Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Open Reading Frame 50/Rta Protein Activates the Entire Viral Lytic Cycle in the HH-B2 Primary Effusion Lymphoma Cell Line

ABSTRACT Rta, the gene product of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) encoded mainly in open reading frame 50 (ORF50), is capable of activating expression of viral lytic cycle genes. What was not demonstrated in previous studies was whether KSHV Rta was competent to initiate the entire viral lytic life cycle including lytic viral DNA replication, late-gene expression with appropriate kinetics, and virus release. In HH-B2, a newly established primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) cell line, KSHV ORF50 behaved as an immediate-early gene and autostimulated its own expression. Expression of late genes, ORF65, and K8.1 induced by KSHV Rta was eliminated by phosphonoacetic acid, an inhibitor of viral DNA polymerase. Transfection of KSHV Rta increased the production of encapsidated DNase-resistant viral DNA from HH-B2 cells. Thus, introduction of an ORF50 expression plasmid is sufficient to drive the lytic cycle to completion in cultured PEL cells.
Characterization of Marek's disease virus-infected lymphocytes: discrimination between cytolytically and latently infected cells.

Leukocyte suspensions derived from genetically Marek's disease (MD)-resistant N-line and MD-susceptible P-line chickens were fractionated at various times after exposure to the JM-10 clone of MD virus. At 3 and 5 days post exposure (DPE), during the productive-restrictive (cytolytic) phase, most infected spleen and thymus leukocytes were found to be low-density, nylon wool-adherent cells that possessed Fc receptors and surface Ia and IgM and were depleted by carbonyl iron treatment. This was true for leukocytes derived from N-line as well as those from P-line chickens. In contrast, most infected spleen cells derived from P-line chickens during the latent phase (i.e., after 7 DPE) were not found to have the above characteristics, with one exception: Ia antigen was demonstrated on the surface of latently infected cells. From these experiments it was concluded that the principal targets of the cytolytic JM-10 infection are B-cells, whereas the subsequent latent infection was found mostly in non-B-lymphocytes.
Is chronic rhinosinusitis an infectious disease? Insights from a microbiota meta-analysis.

For correspondence: E-mail: harald.bruessow@rdls.nestle. com, haraldbruessow@yahoo.com Tel: +41 21 785 8676; Fax +41 21 785 8544 Acute sinusitis, also called rhinosinusitis (RS), in adults is a symptomatic inflammation of the paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity (Rosenfeld 2016). Uncomplicated RS is of short duration and closely associated with viral upper respiratory tract infections (the common cold). Up to 2 per cent of patients progress to acute bacterial sinusitis and show worsening symptoms over 10 days and purulent nasal discharge. The most common pathogens are -as for otitis media in childrenStreptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, and Staphylococcus aureus. The putative pathophysiology is also similar for both diseases: inflammation of the mucosa by viral infection leads to a closure of normally aerated anatomical cavities (sinuses or middle ear), and the increasingly anaerobic atmosphere favors the growth of facultative pathogenic bacteria. Therapeutically, watchful waiting is recommended for uncomplicated RS, and analgesics, topical glucocorticoids, and nasal irrigation with salt are used to alleviate symptoms. Most guidelines reserve antibiotic treatment (amoxicillin) for presumed bacterial or severe RS, but the clinical benefit is small: only 1 out of 7-18 patients show clinical improvement when treated with antibiotics.
A Case of Idiopathic Colonic Varices

Abstract Colonic varices, usually detected by means of colonoscopy, are extremely rare and typically indicative of portal hypertension or chronic hepatopathology. Even more rare are those cases with no underlying disease, or idiopathic colonic varices. The authors report a case of these unexplained varices found during colonoscopy of a 30-year-old man with a 10-year history of diarrhea and occasional bloody stool. A thorough workup was performed, revealing no underlying abnormalities for his varices. Additionally, the authors review the literature of this rare diagnosis. Physicians must rule out hepatic, vascular, and cardiac causes before classifying a case of varices as idiopathic.
New insights in the biology of ABC transporters ABCC2 and ABCC3: impact on drug disposition

