Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constitutive BDNF/TrkB signaling is required for normal cardiac contraction and relaxation

Significance BDNF plays a key role in neuron development, survival, and function, with actions occurring through the stimulation of the tropomyosin-related kinase receptor B (TrkB) receptor. Whether BDNF/TrkB signaling has any physiologic role in governing myocardial function is unknown. Here we report that intact BDNF/TrkB signaling is required for the heart to fully contract and relax. These actions occur independently from and in addition to β-adrenergic influence. BDNF-induced enhancement of myocardial performance occurs via direct modulation of Ca2+ cycling in a calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-dependent manner. Thus, BDNF/TrkB signaling represents a previously unidentified way by which the peripheral nervous system controls cardiac muscle physiology. Our study suggests that loss or alterations in BDNF/TrkB stimulation may contribute to the pathogenesis of myocardial dysfunction in acute or chronic disease conditions. BDNF and its associated tropomyosin-related kinase receptor B (TrkB) nurture vessels and nerves serving the heart. However, the direct effect of BDNF/TrkB signaling on the myocardium is poorly understood. Here we report that cardiac-specific TrkB knockout mice (TrkB−/−) display impaired cardiac contraction and relaxation, showing that BDNF/TrkB signaling acts constitutively to sustain in vivo myocardial performance. BDNF enhances normal cardiomyocyte Ca2+ cycling, contractility, and relaxation via Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII). Conversely, failing myocytes, which have increased truncated TrkB lacking tyrosine kinase activity and chronically activated CaMKII, are insensitive to BDNF. Thus, BDNF/TrkB signaling represents a previously unidentified pathway by which the peripheral nervous system directly and tonically influences myocardial function in parallel with β-adrenergic control. Deficits in this system are likely additional contributors to acute and chronic cardiac dysfunction.
PD-L1 expression is regulated by both DNA methylation and NF-kB during EMT signaling in non-small cell lung carcinoma

ABSTRACT Tumor cells, which undergo Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) acquire increased capacities of proliferation, invasion and have the ability to generate metastases by escaping the immune system during their systemic migration. To escape the immune system, cancer cells may induce tolerance or resist elimination by immune effectors via multiple mechanisms and we hypothesized that EMT may control the expression of immune checkpoint inhibitors, then promoting immune evasion. PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) but not PD-L2 nor Galectin 9 or Death receptor (DR4, DR5 and Fas) and ligands (FasL and TRAIL) expression was up-regulated during cytokine-driven EMT in a reversible manner. Moreover PD-L1 is overexpressed in VIMENTIN positive NSCLC tissues. We also demonstrated that the expression of PD-L1 required both TNFα and TGFβ1. Indeed, TGFβ1 decreased DNMT1 content and that resulted in PD-L1 promoter demethylation whereas TNFα induced the NF-κB pathway that promoted expression of demethylated PD-L1 promoter.
The clinical potential of antiepileptic gene therapy

Epilepsy afflicts ∼ 1% of the population and, although the majority of patients gain effective seizure control through existing medications, a significant number prove refractory to treatment. For intractable focal epilepsies, gene therapy techniques provide a realistic treatment alternative, especially in patients who are considered surgical candidates. Neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels offer attractive gene therapy targets, but the pattern of viral vector transduction and gene expression can dramatically influence the final outcome. Recently, studies have shown that viral vector-mediated transduction and expression of neuroactive peptides, such as galanin and neuropeptide Y, can attenuate seizure sensitivity and prevent seizure-induced cell death in vivo. As future studies define the best means to avoid immunological silencing, as well as establish transduction properties in pathological, epileptic tissue, it should be possible to develop an efficacious gene therapy for intractable focal epilepsy.
Experimental Comparison of Control Approaches on Trajectory Tracking Control of a 3-DOF Parallel Robot

