Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
L1CAM

The L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) plays a major role in the development of the nervous system and in the malignancy of human tumors. In terms of biological function, L1CAM comes along in two different flavors: (1) a static function as a cell adhesion molecule that acts as a glue between cells; (2) a motility promoting function that drives cell migration during neural development and supports metastasis of human cancers. Important factors that contribute to the switch in the functional mode of L1CAM are: (1) the cleavage from the cell surface by membrane proximal proteolysis and (2) the ability to change binding partners and engage in L1CAM-integrin binding. Recent studies have shown that the cleavage of L1CAM by metalloproteinases and the binding of L1CAM to integrins via its RGD-motif in the sixth Ig-domain activate signaling pathways distinct from the ones elicited by homophilic binding. Here we highlight important features of L1CAM proteolysis and the signaling of L1CAM via integrin engagement. The novel insights into L1CAM downstream signaling and its regulation during tumor progression and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) will lead to a better understanding of the dualistic role of L1CAM as a cell adhesion and/or motility promoting cell surface molecule.
Studies on Plesiomonas shigelloides isolated from different environments

Plesiomonas shigelloides is an aquatic microorganism recognised recently as potential human and animal pathogen. Plesiomonads are Gram-negative, motile, non-sporeforming bacilli, facultative anaerobic and oxidase positive. Since 2001, P. shigelloides belongs to the family Enterobacteriaceae. The primary reservoirs for this bacterium are fresh- and estuarine water, mainly in temperate climates. Although there were reports on the isolation of P. shigelloides from human patients in Sweden, the occurrence of this bacterium in Swedish freshwaters had not been studied yet. The presence of plesiomonads in lakes and rivers in Sweden is reported for the first time. Interestingly, some serovars seem to be geographically correlated. Some bacterial pathogens have been previously found in extreme climates such as the Polar Circle area. Surprisingly, the investigation of fresh water from lakes north of the Polar Circle in Sweden revealed the presence of P. shigelloides. Non-agglutinating isolates were found which suggest the finding of new serovars. Molecular techniques showed that they were genotypically different. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests showed that P. shigelloides presents a natural resistance to b-lactams despite the geographical region from where they were isolated. Furthermore, some strains may carry genes for resistance to tetracyclines. A correct identification of bacteria is crucial to determine the adequate treatment and for epidemiological studies. P. shigelloides is not specified in many clinical laboratories; therefore, a PCR for specific detection of this bacterium was developed. Detection was successful for all the isolates tested despite their serovar, source of isolation or geographical origin. The primers did not amplify genetic material from close related bacteria. Various molecular techniques were evaluated for genotyping P. shigelloides of the same serovar. PFGE and RAPD showed the highest discriminatory skills detecting 22 and 21 genotypes, respectively, among 24 strains. Animal-human pairs from the same geographical area presented an equal genotype. This finding is the first molecular evidence of the possible role of P. shigelloides as a zoonotic agent. In conclusion, this thesis research has contributed significantly to our knowledge of P. shigelloides by providing new information on its distribution, its specific detection by PCR, intra-species relationship and its possible relation with zoonotic cases.
Energy Biased Technical Change: A Cge Analysis

This paper studies energy bias in technical change. For this purpose, we develop a computable general equilibrium model that builds on endogenous growth models. The model explicitly captures links between energy, the rate and direction of technical change, and the economy. We derive the equilibrium determinants of biased technical change and show the importance of feedback in technical change, substitution possibilities between final goods, and general-equilibrium effects for the equilibrium bias. If the feedback effect is strong, or the substitution elasticity large, or both, our model tends to a corner solution in which only technologies are developed that are appropriate for production of non-energy intensive goods.
Visual Search Behavior while Viewing Driving Scenes under the Influence of Alcohol and Marihuana

