Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD40 Ligand Functions Non-Cell Autonomously to Promote Deletion of Self-Reactive Thymocytes

CD40 ligand (CD40L)-deficient mice have been shown to have a defect in negative selection of self-reactive T cells during thymic development. However, the mechanism by which CD40L promotes deletion of autoreactive thymocytes has not yet been elucidated. We have studied negative selection in response to endogenous superantigens in CD40L-deficient mice and, consistent with previous reports, have found a defect in negative selection in these mice. To test the requirement for expression of CD40L on T cells undergoing negative selection, we have generated chimeric mice in which CD40L wild-type and CD40L-deficient thymocytes coexist. We find that both CD40L wild-type and CD40L-deficient thymocytes undergo equivalent and efficient negative selection when these populations coexist in chimeric mice. These results indicate that CD40L can function in a non-cell-autonomous manner during negative selection. Deletion of superantigen-reactive thymocytes was normal in B7-1/B7-2 double-knockout mice, indicating that CD40-CD40L-dependent negative selection is not solely mediated by B7 up-regulation and facilitation of B7-dependent T cell signaling. Finally, although the absence of CD40-CD40L interactions impairs negative selection of autoreactive CD4+ and CD8+ cells during thymic development, we find that self-reactive T cells are deleted in the mature CD4+ population through a CD40L-independent pathway.
"Other" breast cancer susceptibility genes: searching for more holy grail.

While germline mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for most, if not all families with autosomal dominant transmission of susceptibility to both breast and ovarian cancer, it has become clear that together these genes only account for a small proportion of hereditary site-specific breast cancer susceptibility. However, difficulties due to genetic heterogeneity, reduced penetrance and perhaps gene mutation frequency complicate ongoing efforts to identify additional susceptibility genes. Therefore, multiple approaches are being used to identify additional high and low penetrance genes. Families with three or more breast cancer cases are being used in traditional linkage studies, which are expected to yield only moderate or high penetrance susceptibility genes. Breast cancer case-control studies are being used to look for genetic variants or polymorphisms that confer an increased risk of breast cancer in a wide variety of cellular pathways, ranging from the detoxification of environmental carcinogens to steroid hormone metabolism, DNA damage repair and immune surveillance, an approach useful primarily to identify low penetrance susceptibililty genes. However, neither approach has yielded convincing results to date. A third approach, using BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers to identify genes that are associated with modification of breast cancer risk has met with some limited success, perhaps because effects on breast cancer risk in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers are more readily detected in smaller studies, given the much higher number of events in these cohorts at very high risk of breast cancer. Clearly, hereditary breast cancer susceptibility is a complex phenomenon, in which multiple genes may play a role. It will be necessary to use all of these approaches, as well as more comprehensive genomic studies, to identify additional breast cancer-related genes.
Sunitinib malate in solitary fibrous tumor (SFT).

BACKGROUND To report on sunitinib activity in a retrospective series of 35 solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) treated at a single institution. PATIENTS AND METHODS From April 2008, 35 patients with progressive advanced SFT (male/female: 20/15; mean age: 58 years; meningeal/extrameningeal: 6/29; locally advanced/metastatic: 15/20; prior chemotherapy: 25) were treated, on an individual use basis, with continuous-dosing sunitinib 37.5 mg/day. Platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRB) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) status were assessed by immunohistochemistry and, in a subgroup of patients, by real time PCR. RESULTS Thirty-one patients were assessable for response by RECIST (one early death; three early interruptions). Best responses were 2 partial response (PR), 16 stable disease, 13 progressive disease. A <30% decrease in size was observed in three patients. Fourteen of 29 patients assessable by Choi criteria had a PR. Median progression-free survival by RECIST was 6 months (range 1-22). In two of six patients, resistance to sunitinib was overcome by increasing sunitinib to 50 mg/day. PDGFRB and/or VEGFR2 were positive in all cases and not predictive of response; a less aggressive morphology corresponded to an increased response rate (53% PR by Choi in the malignant SFT, 20% PR in the pleomorphic/dedifferentiated SFT). CONCLUSIONS Sunitinib is active in SFT. Response can be long-lasting.
Yersinia enterocolitica type III secretion–translocationsystem: channel formation by secreted Yops