In this paper, the effect of control approaches on improvement of trajectory tracking accuracy of a 3-degree-of-freedom (DOF) planar parallel robot is studied through the experimental evaluation of four controllers: proportional-integral (PI)-type synchronized control, adaptive synchronized (A-S) control, conventional proportional-integral-differential (PID) control and adaptive control. The adaptive control and A-S control are dynamic model-based while the PID and PI-type synchronized control are not. Given the closed-loop kinematic chain mechanism structure, tracking control of the planar parallel robot may be treated as a synchronization control problem; hence, use of the synchronized-type control approaches can substantially improve tracking accuracy of the robot end-effector compared with use of the nonsynchronized-type control approaches. Further, with uncertain dynamic parameters, use of the A-S control, a model-based synchronized control approach, can, thus, improve the tracking performance. Through experiments conducted on an experimental 3-DOF planar parallel robot, the previous claims are demonstrated.
Fuzzy fusion fairness relations for the evaluation of user preference

In this paper, formal representations for user preferences will be provided, which also take fairness in the achievement of probably conflicting goals into account. The analysis of the Bottleneck Flow Control (BFC) algorithm for congestion avoidance in traffic networks will serve as a base to specify extensions of relations among preference sets. In particular, these relations are the lexicographic minimum, the maxmin fairness, and the newly introduced ordered-ordered weighted averaging operator. All of them are shown to become, in a relational sense, maximized by the BFC algorithm. Their further expansion by introducing fuzzy fusion operators in their formal definitions than establishes a comprehensive sets of relations. The application of these relations to the Multiple Relation Analysis (MRA) of subjective video quality evaluation data is demonstrated and gives the conclusion that also fairness criterions are present in such evaluations, at least as a secondary preference criterion.
Identification of increased nitric oxide biosynthesis during pregnancy in rats

We reported previously that plasma levels, urinary excretion, and metabolic production of cyclic guanosine 3′,5′‐monophosphate (cGMP) are increased in gravid rats, and postulated that endogenous nitric oxide (NO), a potent vasodilator and immune modulator, may mediate this change. Four lines of evidence are now presented demonstrating increased biosynthesis of NO during pregnancy in rats: 1) Urinary excretion and plasma levels of the stable NO metabolite, nitrate, are elevated in pregnant rats; urinary excretion of nitrate is increased in pseudopregnant rats. 2) The urinary excretion of cGMP also increases during pregnancy and pseudopregnancy, paralleling the rise in urinary nitrate excretion. 3) Chronic treatment with the NO synthase inhibitor, NG‐nitroarginine methyl ester (NAME), inhibits the increase in urinary nitrate excretion. 4) Nitric oxide hemoglobin is detected by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy in the blood of pregnant, but not in nonpregnant, rats. The results show endogenous NO production is increased in gravid rats. This finding raises the possibility that NO may contribute to maternal vasodilation and uterine immune suppression of normal pregnancy. —Conrad, K. P., Joffe, G. M. , Kruszyna, H. , Kruszyna, R. , Rochelle, L. G. , Smith, R. P., Chavez, J. E. , Mosher, M. D. Identification of increased nitric oxide biosynthesis during pregnancy in rats. FASEB J. 7: 566‐571; 1993.
Experimental procedure for the evaluation of behaviour and biochemical stress of Palinurus elephas exposed to boat noise pollution

The present technical report describe the experimental procedure adopted to investigate the behaviour (locomotor states and acoustic emissions) and biochemical (haemolymphatic parameters) responses of the European spiny lobster (Palinurus elephas) after the exposure to acoustic pollution consisting of boats noises. The locomotor analysis automatically estimated the movement/position events of lobsters, offering a novel, high-throughput method of measuring the relationship of the lobster compared to traditional manual analyses. The biochemical effect on the lobsters was evaluated by estimating the serum glucose concentration; total protein concentration; and THC, DHC and Hsp70 expression as stress indexes.
Older firefighters are susceptible to age-related impairments in heat dissipation.