Two experiments were performed to determine the effects of alcohol and marihuana on visual scanning patterns in a simulated driving situation. In the first experiment 27 male heavy drinkers were divided into three groups of nine, defined by three blood alcohol levels produced by alcohol treatment: 0.0%, 0.075%, and 0.15% BAC's. Significant changes in visual search behavior including increased dwell duration, decreased dwell frequency, and increased pursuit duration and frequency were found under alcohol. In the second experiment, 10 male social users of marihuana were tested under both 0 mcg and 200 mcg tetrahydrocannabinol per kilogram bodyweight. Marihuana was found to have no effect on visual search behavior. The results are related to previous studies of alcohol and marihuana effects on information processing.
Graphene Oxide‐Copper Nanocomposite‐Coated Porous CaP Scaffold for Vascularized Bone Regeneration via Activation of Hif‐1α

Graphene has been studied for its in vitro osteoinductive capacity. However, the in vivo bone repair effects of graphene‐based scaffolds remain unknown. The aqueous soluble graphene oxide‐copper nanocomposites (GO‐Cu) are fabricated, which are used to coat porous calcium phosphate (CaP) scaffolds for vascularized bone regeneration. The GO‐Cu nanocomposites, containing crystallized CuO/Cu2O nanoparticles of ≈30 nm diameters, distribute uniformly on the surfaces of the porous scaffolds and maintain a long‐term release of Cu ions. In vitro, the GO‐Cu coating enhances the adhesion and osteogenic differentiation of rat bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs). It is also found that by activating the Erk1/2 signaling pathway, the GO‐Cu nanocomposites upregulate the expression of Hif‐1α in BMSCs, resulting in the secretion of VEGF and BMP‐2 proteins. When transplanted into rat with critical‐sized calvarial defects, the GO‐Cu‐coated calcium phosphate cement (CPC) scaffolds (CPC/GO‐Cu) significantly promote angiogenesis and osteogenesis. Moreover, it is observed via histological sections that the GO‐Cu nanocomposites are phagocytosed by multinucleated giant cells. The results suggest that GO‐Cu nanocomposite coatings can be utilized as an attractive strategy for vascularized bone regeneration.
The Self-assurance of Outsourced Data using IBE on Cloud Storage

Data sharing has never been anything but difficult to the progression of cloud computing. The storage data gives number of advantages to both the general public and people. Storage-as-an administration possible by cloud specialist co-ops (CSPs) is paid capacity that empowers associations to assign their delicate data to be put away on out of reach servers. This paper proposes a cloud based storage technique that permits the data proprietor to profit by the comforts offered by the CSP and empowers trust between them. Identity based (ID-based) ring mark, which evacuates procedure of authentication check, can be utilized as a substitute. In this paper, we proposed the security of ID-based ring mark by giving forward wellbeing: If a top mystery key of any client has been bargained, all previous created marks that incorporate this client still longer substantial. This property is particularly imperative to any expansive scale data conveyance framework, as it is impractical to ask all data proprietors to again confirm their data regardless of the possibility that a mystery key of any client has been bargained. It permits the proprietor to financing or disavow induction to the outsourced data.
A Research Agenda for Computers and Small Business

Two factors have contributed to the increasing use of computers within the small-business environment: decreasing prices of computer technology and the advent of “friendlier” (simpler and easier to use) systems, languages, and development tools. Many studies in recent years have investigated the role of computers in small business. Primarily, this research has sought to survey the current use of computers by small firms, to illustrate the kinds of small-business decisions appropriate for automation or computer support, and to suggest methods of software and hardware evaluation. This paper proposes an agenda for future research that focuses on the factors affecting the success of small-business computing. These factors are considered in the context of the computing function's life-cycle within the firm, the organizational structure of the computing function, end-user computing, planning, and computer support for decision making.
Young at Heart