‘Type III secretion’ allows extracellular adherent bacteria to inject bacterial effector proteins into the cytosol of their animal or plant host cells. In the archetypal Yersinia system the secreted proteins are called Yops. Some of them are intracellular effectors, while YopB and YopD have been shown by genetic analyses to be dedicated to the translocation of these effectors. Here, the secretion of Yops by Y.enterocolitica was induced in the presence of liposomes, and some Yops, including YopB and YopD, were found to be inserted into liposomes. The proteoliposomes were fused to a planar lipid membrane to characterize the putative pore‐forming properties of the lipid‐bound Yops. Electrophysiological experiments revealed the presence of channels with a 105 pS conductance and no ionic selectivity. Channels with those properties were generated by mutants devoid of the effectors and by lcrG mutants, as well as by wild‐type bacteria. In contrast, mutants devoid of YopB did not generate channels and mutants devoid of YopD led to current fluctuations that were different from those observed with wild‐type bacteria. The observed channel could be responsible for the translocation of Yop effectors.
FROM CRISIS OF CIVILIZATIONS TO THE CIVILIZATION OF CRISIS: LONG-TERM PATTERNS IN/OF CIVILIZATIONAL LIFE-CYCLES

Medeniyetlere dair organik aciklamalar “medeniyetlerin dogdugu, gelistigi ve oldugu”ne dair genel kabulu yaymakta fakat bu sureci aciklamak icin biyolojik benzetmelerin otesinde sistemsel ve analitik bir aciklama sunmamaktadir. Medeniyetlerin yasam dongulerine dair daha kapsamli/kapsayici bir aciklama sunabilmek icin medeniyetlerin, maddi ve maddi-olmayan cevresel akislari kullanarak kendilerine has toplumsal deger kumelerini yansitan ozgun duzenlerini surekli yeniden ureterek kuran ve muhafaza eden birer cozulgen yapi olarak kavramsallastirilmasi gereklidir. Bu calismada, medeniyetlerin yasam donguleri karmasiklik kuramina dayanan bir analitik model cercevesinde cevresel akislara bagimli genel toplumsal duzenler olarak ele alinacak ve gunumuzde kuresel duzende kriz durumunun yayginlasmasi ve normallesmesi bu model cercevesinde aciklanmaya calisilacaktir. Medeniyetlerin yasam donguleri aciklanirken dogrusal olmayan termodinamigin icgoruleri kullanilacak ve karmasik sistemlerde esik asan davranislar ile insanin toplumsal evrimdeki rolu de dikkate alinacaktir.
Language-Independent Prediction of Psycholinguistic Properties of Words

The psycholinguistic properties of words, namely, word familiarity, age of acquisition, concreteness, and imagery, have been reported to be effective for educational natural language-processing tasks. Previous studies on predicting the values of these properties rely on language-dependent features. This paper is the first to propose a practical language-independent method for predicting such values by using only a large raw corpus in a language. Through experiments, our method successfully predicted the values of these properties in two languages. The results for English were competitive with the reported accuracy achieved using features specific to English.
Progression of eIF4E gene amplification and overexpression in benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck

The overexpression of eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) results in the up‐regulation of gene products of mRNAs with long 5′ untranslated regions (5′ UTRs). The degree of gene amplification increases from the tumor free zone to the tumor core. This led the authors to hypothesize that the degree of eIF4E gene amplification and oncoprotein overexpression is progressive in the cells from normal head and neck tissue, to benign tumors, and eventually to invasive carcinomas (HNCA).
Translating “Nondiabetic” A1C Levels to Clinical Practice