Introduction: For the elimination of environmental chemicals and metabolic waste products, the body is equipped with a range of broad specificity transporters that are present in excretory organs as well as in several epithelial blood-tissue barriers. Areas covered: ABCC2 and ABCC3 (also known as MRP2 and MRP3) mediate the transport of various conjugated organic anions, including many drugs, toxicants and endogenous compounds. This review focuses on the physiology of these transporters, their roles in drug disposition and how they affect drug sensitivity and toxicity. It also examines how ABCC2 and ABCC3 are coordinately regulated at the transcriptional level by members of the nuclear receptor (NR) family of ligand-modulated transcription factors and how this can be therapeutically exploited. Expert opinion: Mutations in both ABCC2 and ABCC3 have been associated with changes in drug disposition, sensitivity and toxicity. A defect in ABCC2 is associated with Dubin–Johnson syndrome, a recessively inherited disorder characterized by conjugated hyperbilirubinemia. Pharmacological manipulation of the activity of these transporters can potentially improve the pharmacokinetics and thus therapeutic activity of substrate drugs but also affect the physiological function of these transporters and consequently ameliorate associated disease states.
On imaging multiple physical parameters in an inverse problems context

The extraction of information regarding multiple, space-varying parameters from limited, tomographic-type data represents and ill-posed inverse problem which is increasingly of interest in a range of application areas. From a physical perspective one would expect some degree of co-variation among the desired quantities; however traditional regularization methods do not exploit such prior information. Thus, here we introduce a correlation-type of metric to enforce a degree of common “structure” among the desired parameters where we consider structure to be defined by the gradients of the individual profiles. The analytical and algorithmic details of our method are presented and its performance evaluated using photothermal nondestructive evaluation as a driving example.
On the Simultaneous Use of Clinical and Microarray Expression Data in the Cluster Analysis of Tissue Samples

This paper considers a model-based approach to the clustering of tissue samples of a very large number of genes from microarray experiments. It is a nonstandard problem in parametric cluster analysis because the dimension of the feature space (the number of genes) is typically much greater than the number of tissues. Frequently in practice, there are also clinical data available on those cases on which the tissue samples have been obtained. Here we investigate how to use the clinical data in conjunction with the microarray gene expression data to cluster the tissue samples. We propose two mixture model-based approaches in which the number of components in the mixture model corresponds to the number of clusters to be imposed on the tissue samples. One approach specifies the components of the mixture model to be the conditional distributions of the microarray data given the clinical data with the mixing proportions also conditioned on the latter data. Another takes the components of the mixture model to represent the joint distributions of the clinical and microarray data. The approaches are demonstrated on some breast cancer data, as studied recently in van't Veer et al. (2002).
Agrobacterium tumefaciens: a natural tool for plant transformation

Updated information of mechanisms for T-DNA transfer to plant cells by Agrobacterium tumefaciens is provided, focused on the role played by the different components of the virulence system. The general assessments for the establishment of efficient transformation protocols are discussed with an emphasis in the application of this methodology to monocotyledonous plants. Based on our own experience, we present the establishment of sugarcane transformation by A. tumefaciens as a model of application of this methodology to an important culture plant species, previously considered recalcitrant and inaccessible for this type of genetic manipulation.
Reliability-Based Discontinuity-Preserving Stereo Matching

In stereo matching, it is a challengeable task to effectively deal with occlusions between objects, which often cause disparity errors along object boundaries. In this paper, we propose discontinuity-preserving stereo matching based on reliability. We first estimate an initial disparity map by segmentation-based adaptive weights. Then, we obtain reliability for each pixel in an image, which indicates the correctness of the estimated disparity based on the matching cost. Finally, we minimize disparity errors caused by occlusions between objects using reliability and produce discontinuity-preserving disparity maps. Experiments on the Middlebury data set show that the proposed method successfully preserves disparity discontinuities along object boundaries and outperforms the state-of-the-art stereo matching methods.
Factor XI‐deficient mice exhibit increased bleeding after injury to the saphenous vein

