Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Altered Cellular Ca2+ and Na+ Transport in Diabetes Mellitus

Platelet intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and its response to stimuli (ADP and thrombin) were studied in 15 insulin-dependent and 22 non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus patients with the fluorescent probe Fura 2. The activity of Ca2+-ATPase and Na+-K+-ATPase, membrane fluidity, and cholesterol and phospholipid content were also determined in platelet membranes. Compared with control subjects, diabetic patients showed 1) increased platelet [Ca2+]1 in the resting state, 2) higher Ca2+ levels after stimulation with thrombin and ADP, due entirely to increased resting concentrations, 3)reduced activity of Na+-K+-ATPase, 4)increased activity of Ca2+-ATPase, 5) higher fluidity of the platelet membrane, and 6)increased membrane concentration of total phospholipids. Na+-K+-ATPase activity was inversely related to platelet [Ca2+]1 in each group studied, whereas Ca2+-ATPase activity was positively correlated with intracellular Ca2+ levels. The data obtained in diabetic subjects suggest an abnormality in Ca2+ and Na+ transport across the platelet membrane that might be responsible for the reported platelet hyperreactivity to stimuli in diabetes.
Rotary transformer with electrical steel core for brushless excitation of synchronous machines

Salient pole synchronous machines (SPSYM) feature a high efficiency over a wide speed range and a high power density. Furthermore, the adjustable excitation as an additional degree of freedom can be used to optimize the overall efficiency and to control the temperature distribution between rotor and stator. Therefore, the SPSYM is suitable for drive trains of electric vehicles. For the excitation of the rotor with a DC current, a power transmission system is needed. The disadvantages of conventional slip rings such as the limited lifetime and noise emissions increase the interest in the development of brushless transmission systems. This paper presents a novel rotary transformer design with a core made of electrical steel. The innovative design offers the possibility to arrange the electrical steel along the transformer's circumference in order to axially direct the magnetic flux. Furthermore it offers the opportunity to place the transformer inside the machine's housing instead of placing it in a seperate housing. That leads to a more compact machine design. Considering the transient effects, the leakage inductances, iron losses, and copper losses, the electromagnetic design of the rotary transformer is discussed. Furthermore, analytical calculations are validated with measurements on a prototype.
Fishes associated with artificial reefs: attributing changes to attraction or production using novel approaches

Two widely-recognized hypotheses propose that increases in fish abundance at artificial reefs are caused by (a) the attraction and redistribution of existing individuals, with no net increase in overall abundance and (b) the addition of new individuals by production, leading to a net increase in overall abundance. Inappropriate experimental designs have prevented many studies from discriminating between the two processes. Eight of 11 experiments comparing fish abundances on artificial reefs with those on adjacent soft bottom habitats were compromised by a lack of replication or spatial interspersion in the design itself. Only three studies featured proper controls and replicated designs with the interspersion of reef and control sites. Goodness of fit tests of abundance data for 67 species from these studies indicated that more fishes occur on reefs than on controls, particularly for species that typically occur over hard substrata. Conversely, seagrass specialists favour controls over reefs. Changes in the appearance of fish abundance trajectories driven by manipulation of sampling intervals highlight the need for adequate temporal sampling to encompass key life history events, particularly juvenile settlement. To ultimately determine whether attraction and production is responsible for increased abundances on reefs, requires two experimental features: 1) control sites, both interspersed among artificial reefs and at reef and non-reef locations outside the test area and 2) incorporation of fish age and length data over time. Techniques such as otolith microchemistry, telemetry and stable isotope analysis can be used to help resolve feeding and movement mechanisms driving attraction and production.
Incidence of retinal detachment following cataract extraction.

The incidence of retinal detachment following cataract extraction has been reported in the literature as being between 0.4% to 3.5%. This communication reports the incidence of retinal detachment in 5,541 eyes, all of which had zonulolysis by alpha chymotrypsin. In this series, 122 eyes (2.2%) developed retinal detachment following cataract extraction, a rate showing no increase over those series reported without the use of alpha chymotrypsin.
Beliefs about health and diabetes in men of different ethnic origin.