It is well recognized that there is a significant delay from the time clinical research findings are first reported and when the results become an integral part of clinical care. With the understanding that the prevalence and incidence of diabetes is increasing worldwide, and that the resulting complications are a major contributor to morbidity and mortality, the need for more rapid clinical translation of research findings for diabetes could not be greater. Specifically, a large amount of clinical research data has been reported in the recent past that is of great interest to the provider caring for individuals with diabetes. Much of the emphasis for research has been devoted to understanding the contribution of hyperglycemia and its treatment on macrovascular disease. For example, within the last decade, we have not only recognized the pivotal role that chronic hyperglycemia, as assessed with A1C levels, contributes to the development of microvascular complications, but we have recognized the importance of glycemia in contributing to cardiovascular disease (CVD) (1,2). Observations from large-scale prospective trials over the last couple of years have reported that in high-risk subjects, intensive therapy to lower A1C levels below suggested targets may not be beneficial or may increase mortality (3–5). However, as observed from these studies, we also learned that certain subsets of patients with type 2 diabetes may actually benefit from intensive glycemic control (3). The most recent analysis, reported in May 2010, has now suggested that mortality may actually be greater for those who maintain a higher A1C level despite attempts at intensive glycemic management …
Sur la détermination des sorties plates par calcul formel

Dans ce papier, nous etudions la possibilite de determiner les sorties plates d'un systeme non lineaire par calcul formel. Rappelons qu'une sortie plate est une sortie generalisee particuliere telle que toutes les courbes integrales du syst`eme peuvent s'exprimer comme les images, par une application infiniment derivable, des composantes de cette sortie plate et d'un nombre fini de ses derivees successives par rapport au temps. Nous utilisons ici les caracterisations recentes de [1], [2] dans le cadre des varietes de jets d'ordre infini (voir par ex. [3], [4]). Les etapes successives de l'algorithme formel sont discutees sur l'exemple classique du vehicule non holonome.
A new P system with hybrid MDE-k-means algorithm for data clustering

Clustering is an important part of data mining. It can immensely simplify data complexity and helps discover the underlying patterns and knowledge from massive quantities data points. The popular efficient clustering algorithm k -means has been widely used in many fields. However, The k -means method also suffers from several drawbacks. It selects the initial cluster centers randomly that greatly influences the clustering performance. This study proposes a new P system with modified differential evolution k -means algorithm to improve the quality of initial cluster centers of k -means algorithm. The P system has three types of membranes: elementary, local store, global store. Different membranes have different rules. Based on the membrane structure, the elementary membranes evolve the objects with modified differential evolution algorithm and other types of membrane update the local best and the global best objects synchronously with communication rules. Under the control of the P system, the hybrid algorithm achieves a good partition for data sets, compared with the classical k -means algorithm and DEk -means algorithm. Key-Words: Data mining; clustering; unsupervised learning; k-means; modified DE algorithm; membrane computing.
TECHNICKÉ VÝUKOVÉ PROSTŘEDKY V TECHNICKÉM VZDĚLÁVÁNÍ

Tento přispěvek se zabýva otazkami zařazeni technických výukových prostředků do edukace v kontextu pohledu na ně jako moderniho nastroje vzdělavani soucasne skoly. Můžeme se zabývat metodami ci styly prace ucitele, může pojimat klima skoly jako zakladni oblast pro tvůrci rozvoj žaka i ucitele, ale bez technických výukových prostředků neni tento system uplný a v soucasnem světě ani realně možný.
Assessing Sunk Cost Effect on Employees' Intentions to Violate Information Security Policies in Organizations

It has been widely known that employees pose insider threats to the information and technology resources of an organization. In this paper, we develop a model to explain insiders' intentional violation of the requirements of an information security policy. We propose sunk cost as a mediating factor. We test our research model on data collected from three information-intensive organizations in banking and pharmaceutical industries (n=502). Our results show that sunk cost acts as a mediator between the proposed antecedents of sunk cost (i.e., completion effect and goal in congruency) and intentions to violate the ISP. We discuss the implications of our results for developing theory and for re-designing current security agendas that could help improve compliance behavior in the future.
Symptoms Associated With Menopausal Transition and Reproductive Hormones in Midlife Women