Developmental and animal research has established play as important to well-being, yet little is known about implications of play by human adults, particularly within close relationships, where it is most likely to occur. Although this is an important emerging topic for psychology, several obstacles have impeded research in this area, including definitional issues and the lack of a guiding framework. In this article, we direct attention to this neglected research area and propose a perspective on play in adulthood that provides a definition of the construct (a behavior or activity that is carried out with the goal of amusement and fun, involves an enthusiastic and in-the-moment attitude or approach, and is highly interactive among play partners or with the activity itself) and identifies potential immediate outcomes (e.g., positive affect, feelings of being accepted and valued, reductions in daily stress) and long-term outcomes (e.g., psychological, physical, and relational health) of play in adulthood, with an emphasis on play occurring within the context of close relationships. In doing so, we elucidate important avenues for future research on this topic (e.g., development of standardized measures, examination of biological mechanisms), which is ripe for investigation.
What is backward disequilibrium and how do i treat it? A complex patient case study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Postural vertical refers to a component of an individual's perception of verticality that is derived from information about the direction of gravitational forces. Backward disequilibrium (BD) is a postural disorder observed in some older adults who have a distortion in their perception of postural vertical. Individuals with BD sustain their center of mass (COM) posterior to their base of support and resist correction of COM alignment. The purposes of this case study are to describe a patient with BD and propose a physical therapy management program for this condition. CASE DESCRIPTION AND INTERVENTION The patient was an 83-year-old woman admitted for home care services 4 months after falling and sustaining a displaced right femoral neck fracture and subsequent hemiarthroplasty. Details of the clinical examination, diagnosis, and intervention are provided and a treatment protocol for physical therapy management is suggested. OUTCOMES During the episode of care, the patient (1) decreased her dependence on caregivers, (2) surpassed minimal detectable change or minimal clinically important improvements in gait speed and on the Short Physical Performance Battery and Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment, and (3) achieved her primary goal of staying in her own apartment at an assisted living facility. DISCUSSION Knowledge of BD coupled with a thorough clinical examination may assist physical therapists in identifying this condition and employing the specific intervention we have proposed. We believe that failure to recognize and manage our patient's condition appropriately would have led to nursing home placement.Video Abstract available for more insights from the authors (see Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A94).
Vitamin D2 interacts with Human PrPc (90–231) and breaks PrPc oligomerization in vitro

PrPsc, the pathogenic isoform of PrPc, can convert PrPc into PrPsc through direct interactions. PrPc oligomerization is a required processing step before PrPsc formation, and soluble oligomers appear to be the toxic species in amyloid-related disorders. In the current study, direct interactions between vitamin D2 and human recombinant PrPc (90–231) were observed by Biacore assay, and 3F4 antibody, specific for amino acid fragment 109–112 of PrPc, inhibited this interaction. An ELISA study using3F4 antibody showed that PrPc (101–130), corresponding sequence to human PrP, was affected by vitamin D2, supporting the results of Biacore studies and suggesting that the PrPc sequence around the 3F4 epitope was responsible for the interaction with vitamin D2. Furthermore, the effects of vitamin D2 on disruption of PrPc (90–231) oligomerization were elucidated by dot blot analysis and differential protease k susceptibilities. While many chemical compounds have been proposed as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of scrapie, most of these are toxic. However, given the safety and blood brain barrier permeability of vitamin D2, we propose that vitamin D2 may be a suitable agent to target PrPc in the brain and therefore is a potential therapeutic candidate for prion disease.
Stage of ovarian follicular development associated with the initiation of steroidogenic competence in avian granulosa cells.

