Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Several Cosmetic Preservatives on ROS-Dependent Apoptosis of Rat Neural Progenitor Cells

Benzalkonium chloride, diazolidinyl urea, and imidazolidinyl urea are commonly used preservatives in cosmetics. Recent reports suggested that these compounds may have cellular and systemic toxicity in high concentration. In addition, diazolidinyl urea and imidazolidinyl urea are known formaldehyde (FA) releasers, raising concerns for these cosmetic preservatives. In this study, we investigated the effects of benzalkonium chloride, diazolidinyl urea, and imidazolidinyl urea on ROS-dependent apoptosis of rat neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in vitro. Cells were isolated and cultured from embryonic day 14 rat cortices. Cultured cells were treated with 1–1,000 nM benzalkonium chloride, and 1–50 μM diazolidinyl urea or imidazolidinyl urea at various time points to measure the reactive oxygen species (ROS). PI staining, MTT assay, and live-cell imaging were used for cell viability measurements. Western blot was carried out for cleaved caspase-3 and cleaved caspase-8 as apoptotic protein markers. In rat NPCs, ROS production and cleaved caspase-8 expression were increased while the cell viability was decreased in high concentrations of these substances. These results suggest that several cosmetic preservatives at high concentrations can induce neural toxicity in rat brains through ROS induction and apoptosis.
Conversational Common Ground and Memory Processes in Language Production

Speakers in conversation routinely engage in audience design. That is, they construct their utterances to be understood by particular addressees. Standard accounts of audience design have frequently appealed to the notion of common ground. On this view, speakers produce well-designed utterances by expressly considering the knowledge they take as shared with addressees. This article suggests that conversational common ground, rather than being a category of specialized mental representations, is more usefully conceptualized as an emergent property of ordinary memory processes. This article examines 2 separate but equally important processes: commonality assessment and message formation. Commonality assessment involves the retrieval of memory traces concerning what information is shared with an addressee, whereas message formation involves deciding how to use that information in conversation. Evidence from the CallHome English corpus of telephone conversations shows how each of these processes is rooted in basic aspects of human memory. The overall goal of this article is to demonstrate the need for a more cognitive psychological account of conversational common ground.
Temporal prediction of multiple sclerosis evolution from patient-centered outcomes

Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative condition of the central nervous system that affects nearly 2.5 million of individuals in terms of their physical, cognitive, psychological and social capabilities. Despite the high variability of its clinical presentation, relapsing and progressive multiple sclerosis are considered the two main disease types, with the former possibly evolving into the latter. Recently, the attention of the medical community toward the use of patient-centered outcomes in multiple sclerosis has significantly increased. Such patient-friendly measures are devoted to the assessment of the impact of the disease on several domains of the patient life. In this work, we investigate on use of patient-centered outcomes to predict the evolution of the disease and to assess its impact on patients’ lives. To this aim, we build a novel temporal model based on gradient boosting classification and multiple-output elastic-net regression. The model provides clinically interpretable results along with accurate predictions of the disease course evolution.
Assessing the Validity of a Survey of the Restaurant Health Promotion Environment

Our primary question was whether a telephone survey of restaurant personnel could provide accurate community-level measures of the restaurant health promotion environment. An obvious concern was that restaurant personnel might exaggerate the extent to which their establishment had a positive health promotion environment. Comparison with the most obvious "gold standard"--direct observation--showed fairly accurate reporting about nonsmoking seating arrangements, but restaurant personnel exaggerated the extent to which menu items were designated as low in fat. We also compared the restaurant-survey measures of nonsmoking seating availability at the community level with measures of the restrictiveness of local no-smoking ordinances. We found a positive relationship, as expected, between measures of the restrictiveness of ordinances and the amount of nonsmoking seating indicated by the restaurant survey.
Correlation between Blood and Oral Fluid Psychoactive Drug Concentrations and Cognitive Impairment in Driving under the Influence of Drugs

Background: The effects of drugs on driving performance should be checked with drug concentration in the brain and at the same time with the evaluation of both the behavioural and neurophysiological effects. The best accessible indicator of this information is the concentration of the drug and/or metabolites in blood and, to a certain extent, oral fluid. We sought to review international studies on correlation between blood and oral fluid drug concentrations, neurological correlates and cognitive impairment in driving under the influence of drugs. Methods: Relevant scientific articles were identified from PubMed, Cochrane Central, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, EMBASE up to April 2017. Results: Up to 2010, no epidemiological studies were available on this matter and International scientists suggested that even minimal amounts of parent drugs in blood and oral fluid could affect driving impairment. More recently, epidemiological data, systematic reviews and meta-analysis on drugged drivers allowed the suggestion of impairment concentration limits for the most common illicit drugs. These values were obtained comparing driving disability induced by psychotropic drugs with that of established blood alcohol limits. Differently from ethyl alcohol where both detection methods and concentration limits have been well established even with inhomogeneity of ranges within different countries, in case of drugs of abuse no official cut-offs have yet been established, nor any standardized analytical protocols. Conclusion: Multiple aspects of driving performance can be differently affected by illicit drugs, and even if for few of them some dose/concentration dependent impairment has been reported, a wider knowledge on concentration/impairment relationship is still missing.
Energy efficient resource allocation for NOMA in cellular IoT with energy harvesting