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that prevalence of women with menopausal symptoms of hot flushes; aches, joint pain, and stiffness; depressed mood; poor sleep; decreased libido; or vaginal dryness increases with progression through the menopausal transition. METHODS: Women in the Penn Ovarian Aging Study were assessed longitudinally for 9 years. Data were obtained from structured interviews, a validated symptom questionnaire, menstrual bleeding dates and early follicular hormone measures (estradiol [E2], follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH], and inhibin b). Menopausal stages were based on menstrual bleeding patterns. Other risk factors included age, race, history of depression, current smoking, body mass index, and perceived stress. Generalized linear regression models for repeated measures were used to estimate associations among the variables with each symptom. RESULTS: The prevalence of hot flushes; aches, joint pain, and stiffness; and depressed mood increased in the menopausal transition. Menopausal stage was associated with hot flushes (P<.001); aches joint pain, and stiffness (P<.001); and depressed mood (P=.002). Within-woman fluctuations of E2 were associated with hot flushes and aches. Poor sleep, decreased libido, and vaginal dryness were not associated with menopausal stages. There was 80% power to detect an absolute difference of 11% for libido and vaginal dryness and 17% for poor sleep in the prevalence of these symptoms in the late menopausal transition compared with premenopausal status. CONCLUSION: The study highlights the role of menopausal stages for some symptoms of midlife women and indicates that stages in the transition to menopause are associated with hot flushes; aches, joint pain, and stiffness; and depressed mood. Fluctuations of E2, decreased levels of inhibin b, and increased FSH levels were associated with these symptoms. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II
Organizational Principles of Abstract Words in the Human Brain

words constitute nearly half of the human lexicon and are critically associated with human abstract thoughts, yet little is known about how they are represented in the brain. We tested the neural basis of 2 classical cognitive notions of abstract meaning representation: by linguistic contexts and by semantic features. We collected fMRI BOLD responses for 360 abstract words and built theoretical representational models from state-of-the-art corpus-based natural language processing models and behavioral ratings of semantic features. Representational similarity analyses revealed that both linguistic contextual and semantic feature similarity affected the representation of abstract concepts, but in distinct neural levels. The corpus-based similarity was coded in the high-level linguistic processing system, whereas semantic feature information was reflected in distributed brain regions and in the principal component space derived from whole-brain activation patterns. These findings highlight the multidimensional organization and the neural dissociation between linguistic contextual and featural aspects of abstract concepts.
O PROCESSO DE SELEÇÃO E DE ORGANIZAÇÃO DOS CONTEÚDOS DE MATEMÁTICA: UM ESTUDO COM A REDE MUNICIPAL DE ENSINO DE BALNEÁRIO PIÇARRAS

Este trabalho teve por objetivo investigar que aspectos sao considerados pelas professoras e pelo professor no processo de selecao e de organizacao dos conteudos para o ensino de matematica do Ensino Fundamental da Rede Municipal de Balneario Picarras. A abordagem metodologica para a investigacao se caracterizou pelo enfoque qualitativo. Para tracar o perfil dos professores e professoras aplicamos questionario. Da entrevista coletiva participaram oito professoras de matematica do ensino fundamental do referido municipio e da entrevista individual participaram nove professoras e um professor. Para viabilizar a analise dos dados empregamos a analise de conteudo como tecnica para categorizacao das mensagens. Os aspectos considerados pelas professoras e pelo professor no processo de selecao e de organizacao dos conteudos do ensino de matematica foram: a realidade/cotidiano escolar, trabalho diversificado, contexto social, aplicabilidade dos conteudos, situacoes-problema, interdisciplinaridade, formacao de cidadaos, lista de conteudos disponivel, desenvolvimento de competencias/habilidades, uso do livro didatico, conhecimentos dos alunos, entre outros. Os depoimentos do professor e das professoras sinalizaram ainda para dificuldades e dilemas. As analises apontaram a necessidade de redimensionamento de uma politica curricular que garanta a melhoria da qualidade da educacao.
Complexité de Forward Checking et Hiérarchie des Décompositions de CSP Revisitées

Dans cette contribution, nous proposons une nouvelle evaluation de la complexite de la procedure Forward Checking appliquee a la resolution de CSP n-aires a domaines finis. Generalement, cette evaluation prend en compte la taille des domaines associes aux variables. Ici, nous l'exprimons relativement a la taille des relations de compatibilite associees aux contraintes. Cette nouvelle approche permet ainsi, parfois, de fournir une meilleure borne de complexite theorique. Nous montrons l'interet essentiel de cette demarche en revenant sur les resultats proposes dans [10] et qui concernent la hierarchie des decompositions de CSP (comparaisons des methodes de decompositions structurelles), et qui constituent un resultat fondamental du domaine. Nous invalidons une partie de ces resultats en demontrant notamment que le concept de decomposition en hyperarbres, situe au sommet de cette hierarchie, n'est finalement pas meilleur que celui de decomposition arborescente. Ce resultat, essentiellement theorique, s'avere toutefois en adequation avec les observations experimentales obtenues ces dernieres annees au sein de la communaute.
Üniversite Öğrencilerinin Flört Şiddetine İlişkin Tutum ve Davranışları

