Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insulin Releases Glut4 from Static Storage Compartments into Cycling Endosomes and Increases the Rate Constant for Glut4 Exocytosis*

In adipocytes, insulin triggers the redistribution of Glut4 from intracellular compartments to the plasma membrane. Two models have been proposed to explain the effect of insulin on Glut4 localization. In the first, termed dynamic exchange, Glut4 continually cycles between the plasma membrane and intracellular compartments in basal cells, and the major effect of insulin is through changes in the exocytic and endocytic rate constants, kex and ken. In the second model, termed static retention, Glut4 is packaged in specialized storage vesicles (GSVs) in basal cells and does not traffic through the plasma membrane or endosomes. Insulin triggers GSV exocytosis, increasing the amount of Glut4 in the actively cycling pool. Using a flow cytometry-based assay, we found that Glut4 is regulated by both static and dynamic retention mechanisms. In basal cells, 75-80% of the Glut4 is packaged in noncycling GSVs. Insulin increased the amount of Glut4 in the actively cycling pool 4-5-fold. Insulin also increased kex in the cycling pool 3-fold. After insulin withdrawal, Glut4 is rapidly cleared from the plasma membrane (t½ of 20 min) by rapid adjustments in kex and ken and recycled into static compartments. Complete recovery of the static pool required more than 3 h, however. We conclude that in fully differentiated confluent adipocytes, both the dynamic and static retention mechanisms are important for the regulation of plasma membrane Glut4 content. However, cell culture conditions affect Glut4 trafficking. For example, replating after differentiation inhibited the static retention of Glut4, which may explain differences in previous reports.
Review of hookah tobacco smoking among college students: policy implications and research recommendations

Abstract Background: About 30% of college students have smoked hookah tobacco. Although most students perceive this product to be innocuous and non-addictive, hookah tobacco increases the risk for disease and nicotine dependence. Currently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate the manufacture, distribution, or sale of hookah tobacco. Objective: Empirical literature pertaining to hookah tobacco smoking is reviewed with a focus on the implications for regulatory policy. Methods: PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus databases were searched to locate articles published in English. The literature search combined several key words including “hookahs”, “college”, “advertising”, “health effects”, and “health policy”. Results: Smoking hookah tobacco may play a role in the initiation of smoking among tobacco-naïve college students and may portend persistent smoking among those who have smoked cigarettes. College students are typically nondaily, social smokers. They do not perceive that their heightened risk for tobacco diseases and nicotine dependence relates to their smoking behavior. However, few public health messages target college-age adults to counter media messages that endorse hookah tobacco smoking. Conclusion: Given that the FDA is not authorized to ban specific tobacco products, policy actions should focus on the development of effective risk communication strategies that target college-age adults and on limiting the accessibility of hookah tobacco products to these adults. Accordingly, a research agenda that would inform these policy actions is proposed.
Nutritional models of the developmental programming of adult health and disease

The ability to not only replicate but also extend the findings from both historical epidemiological studies and contemporary cohorts of the developmental programming of later disease are critical if the mechanisms by which early diet impacts on later disease are to be fully understood. To date, a plethora of models have been established, with the range including global changes in dietary input, imbalanced diets and diets deficient in single nutrients. Key factors in translating these findings to the human situation are the pronounced differences in the relative growth and development between large and small mammals from the time of conception through pregnancy, lactation and weaning. This disparity is reflected in the very different nutritional requirements between species and the substantial divergence between rodents and large animals in the ontogeny of many of the organ systems that are nutritionally regulated. For example, hypothalamic circuitry is much more developed in species with a long gestation and offspring are born with a mature hypothalamic–pituitary axis in sheep and man compared with mice and rats. Similarly, nephron number is established towards the end of gestation in large mammals compared with the lactational period in rats. These types of differences will impact on the ability of individual and combined nutritional interventions to reset developmental processes, and may be further compounded by the gender of a fetus. The challenge for future work in this exciting and dynamic area of research is to utilise these marked comparative differences to generate imaginative nutritional interventions in order to improve the viability, health and well-being of the offspring.
On reliability-optimized controller placement for Software-Defined Networks

By decoupling control plane and data plane, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) approach simplifies network management and speeds up network innovations. These benefits have led not only to prototypes, but also real SDN deployments. For wide-area SDN deployments, multiple controllers are often required, and the placement of these controllers becomes a particularly important task in the SDN context. This paper studies the problem of placing controllers in SDNs, so as to maximize the reliability of SDN control networks. We present a novel metric, called expected percentage of control path loss, to characterize the reliability of SDN control networks. We formulate the reliability-aware control placement problem, prove its NP-hardness, and examine several placement algorithms that can solve this problem. Through extensive simulations using real topologies, we show how the number of controllers and their placement influence the reliability of SDN control networks. Besides, we also found that, through strategic controller placement, the reliability of SDN control networks can be significantly improved without introducing unacceptable switch-to-controller latencies.
Fast and Adaptive Finite Element Approach for Modeling Brain Shift