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers connectivity of massive low-power devices and sensors through the Internet which requires spectrum and energy efficient solutions. Recently, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been investigated to address the challenges associated with spectral efficiency and dense deployment of a large number of devices in 5G cellular networks. Further, energy harvesting can enhance the energy efficiency of IoT devices. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient resource allocation scheme for NOMA (EERA-NOMA) in cellular IoT with RF energy harvesting to address the above mentioned challenges. We model a framework to optimize user grouping of IoT devices in most appropriate resource blocks, power allocation, and time allocation for information transfer and energy harvesting. The objective is to maximize energy efficiency while satisfying constraints on the minimum data rate requirement of each user and transmit power. We adopted mesh adaptive direct search (MADS) algorithm to solve the formulated problem. Simulation results are presented to show the performance of proposed framework in comparison with existing work.
Heterogeneous Transfer with Deep Latent Correlation for Sentiment Analysis

Most traditional methods of image sentiment analysis focus on the design of visual features, and the usefulness of texts associated to the images have not been sufficiently investigated. Heterogeneous transfer learning has recently gained much attention as a new machine learning paradigm in which knowledge can be transferred from source domain feature space to target domain feature space. This paper proposes a novel approach that exploits deep latent correlation between visual and textual modalities. In our proposed method, we build a latent embedding space for symmetric heterogeneous feature transfer. The latent space is able to generate domain-specific and maximally correlative cross-domain features which are regarded as the semantic-intensive visual feature representation and used to train sentiment polarity classifiers. The results of experiments conducted on real-world data sets show that the proposed approach can achieve better sentiment classification accuracy by using multi-layer neural network to capture deeper internal relations.
Safety and tolerability of a 6‐week course of oseltamivir prophylaxis for seasonal influenza in children

Please cite this paper as: Reisinger et al. Safety and tolerability of a 6‐week course of oseltamivir prophylaxis for seasonal influenza in children. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses DOI: 10.1111/j.1750‐2659.2012. 00367.x.
Study on Gait Efficiency and Energy Cost of Below Knee Amputees After Therapeutic Practices

An earlier research advocated that a below knee amputee (BK) with conventional trans-tibial prosthesis attains higher gait efficiency at lower energy cost with therapeutic practices of proper time and co-ordination in compare to normal subjects of similar physical parameters and quality of life. The present study focused on comparative analysis of energy cost and gait efficiency between a group of below knee amputees and a control group (normal subjects without amputation) to indicate the consistency of the earlier findings. The subjects were selected with similar physical parameters and quality of life. Oxygen Uptake (VO2) and Heart Rate (HR) were measured by Cosmed® k4 b2 analyzer system. Gait efficiency (p < 0.0001) was found higher with lower energy cost for BK amputees after therapeutic practices than control group. The therapeutic activities contributed to efficient gait pattern for amputees ensuring proper time and co-ordination with balance in consistence to the earlier research.
Lactobacillus casei Inhibits Antigen-Induced IgE Secretion through Regulation of Cytokine Production in Murine Splenocyte Cultures

Background:Lactobacillus casei is a nonpathogenic gram-positive bacterium widely used in dairy products and has been shown to enhance the cellular immunity of the host. Methods: To examine the inhibitory effect of L. casei on IgE production, splenocytes obtained from ovalbumin (OVA)-primed BALB/c mice were restimulated in vitro with the same antigen in the presence of heat-killed L. casei. The effect of this bacterium on T helper (Th) phenotype development was also examined with naive T cells from OVA-specific T cell receptor-transgenic mice. Results:L. casei induced IFN-γ, but inhibited IL-4 and IL-5 secretion, and markedly suppressed total and antigen-specific IgE secretion by OVA-stimulated splenocytes. The inhibitory effect of L. casei on IgE, IL-4, and IL-5 production was partially abrogated by addition of neutralizing antibody to IFN-γ. Augmented IL-12 production was also observed in the cell cultures containing L. casei, and anti-IL-12 monoclonal antibody completely restored the IgE, IL-4, and IL-5 production to the control levels. The IL-12 augmentation by L. casei was macrophage-dependent. The Th cell development assay showed the ability of L. casei to induce Th1 development preferentially. This effect was also completely blocked by anti-IL-12 antibody. Conclusions: This is the first demonstration that a nonpathogenic microorganism, L. casei, can inhibit antigen-induced IgE production through induction of IL-12 secretion by macrophages. The findings suggest a potential use of this organism in preventing IgE-mediated allergy.
Design and implementation of a low cost web server using ESP32 for real-time photovoltaic system monitoring