Essentials Factor XI (FXI) deficient mice have normal hemostasis in a tail transection model. The hemostatic capacity of FXI−/− mice was assessed in three different bleeding models. FXI−/− mice have increased saphenous vein bleeding. FXI−/− mice may be a useful experimental model to study bleeding associated with FXI deficiency.
A BPM-Based Mobile U-Health Service Framework

The integration of mobile bio-sensors and cellular phones opens a new horizon for healthcare service. Mobile u-health service, which usually incorporates mobile bio-sensor attached cellular phones, provides users real time healthcare services at the right time in the right manner. While the u-health services may look different from the service point of view, they often share many common features at various levels such as the service structure, unit service, and data levels. Thus, it is necessary to have a common platform on which various u-health services can be developed by effectively sharing and reusing the common features and services rather than developing the services independently from the scratch. In this paper, we propose a mobile u-health platform that provides core functions and facilities to develop mobile u-health services. Main elements of the platform include the u-health ontology and common data structures, and Business Process Management (BPM) based service integration framework. The platform provides commonly reusable features and functions in developing u-health services. According to the early evaluation, our platform turned out to have strength in terms of service flexibility, accessibility, evolvability, reusability, adaptability, interoperability and guideline provision for developing u-health services.
Nutritional Profile and Carbohydrate Characterization of Spray-Dried Lentil, Pea and Chickpea Ingredients

Although many consumers know that pulses are nutritious, long preparation times are frequently a barrier to consumption of lentils, dried peas and chickpeas. Therefore, a product has been developed which can be used as an ingredient in a wide variety of dishes without presoaking or precooking. Dried green peas, chickpeas or lentils were soaked, cooked, homogenized and spray-dried. Proximate analyses were conducted on the pulse powders and compared to an instant mashed potato product. Because the health benefits of pulses may be due in part to their carbohydrate content, a detailed carbohydrate analysis was carried out on the pulse powders. Pulse powders were higher in protein and total dietary fibre and lower in starch than potato flakes. After processing, the pulse powders maintained appreciable amounts of resistant starch (4.4%–5.2%). Total dietary fibre was higher in chickpeas and peas (26.2% and 27.1% respectively) than lentils (21.9%), whereas lentils had the highest protein content (22.7%). Pulse carbohydrates were rich in glucose, arabinose, galactose and uronic acids. Stachyose, a fermentable fibre, was the most abundant oligosaccharide, making up 1.5%–2.4% of the dried pulse powders. Spray-drying of cooked, homogenized pulses produces an easy to use ingredient with strong nutritional profile.
A Novel Role for Non-Neutralizing Antibodies against Nucleoprotein in Facilitating Resistance to Influenza Virus1

Current influenza vaccines elicit Abs to the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase envelope proteins. Due to antigenic drift, these vaccines must be reformulated annually to include the envelope proteins predicted to dominate in the following season. By contrast, vaccination with the conserved nucleoprotein (NP) elicits immunity against multiple serotypes (heterosubtypic immunity). NP vaccination is generally thought to convey protection primarily via CD8 effector mechanisms. However, significant titers of anti-NP Abs are also induced, yet the involvement of Abs in protection has largely been disregarded. To investigate how Ab responses might contribute to heterosubtypic immunity, we vaccinated C57BL/6 mice with soluble rNP. This approach induced high titers of NP-specific serum Ab, but only poorly detectable NP-specific T cell responses. Nevertheless, rNP immunization significantly reduced morbidity and viral titers after influenza challenge. Importantly, Ab-deficient mice were not protected by this vaccination strategy. Furthermore, rNP-immune serum could transfer protection to naive hosts in an Ab-dependent manner. Therefore, Ab to conserved, internal viral proteins, such as NP, provides an unexpected, yet important mechanism of protection against influenza. These results suggest that vaccines designed to elicit optimal heterosubtypic immunity to influenza should promote both Ab and T cell responses to conserved internal proteins.
Circuit partitioning for low power BIST design with minimized peak power consumption