AIM This paper reports the findings of a study exploring the health and illness beliefs of men with diabetes, who were from different cultural backgrounds and living in Sweden. BACKGROUND No studies have been reported that have focused on the beliefs about health and illness in men with diabetes mellitus of different ethnic origin. Beliefs may affect self-care and care-seeking behaviour. METHOD An explorative study design and purposive sampling procedure was used. Focus-group interviews were held with 35 men with diabetes and aged between 39 and 78 years. Fourteen participants were born in Arabic countries, 10 in former Yugoslavia and 11 in Sweden. FINDINGS Important factors for health were the ability to be occupied/employed and economically independent and, especially among Arabs and former Yugoslavians, sexual functioning. Swedes focused on heredity, lifestyle and management of diabetes, while non-Swedes claimed the influence of supernatural factors and emotional stress related to the role of being an immigrant and migratory experiences as factors related to development of diabetes and having a negative influence on health. Swedes and Arabs described health as "freedom from disease" in contrast to many former Yugoslavians who described health as "wealth and the most important thing in life". Knowledge about diabetes was limited among the men studied, but Arabs showed an active information-seeking behaviour compared with Swedes and former Yugoslavians. Non-Swedish respondents, particularly Arabs, had sought help from health care professionals to a greater extent than Swedes, who were more likely to use self-care measures. CONCLUSION Being occupied/employed and having knowledge about the body and management of diabetes are important for positive health development. There are dissimilarities in beliefs about health and diabetes that influence self-care behaviour and health care seeking. Men's cultural backgrounds and spiritual beliefs need to be considered in diabetes care.
A Diachronic Study of Monophthongization in Washington D.C.

Glide shortening in vowels of the PRICE class (e.g., pry as 'prah' and prize as 'prahz') is attested in both Southern and African American English (Thomas, 2007; Bernstein and Gregory, 1993). While White speakers tend to shorten the offglide in PRICE before voiceless obstruents, AAVE speakers retain it (Bernstein and Gregory, 1993). However, glide shortening has been recently found to be spreading to the pre-voiceless contexts for AAVE speakers in Detroit and Memphis (Anderson, 2002; Fridland, 2003). Given this surprising leveling in communities in the South and North, we asked whether PRICE patterns similarly in Washington D.C., a place not easily categorized as North or South. We also asked if there was any significant change of glide shortening over time between two groups of four AAVE speakers.
Inducing multivariate decision trees with the R/sup 4/-rule

Decision tree (DT) is often considered as a comprehensible learning model. If the data set is large, however, the induced DT may be too large to understand. Currently, we have proposed a non-genetic evolutionary algorithm called R/sup 4/-rule for producing the smallest nearest neighbor classifiers (NNCs). In this paper, we propose two new approaches for inducing DTs with the R/sup 4/-rule. The DTs considered here are multivariate, and there is an NNC with two or more prototypes in each non-terminal node. In the first method, the prototypes are found directly from the training set. In the second method, the prototypes are found from the data assigned to each nonterminal node. Using these methods, we can induce more compact and more comprehensible DTs. The efficiency and efficacy of the methods are verified through experiments with several public databases.
Comparison of Prostaglandin E2 Receptor Subtype 4 Agonist and Sulfasalazine in Mouse Colitis Prevention and Treatment