This paper presents a method for applying a web server based on ESP32 to a small photovoltaic (PV) power system to monitor and/or collect the PV and the battery current, voltage data. The designed system uses low-cost sensors, a microcontroller ESP32, Wi-Fi, and an SD-card reader. The ESP32 collects data from sensors. All of the data are saved in a text file on an SD-card, which is connected with ESP32 SPI pins. The text file is saved on the SD card for a week or longer, after which the system deletes all the data and starts saving new data. The web page file is saved on an SD card as well, so the ESP32 is programmed to access the web page by using the Wi-Fi via a laptop, cellphone, or tablet. Moreover, the web page has a link that allows users to download the data text file simply by clicking on the link. This can also be done remotely. The results of the experiments demonstrate that the web server works in real-time and can be effectively used for monitoring small solar energy systems.
Impact of Human Mutant TGFβ1/Fc Protein on Memory and Regulatory T Cell Homeostasis Following Lymphodepletion in Nonhuman Primates

Transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) plays a key role in T cell homeostasis and peripheral tolerance. We evaluated the influence of a novel human mutant TGFβ1/Fc (human IgG4 Fc) fusion protein on memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cell (Tmem) responses in vitro and their recovery following antithymocyte globulin (ATG)–mediated lymphodepletion in monkeys. TGFβ1/Fc induced Smad2/3 protein phosphorylation in rhesus and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and augmented the suppressive effect of rapamycin on rhesus Tmem proliferation after either alloactivation or anti‐CD3/CD28 stimulation. In combination with IL‐2, the incidence of CD4+CD25hiFoxp3hi regulatory T cells (Treg) and Treg:Th17 ratios were increased. In lymphodepleted monkeys, whole blood trough levels of infused TGFβ1/Fc were maintained between 2 and 7 μg/mL for 35 days. Following ATG administration, total T cell numbers were reduced markedly. In those given TGFβ1/Fc infusion, CD8+ T cell recovery to predepletion levels was delayed compared to controls. Additionally, numbers of CD4+CD25hiCD127lo Treg increased at 4–6 weeks after depletion but subsequently declined to predepletion levels by 12 weeks. In all monkeys, CD4+CD25hiFoxp3hi Treg/CD4+IL‐17+ cell ratios were reduced, particularly after stopping TGFβ1/Fc infusion. Thus, human TGFβ1/Fc infusion may delay Tmem recovery following lymphodepletion in nonhuman primates. Combined (low‐dose) IL‐2 infusion may be required to improve the Treg:Th17 ratio following lymphodepletion.
Laterality and Lateralization in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Using a Standardized Neuro-Psychomotor Assessment

ABSTRACT A detailed assessment of laterality in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was realized, including handedness and other measures (muscle tone, manual performance, dominant eye), using a standardized battery for the developmental assessment of neuro-psychomotor functions. The results of the laterality tests relating to cerebral hemisphere organization (spontaneous gestural laterality and tonic laterality) were different in ASD children, and indicate that the cerebral organization could be disrupted. These assessments, added to the observations of usual laterality most often reported in the literature, provide better understanding of the developmental organization from the pathophysiological point of view in children with ASD.
Protective role of FKBP51 in calcium entry-induced endothelial barrier disruption

Pulmonary artery endothelial cells (PAECs) express a cation current, ISOC (store-operated calcium entry current), which when activated permits calcium entry leading to inter-endothelial cell gap formation. The large molecular weight immunophilin FKBP51 inhibits ISOC but not other calcium entry pathways in PAECs. However, it is unknown whether FKBP51-mediated inhibition of ISOC is sufficient to protect the endothelial barrier from calcium entry-induced disruption. The major objective of this study was to determine whether FKBP51-mediated inhibition of ISOC leads to decreased calcium entry-induced inter-endothelial gap formation and thus preservation of the endothelial barrier. Here, we measured the effects of thapsigargin-induced ISOC on the endothelial barrier in control and FKBP51 overexpressing PAECs. FKBP51 overexpression decreased actin stress fiber and inter-endothelial cell gap formation in addition to attenuating the decrease in resistance observed with control cells using electric cell-substrate impedance sensing. Finally, the thapsigargin-induced increase in dextran flux was abolished in FKBP51 overexpressing PAECs. We then measured endothelial permeability in perfused lungs of FKBP51 knockout (FKBP51–/–) mice and observed increased calcium entry-induced permeability compared to wild-type mice. To begin to dissect the mechanism underlying the FKBP51-mediated inhibition of ISOC, a second goal of this study was to determine the role of the microtubule network. We observed that FKBP51 overexpressing PAECs exhibited increased microtubule polymerization that is critical for inhibition of ISOC by FKBP51. Overall, we have identified FKBP51 as a novel regulator of endothelial barrier integrity, and these findings are significant as they reveal a protective mechanism for endothelium against calcium entry-induced disruption.
Stochastic dynamics of genetic broadcasting networks