PURPOSE The aging-induced reduction in whole-body heat loss (HL) capacity generates concerns regarding the continued participation of older workers in occupations such as firefighting. We compared HL and change in body heat storage (S) during intermittent exercise in warm/dry and warm/humid conditions among older male firefighters (OLDER, n = 9, age = 54.7 ± 2.1 yr), older (age-matched) nonfirefighters (NON-FF, n = 9, age = 52.8 ± 1.2 yr), and young firefighters (YOUNG, n = 6, age = 26.7 ± 0.8 yr). METHODS We measured evaporative heat loss and dry heat exchange via the Snellen whole-body direct calorimeter while participants performed four 15-min bouts of cycling at 400 W of metabolic heat production separated by 15-min recovery periods in warm/dry (35 °C, 20% relative humidity) and warm/humid (35 °C, 60% relative humidity) conditions. RESULTS We found no differences (P > 0.05) in HL or cumulative S (ΔS) between OLDER and NON-FF in the warm/dry (ΔS: OLDER = 233 ± 26 kJ, NON-FF = 270 ± 29 kJ) or warm/humid (ΔS: OLDER = 548 ± 24 kJ, NON-FF = 504 ± 47 kJ) conditions. The OLDER and NON-FF had lower HL than the YOUNG during exercise in both environmental conditions (P < 0.05). The OLDER stored 40% (P > 0.05) and 46% (P = 0.004) more heat than YOUNG in the warm/dry and warm/humid conditions, respectively. The NON-FF stored 63% (P = 0.016) and 34% (P = 0.025) more heat than the YOUNG in the dry and humid conditions, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Older firefighters and age-matched nonfirefighters demonstrate similar HL and S during work in the heat. Moreover, HL is significantly reduced in older compared to younger firefighters during exercise in both warm/dry and warm/humid conditions. Consequently, older firefighters may be more susceptible to thermal injury while on duty than their younger counterparts.
The Effects of Wrongful Discharge Protection on Foreign Multinationals: Evidence from Transaction‐Level Data

Using detailed micro-level data from 1977 to 1994, we analyze the impact of employment protection measures adopted across US states on the number and the value of new inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) transactions completed by foreign-owned companies. Our findings point to a robust negative association between the implementation of employment protection laws and both the extensive and the intensive margins of FDI in the US. When states adopt regulations that increase employers firing costs, FDI transactions by foreign multinational companies become less frequent and decrease in value, with stronger negative impacts in more labour-intensive industries. There is also some evidence of diversion and spillover effects from the adoption of these measures by neighbouring states.
Morbidity, mortality, and quality-of-life outcomes of patients requiring ≥14 days of mechanical ventilation

ObjectiveTo determine the outcome and health-related quality of life of patients requiring ≥14 days of mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit (ICU). DesignProspective cohort study with post-ICU, cross-sectional, health-related quality-of-life survey. SettingA 17-bed ICU in a university hospital. PatientsA consecutive cohort of 347 patients receiving mechanical ventilation for ≥14 days. InterventionsNone. Measurements and Main ResultsOf the patients enrolled in the study, 150 (44%) died in the ICU and 197 were discharged (58 of 197 died 1–57 months after discharge). Factors associated with ICU death according to multivariate logistic regression analysis were age ≥65 yrs, preadmission New York Heart Association functional class of ≥3, a preadmission immunocompromised status, septic shock at ICU admission, renal replacement therapy in the ICU, and nosocomial septicemia. Cox proportional hazards multivariate analysis identified age of ≥65, a preadmission immunocompromised status, and duration of mechanical ventilation for >35 days as independent predictors of death after ICU discharge. By contrast, postcardiac surgery patients had a better outcome. Health-related quality of life was evaluated for 87 of the 99 long-term survivors after a median follow-up of 3 yrs by using the Nottingham Health Profile and St. George’s Respiratory questionnaires. Compared with those of a general French population, their scores were significantly worse for each of the Nottingham Health Profile domains, except social isolation. Nottingham Health Profile scores did not significantly differ between postcardiac and nonpostcardiac surgery patients, men and women (except that women felt more socially isolated), and patients with and without acute respiratory distress syndrome (except for more sleep disorders in those with acute respiratory distress syndrome). Finally, pulmonary-specific St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire global score was worse for acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors. ConclusionsProlonged mechanical ventilation is associated with impaired health-related quality of life compared with that of a matched general population. Despite these handicaps, 99% of the patients evaluated were independent and living at home 3 yrs after ICU discharge. Future studies should focus on physical or psychosocial rehabilitation that could lead to improved management of patients after their ICU stay.
Rejection using rank statistics based on HMM state shortlists