Prodrugs of 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA), such as sulfasalazine, have been the mainstay for the treatment and maintenance of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) for decades, which is attributable to their antiadaptive immune activity. However, 5-ASA compromises regeneration of intestinal epithelia and induces apoptosis. The majority of patients eventually undergo colectomy. Agonists for the prostaglandin E2 subtype 4 (EP4) receptor have been shown to protect epithelial barrier against colitis-inducing agents and could be valuable alternatives for sulfasalazine. Here, we compared sulfasalazine and a novel EP4 agonist for their abilities to prevent colitis induction and relieve symptoms of established colitis in a dextran sulfate sodium–indomethacin mouse model. The EP4 agonist dose-dependently alleviated weight loss in colitis mice. Compared with sulfasalazine at 100 mg/kg on the colitis induction model, the EP4 agonist at 0.2 mg/kg was superior in reducing colitis symptoms, preventing increase of innate immune cells, and ameliorating inflammation in colon. In mice with established colitis, sulfasalazine quickly reversed weight loss but with fading efficacy. The EP4 agonist, in contrast, had slow but sustained effects on body weight gain and was more efficacious in epithelial regeneration. Such temporal differences between sulfasalazine and the EP4 agonist actions seemingly led to no additive effect in combination therapy. In conclusion, the EP4 agonist would be more efficacious in the maintenance of remission because of both anti-innate immune responses and epithelial regeneration activity, whereas sulfasalazine would be more suitable for induction of remission because of its rapid onset of antiadaptive inflammation action.
A user-centric approach to automated service provisioning

This paper addresses the problem of dynamic service provisioning. The vision is that customers would be able to review a set of services or service packages, select or customize a package, send their selection to a service provider, whereupon the provider clicks an "execute" button, and the services are turned on, monitored, and managed. To address this issue, we propose a framework for a service provisioning system. The key issues of the framework are: (i) the concept of a service template and (ii) the idea of looking at a service template as a case and applying case-based reasoning methods to an automated service provisioning system.
Pharmacodynamic monitoring of calcineurin inhibitor therapy: is there a clinical benefit?

Immunosuppressive therapy should provide a maximum of efficacy with a minimum of toxicity. The introduction of the immunosuppressive calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) cyclosporine A (CsA) in the early 1980s and tacrolimus (Tac) in the 1990s improved renal allograft survival, especially by a reduction of the acute rejection rate in the first year after transplantation [1,2]. With the increased experience of CNIs, the early and long-term side effects such as nephrotoxicity [3,4], post-transplant cancer [5,6] and metabolic deteriorations appeared [7]. Although the CNIs are one of the pivotal immunosuppressive drugs in organ transplantation, there is still no consensus on the optimal therapeutic drug level of CsA and Tac in terms of their safety and efficacy. Among patients treated with comparable CNI doses and trough levels, there is a broad range covering acute rejection episodes at one end and symptoms of CNI side effects at other end. These findings document that CNIs are critical dose drugs with a narrow therapeutic window regarding adequate immunosuppression compared with adverse drug effects. Moreover, the differences between patients in pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) cause variability in the concentrations of effects of CNIs [8,9]. For this reason, making CNI therapy more individual should improve patient and transplant outcomes.
RI Sensitivity of Tapered MCF Enhanced by Graphene Coating

RI-sensitivity of a tapered MCF interferometer is investigated and enhanced by graphene coating. The microstructure with a graphene coating has achieved a RI-sensitivity of 12617.3 nm/RIU within the RI range of 1.4144 to 1.4159. © 2019 The Author(s)
Signaling activity of transforming growth factor beta type II receptors lacking specific domains in the cytoplasmic region