The complex genetic programs of eukaryotic cells are often regulated by key transcription factors occupying or clearing out of a large number of genomic locations. Orchestrating the residence times of these factors is therefore important for the well organized functioning of a large network. The classic models of genetic switches sidestep this timing issue by assuming the binding of transcription factors to be governed entirely by thermodynamic protein-DNA affinities. Here we show that relying on passive thermodynamics and random release times can lead to a “time-scale crisis” of master genes that broadcast their signals to large number of binding sites. We demonstrate that this “time-scale crisis” can be resolved by actively regulating residence times through molecular stripping. We illustrate these ideas by studying the stochastic dynamics of the genetic network of the central eukaryotic master regulator NFκB which broadcasts its signals to many downstream genes that regulate immune response, apoptosis etc.
Bengali speech recognition: A double layered LSTM-RNN approach

Speech recognition may be an intuitive process for humans, but it turns out to be intimidating to make computer automatically recognize speeches. Although recent progresses in speech recognition have been very promising in other languages, Bengali lacks such progress. There are very little research works published for Bengali speech recognizer. In this paper, we have investigated long short term memory (LSTM), a recurrent neural network, approach to recognize individual Bengali words. We divided each word into a number of frames each containing 13 mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), providing us with a useful set of distinctive features. We trained a deep LSTM model with the frames to recognize the most plausible phonemes. The final layer of our deep model is a softmax layer having equal number of units to the number of phonemes. We picked the most probable phonemes for each time frame. Finally, we passed these phonemes through a filter where we got individual words as the output. Our system achieves word detection error rate 13.2% and phoneme detection error rate 28.7% on Bangla-Real-Number audio dataset.
2–18 GHz Conformal Low-Profile Log-Periodic Array on a Cylindrical Conductor

This paper presents a conformal log-periodic array covering an ultra-wideband of 2–18 GHz. It employs monopoles of different heights for the high band, top-hat monopoles for the middle band, and folded top-hat monopoles for the low band. The top hats help to achieve a low profile of the monopoles while the folding is to maintain a good input resistance at the low band. A meandering microstrip line on the bottom is used to feed the array. The proposed antenna is mounted on a conducting cylindrical surface with all the top hats conformal and aligned to the outline of the cylinder. A prototype is fabricated and tested. Measured results show that an impedance bandwidth from 2 to 18.3 GHz (9.15:1) for VSWR < 2 is obtained. Over the same band, the measured gain is better than 7.2 dBi. The antenna has a very low profile of $0.053~\lambda _{L}$ at the lowest operating frequency, which should be useful in many communication systems such as missile and airborne applications.
Immunological pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory state of the gastrointestinal tract and can be classified into 2 main clinical phenomena: Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). The pathogenesis of IBD, including CD and UC, involves the presence of pathogenic factors such as abnormal gut microbiota, immune response dysregulation, environmental changes, and gene variants. Although many investigations have tried to identify novel pathogenic factors associated with IBD that are related to environmental, genetic, microbial, and immune response factors, a full understanding of IBD pathogenesis is unclear. Thus, IBD treatment is far from optimal, and patient outcomes can be unsatisfactory. As result of massive studying on IBD, T helper 17 (Th17) cells and innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are investigated on their effects on IBD. A recent study of the plasticity of Th17 cells focused primarily on colitis. ILCs also emerging as novel cell family, which play a role in the pathogenesis of IBD. IBD immunopathogenesis is key to understanding the causes of IBD and can lead to the development of IBD therapies. The aim of this review is to explain the pathogenesis of IBD, with a focus on immunological factors and therapies.
Developmental Control of Argininosuccinate Lyase Gene by Methylation

The gene of argininosuccinate lyase (ASL) is expressed in a developmental specific manner in the liver and is regulated by hormones, namely glucocorticoids, glucagon and insulin. To assess the role of DNA methylation in the developmental pattern of ASL gene expression, we analyzed the restriction profile obtained by cleavage of genomic DNA with MspI and HpaII in fetal and adult rat liver, two developmental stages with different levels of expression of the ASL gene. Southern analysis showed that the 5′ region of this gene appeared more methylated in the fetal liver which expressed ASL at a low level than in the adult liver where the ASL gene is highly expressed. Moreover, treatment of fetuses of various gestational stages with the hypomethylating agent 5-azacytidine for 18 h caused an increase of the hepatic ASL activity and mRNA level. The stimulating effect of this drug could be also observed in vitro in cultured fetal hepatocytes. These results suggest a developmental control of the ASL gene by the DNA methylation status.