We study a measure of confidence in the speech recognizer output based on a rank-order probability model of HMM state likelihoods. The motivation for rank models is based on the conjecture that statistics based on ranks are likely to be more robust than those based on the likelihood values, especially when the test and training distributions are mismatched. We investigate a number of different issues that arise in the development of rank models. We test the proposed rank-order model on two ASR rejection tasks: a combination of the log-likelihood ratio and rank order probability yields relative reductions of the equal error rates of 31% and 8% (for the two tasks, respectively) over the log-likelihood ratio alone.
Motor Control Exercises Reduces Pain and Disability in Chronic and Recurrent Low Back Pain: A Meta-Analysis

Study Design. Meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials. Objective. To determine the short-term, intermediate, and long-term effectiveness of MCE, with regard to pain and disability, in patients with chronic and recurrent low-back pain. Summary of Background Data. Previous meta-analyses have shown no difference between the effects of MCE and general exercise in the treatment of low back pain. Several high quality studies on this topic have been published lately, warranting a new meta-analysis. Methods. We searched electronic databases up to October 2011 for randomized controlled trials clearly distinguishing MCE from other treatments. We extracted pain and disability outcomes and converted them to a 0 to 100 scale. We used the RevMan5 (Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark) software to perform pooled analyses to determine the weighted mean differences (WMDs) between MCE and 5 different control interventions. Results. Sixteen studies were included. The pooled results favored MCE compared with general exercise with regard to disability during all time periods (improvement in WMDs ranged from −4.65 to −4.86), and with regard to pain in the short and intermediate term (WMDs were −7.80 and −6.06, respectively). Compared with spinal manual therapy, MCE was superior with regard to disability during all time periods (the WMDs ranged between −5.27 and −6.12), but not with regard to pain. Furthermore, MCE was superior to minimal intervention during all time periods with regard to both pain (the WMDs ranged between −10.18 and −13.32) and disability (the WMDs ranged between −5.62 and −9.00). Conclusion. In patients with chronic and recurrent low back pain, MCE seem to be superior to several other treatments. More studies are, however, needed to investigate what subgroups of patients experiencing LBP respond best to MCE.
Linking TVET Institutions and Industry in Kenya: Where Are We? - TI Journals

Abstract: Linking of the private sector and the education institutions is a major rising concern in many developing countries. International recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for the improvement of technical education and vocational training systems systematically referred to the need to forge closer links between training and the labour market. In the Kenya vision 2030 on education and training under the social strategy, the government intends to invest in its people by strengthening partnership with the private sector while in sessional paper No. 2 of 1996 on Industrial Transformation and Development, the government of Kenya set the target of achieving newly industrialized status by the year 2020. TVET is the pillar in facilitating this and linking with Industry the key to achieving this. Adequate collaboration between Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions and industries would lead to provision of relevant practical skills for industrialization. This paper focuses on linkages between industries and TVET institutions in Nairobi with the aim of establishing the extent of collaboration between TVET and industry. Survey research design was adopted for the study and simple random sampling technique was applied to select 340 respondents from the study population. Questionnaires were used in data collection. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS and results presented in tabular and graphical forms. It was found out that industrial attachment was the most pronounced linkage. Lack of initiative by TVET institutions and poor response from the industries were among the major challenges facing the linking of TVET and industry.
A Categorization Theory of Spatial Voting: How the Center Divides the Political Space