Objective: In this paper we introduce a finite element-based strategy for simulation of brain deformation occurring during neurosurgery. The phenomenon, known as brain shift, causes a decrease in the accuracy of neuronavigation systems that rely on preoperatively acquired data. This can be compensated for with a computational model of the brain deformation process. By applying model calculations to preoperative images, an update within the operating room can be performed. Methods: One of the crucial concerns in the context of developing a physical-based model is the choice of governing equations describing the physics of the phenomenon. In this work, deformation of brain tissue is expressed in terms of a 3D consolidation model for a linearly elastic and porous fluid. The next crucial issue is ensuring stable calculations within the chosen model. For this purpose, we developed a special technique for generating the underlying geometry for the simulation. With this technique an unstructured grid consisting of regular tetrahedra is created, whereupon time-dependent finite element simulation is performed in an adaptive manner. Results: We applied our algorithm to preoperative MR scans and investigated the value of the method. Due to the adaptivity of the method, only 5-10% of the computing time was needed as compared to traditional finite element approaches based on a uniformly subdivided grid. The results of the experiments were compared to the corresponding intraoperative MR scans. A close match between the computed deformation of the brain and the displacement resulting from the intraoperative data was observed. Conclusion: A model-based approach for the simulation of brain shift is presented. In this computational model the brain tissue is described as an elastic and porous material using Biot consolidation theory. Validating experiments conducted with MR data provided promising results.
HCI, communities and politics

Working with communities around social change presents a challenge to common HCI methods, as politics often comes to the fore. In some cases, the politics of a community are explicit, for example, when working with activists or advocacy groups. In other cases, political aspects are less explicit but surface in considering the allocation of resources or in groups wherein issues of race, gender or class are of major importance. To address these dynamics, HCI researchers have to go beyond traditional HCI tools and metrics, which too often bracket out the political in an effort to focus on the instrumental issues and uses of technology. This panel juxtaposes several community-based HCI research projects in which politics have been a significant factor and asks "How do we address the
A potential-driven approach to constructing rectilinear Steiner trees

A potential-driven approach to finding a rectilinear Steiner tree for a set of points on a planar grid is proposed. This approach has been implemented on a MasPar parallel processing system, and experimental results show its performance to be comparable with the best experimental results reported in the literature. Moreover, the method can be used for routing in grids with obstacles. <<ETX>>
Role of Veterinary Medicine in Public Health: Antibiotic Use in Food Animals and Humans and the Effect on Evolution of Antibacterial Resistance

Veterinary public health is another frontier in the fight against human disease. The veterinary public health scope includes the control and eradication of zoonoses, diseases that are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and man. These diseases pose a continuous hazard to the health and welfare of the public. More than 100 diseases are categorized as zoonoses, including salmonellosis. It is important to understand how antibiotics are used in humans and in food animals and how these uses affect the evolution of antibacterial resistance. Appropriate use of antibiotics for food animals will preserve the long‐term efficacy of existing antibiotics, support animal health and welfare, and limit the risk of transfer of antibiotic resistance to humans. An understanding of the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance allows development of preventive strategies to limit existing resistance and to avoid emergence of new strains of resistant bacteria. Risk assessments are being used by the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as regulatory tools to assess potential risk to humans resulting from antibiotic use in food‐producing animals and to then develop microbial safety policies to protect the public health. The veterinary public health scope, in addition to the control and eradication of zoonoses, also includes the development and supervision of food hygiene practices, laboratory and research activities, and education of the public. Thus, it may be seen that there are many ways in which veterinary medicine plays a very important role in public health.
Diagnosis and management of synovial sarcoma

Synovial sarcoma accounts about 9% of soft tissue sarcomas, most commonly develops in the extremity of young adults, is considered high grade and contains a characteristic translocation (X;18;p11;q11). While surgery and radiation therapy have achieved excellent local control, distant metastasis remains the principal problem limiting survival. Although ifosfamide based chemotherapy has been associated with an improved survival in patients with synovial sarcoma, the search for less toxic and more targeted systemic therapies is ongoing. J. Surg. Oncol. 2008;97:314–320. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
hu‐PBL‐SCID Mice: A Model for Human Immune Function, AIDS, and Lymphomagenesis