In this paper, we propose a novel low power/energy built-in self test (BIST) strategy based on circuit partitioning. The goal of the proposed strategy is to minimize the average power, the peak power and the energy consumption during pseudo-random testing without modifying the fault coverage. The strategy consists in partitioning the original circuit into two structural subcircuits so that each subcircuit can be successively tested through two different BIST sessions. In partitioning the circuit and planning the test session, the switching activity in a time interval (i.e. the average power) as well as the peak power consumption are minimized. Moreover, the total energy consumption during BIST is also reduced since the test length required to test the two subcircuits is roughly the same as the test length for the original circuit. Results on ISCAS circuits show that average power reduction of up to 72%, peak power reduction of up to 53%, and energy reduction of up to 84% can be achieved.
Privacy-Preserving Platform for Transactive Energy Systems

Transactive energy systems (TES) are emerging as a transformative solution for the problems faced by distribution system operators due to an increase in the use of distributed energy resources and a rapid acceleration in renewable energy generation. These, on one hand, pose a decentralized power system controls problem, requiring strategic microgrid control to maintain stability for the community and for the utility. On the other hand, they require robust financial markets operating on distributed software platforms that preserve privacy. In this paper, we describe the implementation of a novel, blockchain-based transactive energy system. We outline the key requirements and motivation of this platform, describe the lessons learned, and provide a description of key architectural components of this system.
Position and Compliance Control of a Pneumatic Muscle Actuated Manipulator for Enhanced Safety

The safety of humans who work with robots is an important issue. Many studies have addressed related methods, but fundamental limits to meet safety requirements have been encountered owing to the absence of compliance in robot actuators. Pneumatic muscle is considered to be a basic actuator and offers the advantage of intrinsic elasticity to achieve joint compliance. In this study, joint compliance actuated by pneumatic muscle is actively utilized to enhance human safety during collisions. To this end, the authors present a novel approach to control compliance and associated positions independently with no cross-performance effects using pneumatic muscles. The proposed method is verified by simulation and experiments using a physical robot.
Developmental maturation of intestinal and renal thiamin uptake: Studies in wild‐type and transgenic mice carrying human THTR‐1 and 2 promoters

Thiamin (B1) is an essential micronutrient for normal growth and development. Mammals obtain thiamin through intestinal absorption, while in the kidney thiamin is reabsorbed to prevent its loss in the urine, both processes are specialized, carrier‐mediated and involve thiamin transporters‐1 and 2 (THTR‐1 and THTR‐2, respectively; products of the SLC19A2 and SLC19A3 genes). Although thiamin appears to play an important role in neonatal growth, little is currently known about the possible regulation of intestinal and renal thiamin uptake during developmental maturation. We addressed these issues by examining intestinal and renal thiamin uptake and expression of THTR‐1 and THTR‐2 during early stages of life. We utilized wild‐type mice (mice express orthologues of both thiamin transporters) and transgenic mice expressing human SLC19A2 or SLC19A3 promoter‐reporter transgenes as a model system and examined carrier‐mediated thiamin uptake, mTHTR‐1 and 2 protein and mRNA levels and luciferase activity in suckling (13 days), weanling (25–27 days), and adult (60–65 days) mice. Carrier‐mediated thiamin uptake by jejunal and renal brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) both decreased with maturation (suckling > weanling > adult) and were associated with a reduction in mTHTR‐1 and mTHTR‐2 protein, mRNA levels, and the activity of human SLC19A2 and SLC19A3 promoter‐reporter constructs in the intestines and kidneys of transgenic mice. These results are the first to demonstrate that intestinal and renal thiamin uptake are developmentally regulated during early stages of life, mediated through mTHTR‐1 and mTHTR‐2, and suggest the possible involvement of transcriptional regulatory mechanism(s) in this regulation. J. Cell. Physiol. 206: 371–377, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Differentiation of Interstitial Cells of Cajal in the Human Distal Colon