The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) type II receptor (T beta R-II) is a transmembrane serine/threonine kinase that contains two inserts in the kinase region and a serine/threonine-rich C-terminal extension. T beta R-II is required for TGF-beta binding to the type I receptor, with which it forms a heteromeric receptor complex, and its kinase activity is required for signaling by this complex. We investigated the role of various cytoplasmic regions in T beta R-II by altering or deleting these regions and determining the signaling activity of the resulting products in cell lines made resistant to TGF-beta by inactivation of the endogenous T beta R-II. TGF-beta binding to receptor I and responsiveness to TGF-beta in these cells can be restored by transfection of wild-type T beta R-II. Using this system, we show that the kinase insert 1 and the C-terminal tail of T beta R-II, in contrast to the corresponding regions in most tyrosine kinase receptors, are not essential to specify ligand-induced responses. Insert 2 is necessary to support the catalytic activity of the receptor kinase, and its deletion yields a receptor that is unable to mediate any of the responses tested. However, substitution of this insert with insert 2 from the activin receptor, ActR-IIB, does not diminish the ability of T beta R-II to elicit these responses. A truncated T beta R-II lacking the cytoplasmic domain still binds TGF-beta, supports ligand binding to receptor I, and forms a complex with this receptor. However, TGF-beta binding to receptor I facilitated by this truncated T beta R-II fails to inhibit cell proliferation, activate extracellular matrix protein production, or activate transcription from a promoter containing TGF-beta-responsive elements. We conclude that the transcriptional and antiproliferative responses to TGF-beta require both components of a heteromeric receptor complex that differs from tyrosine kinase receptors in its mode of signaling.
Efficacy of treatment for glioblastoma multiforme in elderly patients (65+): a retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an ultimately fatal disease that affects patients of all ages. Elderly patients (65 years and older) constitute a special subgroup of patients characterized by a worse prognosis and frequent comorbidities. OBJECTIVES To assess the efficacy of different treatment modalities in terms of survival in elderly patients with GBM. METHODS Using retrospective analysis, we extracted, anonymized and analyzed the files of 74 deceased patients (aged 65 or older) treated for GBM in a single institution. RESULTS Mean survival time was 8.97 months and median survival time 7.68 months. Patients who underwent tumor resection had a mean survival of 11.83 months, as compared to patients who underwent no surgical intervention or only biopsy and had a mean survival of 5.22 months (P < 0.0001). Patients who underwent full radiation treatment had amean survival of 11.31 months, compared to patients who received only partial radiotherapy or none at all and had a mean survival of 4.09 months (P < 0.0001). Patients who underwent chemotherapy had a mean survival of 12.4 months, compared to patients who did not receive any chemotherapy andhad a mean survival of 5.89 months (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Age alone should not be a factor in the decision on which treatment should be given. Treatment should be individualized to match the patient's overall condition and his or her wishes, while taking into consideration the better overall prognosis expected with aggressive treatment.
Écrire des résumés pour apprendre des cours : un système d'aide à l'apprentissage autorégulé

Cet article presente Apex 2.1 (pour Aide a la Preparation des EXamens). Il s’agit d’un systeme prototype donnant des retours automatiques a des etudiants realisant des resumes de cours, dans un contexte d’enseignement a distance. Nous presentons quelques donnees theoriques, puis l’architecture d’Apex 2.1, pour enfin decrire une etude le validant aupres de trois groupes d’utilisateurs potentiels (etudiants, enseignant ou administrateur), du point de vue de l’utilite, l’acceptabilite et l’utilisabilite de ce systeme.
Nutrient Interactions and Toxicity Histidine Content of Low-Molecular-Weight Beef Proteins Influences Nonheme Iron Bioavailability in Caco-2 Cells 1 , 2

The objective of this study was to isolate and characterize beef muscle proteins that enhance nonheme iron bioavailability. Beef sirloin was cooked, lyophilized and reconstituted with water before in vitro digestion. After centrifugation, the digest supernatant was sequentially ultrafiltered using 10and 1-kDa molecular weight cut-off membranes. Nonheme iron bioavailability was assessed by Caco-2 cell monolayer Fe uptake using an extrinsic labeling method. All ultrafiltration fractions significantly (P 0.001) increased iron solubility at pH 6.0, compared with the blank. However, iron uptake was significantly (P 0.001) greater than the blank only in the presence of the 1-kDa retentate (1KR). Therefore, the 1KR was chosen for further analysis. Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) of the 1KR yielded four fractions, i.e., three distinct fractions (F1, F3, F4) and one fraction (F2) comprised of a few closely associated peaks. All four IMAC fractions resulted in significantly (P 0.001) greater (twoto fivefold) iron solubility at pH 6.0, compared with the blank. Iron uptake with F2 and F4 was significantly greater than the blank (P 0.001 and P 0.05, respectively). Gel electrophoresis and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization analysis illustrated that F1–F4 contained many peptides ranging from 1to 7-kDa. Amino acid composition analysis revealed that histidine concentration increased progressively from F1 to F4, corresponding to a general, but not parallel increase in iron solubility and uptake. Our results suggest that the enhancement of nonheme iron absorption by beef may be due to peptides produced during gastrointestinal digestion and that histidine content may be important. J. Nutr. 132: 245–251, 2002.
Study of the stability and unfolding mechanism of BBA1 by molecular dynamics simulations at different temperatures

