of high performance computers. By taking account of the electricity price in different periods during the day, we assign the workload to each period properly to make the electricity fee as low as possible. A simulation of the cases of a single task and multi-task demonstrates how our approach can be used. The results of the simulation show that our approach can save the electricity fee produced by high performance computers effectively. In the single task case, the proposed approach saves the electricity fee of 10.08% on average, and in the multi-task case the proportion of saved fee is 12.67%.
The sociology of education and work

In this publication, the author aims to examine the relationship between education and work, exploring the linkages between the various social practices referred to as education, e.g. schooling, learning, training, etc., and those referred to as work, e.g. the workplace, employment, labour, jobs, and how these have developed over time and what broad social trends are changing them in contemporary times. In addition, some empirically-based projections about how these relationships could develop in the future are proposed. Although adopting a sociological perspective, the author draws on other disciplines, including history, economics, demography, and policy analysis, to present several concepts and models, e.g. meritocracy, credentialism, postindustrial society, and the new economy. The chapters are as follows: Education and work: establishing the terrain (p. 1-13); Schooling and socioeconomic success: establishing their relationship (p. 14-36); Two models of the relationships between education and work (p. 37-60); Is the United States a meritocratic or a credentialist society? (p. 61-82); Education and work in the postindustrial society (p. 83-111); Demographic booms and busts, aging, and the new cultural diversity (p. 112-140); The transformation of the high school, the coming of mass higher education, and the youth labor market (p. 141-178); The possibilities of a learning society (p. 179-199); The future of education and work (p. 200-209); References (p. 210-237).