Oz Amac: Bu calismanin amaci universite ogrencilerinin flort siddetine iliskin tutum ve davranislarini degerlendirmektir. Metod: Calisma, 2015-2016 ogretim yili bahar doneminde bir devlet universitesinde ogrenim goren ve Kredi Yurtlar Kurumuna bagli bir ogrenci yurdunda kalan 300 erkek ve 200 kiz ogrenci ile yurutuldu. Veriler, 23 sorudan olusan anket formu kullanilarak toplandi. Elde edilen veriler SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Sciences) veri tabaninda sayi, yuzdelikler ve ki-kare onemlilik testi kullanilarak analiz edildi. Bulgular: Yas ortalamasi 22,09 ± 2,29 olan ogrencilerin, %51,8’i cocukluk caginda siddete maruz kaldigini, %37,8’i sik sik taniklik ettigini, %28,6’si flort siddetine maruz kaldigini, %22,1’i partnerine siddet uyguladigini, %13,9’u siddet yuzunden biten duygusal bir iliskisi oldugunu ifade etti. Ogrenci tutumlari incelendiginde kadinlarda siddetle ilgili farkindaligin erkeklerden yuksek oldugu; ayni zamanda ihmal etme, alay etme, takip etme, sosyal yasami kisitlama, aldatma ve kiskanma gibi davranislarin erkekler tarafindan daha az siddet davranisi olarak algilandigi goruldu. Ayrica gecmiste siddete maruz kalma ve siddete taniklik etme ile partnerine siddet uygulama davranisi arasinda anlamli iliski oldugu goruldu (p<0,05). Sonuc: Universite ogrenci grubunda, flort siddeti farkindaligi dusuk olup, partnerine siddet uygulama davranisinin ise onemli boyutlarda oldugu gorulmustur.
Achilles tendon rupture; assessment of nonoperative treatment.

BACKGROUND Acute Achilles tendon rupture is a frequent and potentially disabling injury. Over the past decade a change in treatment of acute Achilles tendon rupture away from operative towards non-operative treatment has taken place. However, the optimal non-operative treatment protocol remains to be clarified, particularly the role of weight-bearing during early rehabilitation. Also, there is a need for a clinically applicable and accurate measurement to detect patients in risk of developing Achilles tendon elongation. PURPOSE The aim of this PhD thesis was to evaluate non-operative treatment of acute Achilles tendon rupture. METHODS In study I, a cross-sectional survey was performed investigating the chosen treatment protocols across Scandinavia. In study II, the effect of immediate weight-bearing on patient reported and functional outcomes was investigated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). In study III, the effect of immediate weight-bearing on the biomechanical properties of the plantar flexor muscle-tendon complex was investigated in an RCT. In study IV, validity, reliability and agreement of a novel ultrasound measurement of Achilles tendon length and elongation was tested. RESULTS Study I found surgery to be the preferred treatment in 83% of departments in Denmark, 92% in Norway, 65% in Sweden, and 30% in Finland (p < 0.001). Study II and III showed no statistically significant effects of controlled early weight-bearing at one year follow-up except from a better health-related quality of life in the weight-bearing group (p=0.009). Compared to the unaffected limb, the affected limb had decreased stiffness (77%, p < 0.001) and strength (93%, p = 0.009) of the plantar flexor muscle-tendon complex. Study IV showed excellent intra-rater reliability (ICC 0.96, SEM 3.7 mm and MDC 10.3 mm), inter-rater reliability (ICC 0.97, SEM 3.3 mm and MDC 9.3 mm) and validity (measurement error 2%). CONCLUSION Treatment algorithms across Scandinavia showed considerable variation, though operative treatment and controlled early weight-bearing was the preferred treatment in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Immediate weight-bearing was found to be safe and recommendable in non-operative treatment of acute Achilles tendon rupture. The novel ultrasound measurement showed excellent reliability and acceptable validity and agreement.