This article presents a categorization theory of spatial voting, which postulates that voters perceive political stances through coarse classifications. Because voters think in terms of categories defined by the ideological center, their behavior deviates from standard models of utility maximization along ideological continua. Their preferences are characterized by discontinuities, rewarding parties on their side of the ideological space more than existing spatial models would predict. While this study concurs with prior studies suggesting that voters tend to use a proximity rule, it argues that this rule mainly serves to distinguish among parties of the same side. Overall, the results suggest that voters’ party evaluations are characterized by a nontrivial identity component, generating in-group biases not captured by the existing spatial models of voting.
The Convergence of Linear Stationary Iterative Processes for Solving Singular Unstructured Systems of Linear Equations

This paper reviews the convergence properties of linear stationary iterative processes for solving large unstructured systems of linear equations. Special attention is given to the case where the system to be solved is singular and possibly inconsistent.The review starts by investigating the iteration ${\bf x}_{k + 1} = H{\bf x}_k + {\bf f},\, k = 0,1,2, \cdots $, when the system $(I - H){\bf x} = {\bf f}$ is inconsistent. In this case the sequence $\left\{ {\bf x_k } \right\}$ always diverges. Nevertheless, when H is “convergent” there exists a vector ${\bf q} \in \,{\text{Null}}(I - H)$ such that the sequence $\hat {\bf x}_k = {\bf x}_k - k{\bf q}$ converges. The limit of this sequence, $\hat {\bf x}$, solves a certain least-squares problem, and the sequence of residual vectors, ${\bf r}_k = (I - H){\bf x}_k - {\bf f}$, converges to $(I - H)\hat {\bf x} - {\bf f}$. Furthermore, if H is similar to a real diagonal matrix then the corresponding norms of ${\bf r}_k $ and $\hat {\bf x}_k - \hat {\bf x}$ decr.
Analyzing User Comments on YouTube Coding Tutorial Videos

Video coding tutorials enable expert and noviceprogrammers to visually observe real developers write, debug, and execute code. Previous research in this domain has focusedon helping programmers find relevant content in coding tutorialvideos as well as understanding the motivation and needs ofcontent creators. In this paper, we focus on the link connectingprogrammers creating coding videos with their audience. Morespecifically, we analyze user comments on YouTube codingtutorial videos. Our main objective is to help content creators toeffectively understand the needs and concerns of their viewers, thus respond faster to these concerns and deliver higher-qualitycontent. A dataset of 6000 comments sampled from 12 YouTubecoding videos is used to conduct our analysis. Important userquestions and concerns are then automatically classified andsummarized. The results show that Support Vector Machinescan detect useful viewers' comments on coding videos with anaverage accuracy of 77%. The results also show that SumBasic, an extractive frequency-based summarization technique withredundancy control, can sufficiently capture the main concernspresent in viewers' comments.
Studies on the molecular mechanisms of seed germination

Seed germination that begins with imbibition and ends with radicle emergence is the first step for plant growth. Successful germination is not only crucial for seedling establishment but also important for crop yield. After being dispersed from mother plant, seed undergoes continuous desiccation in ecosystem and selects proper environment to trigger germination. Owing to the contribution of transcriptomic, proteomic, and molecular biological studies, molecular aspect of seed germination is elucidated well in Arabidopsis. Recently, more and more proteomic and genetic studies concerning cereal seed germination were performed on rice (Oryza sativa) and barley (Hordeum vulgare), which possess completely different seed structure and domestication background with Arabidopsis. In this review, both the common features and the distinct mechanisms of seed germination are compared among different plant species including Arabidopsis, rice, and maize. These features include morphological changes, cell and its related structure recovery, metabolic activation, hormone behavior, and transcription and translation activation. This review will provide more comprehensive insights into the molecular mechanisms of seed germination.