BBA1 is a designed protein that has only 23 residues. It is the smallest protein without disulfide bridges that has a well‐defined tertiary structure in solution. We have performed unfolding molecular dynamics simulations on BBA1 and some of its mutants at 300, 330, 360, and 400 K to study their kinetic stability as well as the unfolding mechanism of BBA1. It was shown that the unfolding simulations can provide insights into the forces that stabilize the protein. Packing, hydrophobic interactions, and a salt bridge between Asp12 and Lys16 were found to be important to the protein' stability. The unfolding of BBA1 goes through two major steps: (1) disruption of the hydrophobic core and (2) unfolding of the helix. The β‐hairpin remains stable in the unfolding because of the high stability of the type II' turn connecting the two β‐strands.
Stabilization Strategies of Supply Networks with Stochastic Switched Topology

In this paper, a dynamical supply networks model with stochastic switched topology is presented, in which the stochastic switched topology is dependent on a continuous time Markov process. The goal is to design the state-feedback control strategies to stabilize the dynamical supply networks. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, sufficient conditions for the existence of state feedback control strategies are given in terms of matrix inequalities, which ensure the robust stability of the supply networks at the stationary states and a prescribed disturbance attenuation level with respect to the uncertain demand. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Toward finding culture assessment tools for SE companies

Nowadays, globalization is a normal action for almost every company in the drive to sell more and more products or services to sustain business growth. Companies need to create an inclusive work environment through intercultural competence and ensure a sufficiently diverse workforce. Employees have to work in national and international teams, consisting of different kinds of people. Some of the team members might come from a very diverse cultural background. The project manager faces challenges in leading and managing these multicultural teams effectively. Companies should also know the cultural backgrounds of their customers and partners. One cannot afford to stumble many times due to cultural differences that might cause harmful misunderstandings and thus the loss of business. This paper first introduces information about culture and its definitions, dimensions, terminology, research branches and recognized problems. Many points of view are listed and analyzed where can find reasons to measure the cultural factors in a company. Examination is made of what kinds of tools are available for assessing cultural factors. Because so many cultural assessment tools were found, instead of analyzing dozens of tools, we compiled a table including the characteristics of the tools, which should be considered before selecting the appropriate tool for each company. This examination is being undertaken in two ongoing projects: UbiKnowS and STEP, based on a literature review and case studies on how these assessment tools can be used in actual SE companies.
A revision of infrageneric classification in Astelia Banks & Sol. ex R.Br. (Asteliaceae)

Abstract Systematic investigations and phylogenetic analyses have indicated that Astelia, as currently circumscribed, is paraphyletic, with Collospermum nested within it. Further, Astelia subgenus Astelia is polyphyletic, and Astelia subgenera Asteliopsis and Tricella are paraphyletic, as currently circumscribed. Revision of the subgeneric classification of Astelia is warranted to ensure classification accurately reflects the evolutionary history of these taxa. Collospermum is relegated to synonymy within Astelia. Astelia is dioecious or polygamodioecious, with a superior ovary, anthers dorsi- or basifixed, pistillodes or pistils that have a single short or poorly defined style, a 3 lobed stigma, and fleshy uni- or trilocular fruit with funicular hairs that are poorly to well developed. Astelia subgenus Collospermum (Skottsb.) Birch is described. A key to Astelia sections is provided. Astelia hastata Colenso, Astelia montana Seem. , and Astelia microsperma Colenso pro parte are resurrected and the new combination Astelia samoense (Skottsb.) Birch, comb. nov. is made.