At the end of the embryonic period of human development, interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) are present in the esophagus, stomach, and proximal duodenum, around the inception of the myenteric plexus (MP) ganglia. In the small and large bowel, ICC appear later. The object of the present study was to determine the timing of appearance and pattern of distribution of ICC in the human embryonic and fetal distal colon. Human distal colon specimens were obtained from 8 embryos and 14 fetuses without gastrointestinal disorders. The specimens were 7–16 weeks of gestational age. The specimens were exposed to anti-c-kit antibodies to investigate ICC differentiation. Enteric plexuses were immunohistochemically examined using anti-neuron-specific enolase, and the differentiation of smooth muscle cells was studied with anti-desmin antibodies. In the distal colon, ICC emerged at weeks 10–11 of the fetal period in the form of two parallel belts of densely packed cells extending at the submucous plexus (SMP) and the MP level. These cells correspond to ICC of the SMP (ICC-SMP) and ICC of the MP (ICC-MP). The simultaneous appearance of ICC at the SMP and MP level in the distal colon can be explained by the fact that there are differences in the migration of neural crest cells in particular portions of the digestive tube. In conclusion, in humans, there was a difference in the patterns of development of ICC in the distal colon compared to the rest of the gut.
O2 Delivery and the Venous PO2‐O2 Uptake Relationship in Pump‐Perfused Canine Muscle

Under the conditions of both an increased red cell affinity for O2 at a constant rate of O2 delivery (arterial O2 content × flow) and a decrease in the rate of O2 delivery induced by hypoxic hypoxia at constant blood flow, we have obtained a linear relationship between the partial pressure of O2 in the muscle venous effluent (Pv,O2) and O2 uptake (V̇O2). The relationship is described by the equation V̇O2= Da× Pv,O2+V̇O2,conv where Da is the apparent O2 diffusion capacity and V̇O2,conv is O2 delivery‐limited V̇O2, and Da× Pv,O2 represents the O2 diffusion‐limited V̇O2 (V̇O2,diff). From these observations, we propose the hypothesis that V̇O2 consists of two additive values, V̇O2,conv and V̇O2,diff. The mechanism underlying the reduction in V̇O2 that is induced by reducing O2 delivery to markedly below the V̇O2,conv value has only been investigated using a model based on the single compartment of diffusion‐limited V̇O2, and has not been investigated in terms of this additive V̇O2 model. The single compartment analysis appears to overestimate the role of O2 diffusion in limiting the reduction of V̇O2 that occurs in response to a decrease in O2 diffusion capacity, as reflected by the V̇O2/Pv,O2 ratio. To gain better insight into the mechanism involved, we altered the rate of O2 delivery by changing arterial PO2 from normoxia (with inhalation of air) to hypoxia (by inhalation of 10‐11% O2) and blood flow (with high and low flow rates (n = 7 for both groups), and very low and ischaemic flow rates (n = 4 for both groups)) in pump‐perfused dog gastrocnemius preparations during tetanic isometric contractions at 1 Hz. As rates of O2 delivery were reduced from 23.2 to 10.9 ml min−1 (100 g)−1, significant decreases in Pv,O2 and V̇O2 were observed (P < 0.05). From the data of Pv,O2 and V̇O2 values within this range of O2 delivery rates, we obtained the regression equation V̇O2= 0.22 × Pv,O2+ 8.14 (r = 0.58). From the equation, the intercept of the V̇O2‐axis was significantly different from zero (P < 0.05), in accordance with the observation that the V̇O2/Pv,O2 ratio (ml min−1 (100 g)−1 Torr−1) increased from 0.54 to 1.35 (P < 0.05). However, at extremely low rates of O2 delivery (5.6 and 7.3 ml min−1 (100 g)−1 the V̇O2/Pv,O2 ratio was 1.51 and 2.80 (P < 0.05), respectively. This indicates a break in the linear V̇O2‐Pv,O2 relationship as the rate of O2 delivery was reduced to below the V̇O2,conv value of the V̇O2‐axis intercept. These results suggest that the reduction in V̇O2 caused by extreme reductions in the rate of O2 delivery is not attributable to a reduction in O2 diffusion capacity, as expected from the V̇O2/Pv,O2 ratio, but to a reduction in the O2 delivery‐limited V̇O2 component, as evaluated by the V̇O2‐axis intercept of the linear V̇O2‐Pv,O2 relationship.