Previously described models for avian ovarian steroidogenesis, using mature, 25-40-mm preovulatory follicles as the source of tissues, were based on the assumption that interaction of the granulosa layer, as the predominant source of progesterone, with adjacent theca cells is required for maximal production of C21, C19, and C18 steroids. In the present study, we evaluated the steroidogenic capacity of ovarian cells isolated from less mature, 6-8-mm and 9-12-mm follicles in the chicken ovary (representative of a stage of development 2-3 wk prior to ovulation) to determine at which stage of follicular development granulosa and/or theca cells become steroidogenically competent. Granulosa cells collected from 6-8-mm follicles were found to be virtually incompetent to produce steroids, containing extremely low basal levels of progesterone (12 pg/5 x 10(5) cells) and failing to respond with increased steroid output following a 3-h exposure to ovine LH (oLH; 0.1 and 100 ng/0.5 ml), ovine FSH (oFSH; 100, 500, and 1,000 ng/0.5 ml), 8-bromo-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (8-bromo-cAMP; 0.33 and 3.33 mM) or 25-hydroxycholesterol (250 and 2,500 ng/0.5 ml). However, addition of pregnenolone (20 and 200 ng/0.5 ml) to granulosa incubations resulted in significantly increased progesterone levels. Granulosa cells of 6-8-mm follicles also failed to increase cAMP formation in the presence of oLH (10, 100, and 1,000 ng/0.5 ml) and 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX; 10 microM), but responded to stimulation with 1,000 ng oFSH (4.4-fold increase over basal) or 10 microM forskolin (32-fold increase over basal) in the presence of IBMX. In contrast, granulosa cells isolated from 9-12-mm follicles and incubated for 3 h in vitro were found to contain basal progesterone levels 200-fold higher than those found in granulosa cells of 6-8-mm follicles. Furthermore, granulosa cells of 9-12-mm follicles markedly increased progesterone production following incubation in the presence of oFSH (100-1,000 ng/0.5 ml), 8-bromo-cAMP (0.33 and 3.33 mM), or 25-hydroxycholesterol (250 and 2,500 ng/0.5 ml). However, these granulosa cells remained unresponsive to oLH (0.1, 10, and 100 ng/0.5 ml), failing to increase cAMP accumulation (in the presence of IBMX) and progesterone output. Theca cells of small yellow follicles were found to produce measurable basal levels of progesterone, androstenedione, and estradiol, and levels of each steroid were significantly increased following a 3-h challenge with oLH, 8-bromo-cAMP, 25-hydroxycholesterol, and pregnenolone. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
PURE RED CELL APLASIA

Pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) is an anaemia characterized by an almost complete absence of marrow erythroblasts and blood reticulocytes (Jacobs et of, 1959; Roland, 1964; DiGiacomo et a l , 1966). Occasional cases have been reported with leucopenia or thrombocytopenia, but generally the marrow has a normal cellularity and displays active leucopoiesis and megakaryocytopoiesis. In half the adults with PRCA a thymoma has been present and in ~ ~ 3 0 % of those with a thymoma removal of the tumour has resulted in a remission of the anaemia (Jacobs et at, 1959; Roland, 1964; Schmid et al, 1968). Since the thymoma cells did not appear to invade the bone marrow, it has been postulated that they might produce the anaemia via a humoral factor(Jacobs et al, 1959). In addition to a high incidence ofthymoma, many cases have diverse immunological abnormalities consisting of hypogammaglobulinaeniia, paraproteins, antinuclear antibodies, or autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (DiGiacomo et al, 1966; Voyce, 1963; Krantz & Kao, 1967, 1969; Barnes, 1965, 1966; Holborow et at, 1963; Eisemann & Dameshek, 1954; Gasser, 1955). A plasma inhibitor of erythropoiesis has been described in some cases and it has been suggested that the disease might be due to an antibody that prevented normal red cell production (Barnes, 1966; Krantz & Kao, 1967).
OER based capacity building to overcome staff equity and access issues in higher education

Open educational resources (OER) have already impacted educational systems around the world. In higher education more specifically, it has benefited learners, and has influenced institutional strategic plans and policies. Additionally, the benefits of OER also extend to staff in higher education, such as academic staff. For this group, OER can provide opportunities for collaboration, promote curriculum innovation and student led content development, as well as contribute to university teachers' much needed continuing professional development. In this paper, we examine the potential of OER to build capacity of academic staff in higher education, in particular to overcome some equity and access issues that they may face. It also examines some existing activities and strategies for professional development in higher educational institutions and provides some recommendations for academics, academic developers, institutions, and the sector in general.
Application-Aware Opportunistic D 2 D Link Schedulers : Traffic Offloading and User Perceived QoS

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications hold the promise of enabling substantial traffic offloads from wireless infrastructure while increasing area spectral efficiency. Doing so requires exploiting available spatio-temporal traffic locality. This paper considers the design of scheduling algorithms for dynamic D2D networks where links are set up to mediate file transfers among close by users, but with limited ‘contact’ times or deadlines. Our focus is on improving three performance metrics: (1) overall offload data; (2) number of transfers which complete within their deadlines; and (3) file transfer delays. The design and evaluation of existing D2D scheduling algorithms has mostly focused on optimizing the network’s sum rate subject to fairness concerns for a fixed set of links. Starting from a dynamic scenario where links share a single collision domain, this paper investigates optimal scheduling algorithms which exploit application layer context. These results drive our proposal for application-aware versions of state-of-the-art schedulers such as FlashLinQ and CSMA/CA. Our simulations show that these schedulers could achieve substantial performance improvements depending on the operational scenario, i.e., density of users, file and contact time distributions, etc. We also show that performance can be further enhanced by incorporating both application-aware scheduling and admission control. Finally we investigate scenarios where D2D links have no deadlines. We show that application-aware schedulers result in smaller average file transfer delays and can increase the stability region of the system. This is in part due to their ability to reduce spatial clustering of links due to interference coupling in the dynamic setting.
Phonological domains for intonation in speech synthesis

This paper presents work done on the syntax-intonation interface used in the Edinburgh University Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) text-to-speech system, a linguistically sophisticated morph-based speech-output system for proeessing unrestricted Englieh text [1]. The first part of the paper discusses the need to identify phonological domains for intonation synthesis and the usefulness of hierarchieal information, and the seeond part shows how an approximation to hierarehieal metrical strueture can be eonstrueted from a very basic syntactie analysis without reeourse to
Asparaginase Antibody and Asparaginase Activity in Children With Higher-Risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Children's Cancer Group Study CCG-1961

We investigated the anti-asparaginase antibody (Ab) and asparaginase enzymatic activity in the sera of 1,001 patients (CCG-1961) with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (HR-ALL). Patients received nine doses of native Escherichia coli asparaginase during induction. Half of rapid early responders (RER) were randomly assigned to standard intensity arms and continued to receive native asparaginase. The other RER patients and all slow early responders received 6 or 10 doses of PEG-asparaginase. Serum samples (n = 3,193) were assayed for determination of asparaginase Ab titers and enzymatic activity. Three hundred ninety of 1,001 patients (39%) had no elevation of Ab among multiple evaluations—that is, were Abnegative (<1.1 over negative control)—and 611 patients (61%) had an elevated Ab titer (>1.1). Among these 611 patients, 447 had no measurable asparaginase activity during therapy. Patients who were Ab-positive but had no clinical allergies continued to receive E. coli asparaginase, the activity of which declined precipitately. No detectable asparaginase activity was found in 81 of 88 Ab-positive patients shortly after asparaginase injections (94% neutralizing Ab). The Ab-positive patients with clinical allergies subsequently were given Erwinase and achieved substantial activity (0.1–0.4 IU/ml). An interim analysis of 280 patients who were followed for 30 months from induction demonstrated that the Ab-positive titers during interim maintenance-1 and in delayed intensification-1 were associated with an increased rate of events. The CCG-1961 treatment schedule was very immunogenic, plausibly due to initially administrated native asparaginase. Anti-asparaginase Ab was associated with undetectable asparaginase activity and may be correlated with adverse outcomes in HR ALL.