The increasing need for an animal model lo study human hemalopoiesis, immune function, autoimmunity and viral pathogenesis has led to the development of a number of experimental mouse systems. These systems have employed immunodeficient mice which are permissive for survival and growth of transplanted human mononuclear cells or hematopoietic tissues (Mosier et al. 1988, Kamel-Reid & Dick 1988, McCune et al. 1988, Lubin et al. 1991). The concept of utilizing mice or rats as recipients of human tissue was not novel, but, rather, originated during studies of human tumor and tissue transplantation to allogeneic and xenogeneic recipients. Early attempts to transfer bone marrow to lethally irrradiated allogeneic and xenogeneic hosts resulted in the production of chimaeras, with low levels of xenogeneic cells (Ford et al. 1956, Muller-Ruchholtz et al. 1979, Ildstad et al. 1984). It was soon appreciated that both T cells and natural killer (NK) cells were involved in the rejection of xenogeneic, allogeneic, and even syngeneic grafts (Ildstad et al. 1984, Murphy et al. 1987a, 1987b, 1990a, 1990b, Sharabi et al. 1990). The discovery ofthe athymic nude mouse provided an opportunity to test the survival and growth of human cells in the absence of T cell-mediated graft rejection. The xenotransplantation of human cells into nude mice led to the finding that transformed cells could grow (Fogh et al. 1977, Nilsson et al. 1977), but that normal immune cells could not (Phillips et al. 1989). The identification of the i'evere combined rmmunoc/eficient (SCID) mouse (Bosma et al. 1983, Custer ct al. 1985, Schuler et al, 1986), and establishment of mouse strains with multiple mutations that render them immunodeficient. such as the beige/nude/xid (BNX) (Andriole et al. 1985) mouse, were the critical first steps in providing genetically defined small animals that were permissive for survival and growth of adoptively
Biosynthetic Potential of Phylogenetically Unique Endophytic Actinomycetes from Tropical Plants

ABSTRACT The culturable diversity of endophytic actinomycetes associated with tropical, native plants is essentially unexplored. In this study, 123 endophytic actinomycetes were isolated from tropical plants collected from several locations in Papua New Guinea and Mborokua Island, Solomon Islands. Isolates were found to be prevalent in roots but uncommon in leaves. Initially, isolates were dereplicated to the strain level by ribotyping. Subsequent characterization of 105 unique strains by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that 17 different genera were represented, and rare genera, such as Sphaerisporangium and Planotetraspora, which have never been previously reported to be endophytic, were quite prevalent. Phylogenetic analyses grouped many of the strains into clades distinct from known genera within Thermomonosporaceae and Micromonosporaceae, indicating that they may be unique genera. Bioactivity testing and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) profiling of crude fermentation extracts were performed on 91 strains. About 60% of the extracts exhibited bioactivity or displayed LC-MS profiles with spectra indicative of secondary metabolites. The biosynthetic potential of 29 nonproductive strains was further investigated by the detection of putative polyketide synthase (PKS) and nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) genes. Despite their lack of detectable secondary metabolite production in fermentation, most were positive for type I (66%) and type II (79%) PKS genes, and all were positive for NRPS genes. These results suggest that tropical plants from New Guinea and the adjacent archipelago are hosts to unique endophytic actinomycetes that possess significant biosynthetic potential.
A PMOS read-port 8T SRAM cell with optimized leakage power and enhanced performance

: This paper presents a novel PMOS read-port 8T SRAM cell, in which the read circuit is constructed by two cascaded PMOS transistors, and hence the leakage power is signi ﬁ cantly optimized compared to the conventional 8T cell. Meanwhile, it also exhibits high area e ﬃ ciency due to an equalized quantity of NMOS and PMOS transistors per cell. Furthermore, the proposed cell has su ﬃ cient potential to enhance performance by employing a Half-Schmitt inverter. The measurements indicate that the proposed cell outmatches conventional 8T cell in terms of leakage suppression and area saving, thus making it a superior choice for ultra low power applications.
Preparing Health Professions’ Educators via Online Certificate Program: Structure and Strategies for Quality

Educating the faculty of today and tomorrow presents challenges in the health professions. In rapidly changing clinical and educational settings, faculty need to be prepared to maintain course quality and promote student learning outcomes. This article provides reflective analysis of an established online Health Professions Educator Certificate Program and shares quality teaching/learning structures and strategies that provide flexibility for diverse interprofessional learners. A systems model of structure, process, and outcomes organizes the analysis.
The Effect of Circuit Training on Resting Heart Rate Variability, Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Physical Fitness in Healthy Untrained Adults

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of circuit training (CT) on resting heart rate variability (HRV) and other cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors such as blood lipids and blood glucose and on fitness components. Twenty-four healthy untrained adults (age 26.5 ± 5.1 years; height 1.67 ± 8.4 m; weight 66.8 ± 15.1 kg; 26.3% ± 5.2%; maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) 48.5 ± 10.0 ml.kg-1.min-1) were assigned to either CT (n = 12) involving bodyweight exercises, or control (CON, n = 12) groups. Prior to the start and following the end of the six-week training period, time-, frequency-domain and nonlinear measures of resting HRV, arterial blood pressure, body composition, fasting blood lipids, lipoproteins and glucose, VO2max, upper body muscular endurance (UBME) and abdominal and hip flexor (AHFME), back strength (BS) and handgrip were assessed. None of the resting HRV measures (P > 0.05) were affected by the CT intervention. However, diastolic blood pressure decreased (P = 0.03), lean body weight (P = 0.03) increased, VO2max (P = 0.03), UBME (P ＝ 0.001), AHFME (P = 0.04), and BS (P = 0.03) were significantly higher following CT, whereas the other variables were not influenced by the CT. Six-week of CT involving bodyweight exercises has no significant impact on resting HRV. However, this type of training might decrease the risk for development of CVD by reducing arterial blood pressure and by improving body composition, aerobic capacity, muscular endurance and strength.
Reconstitution of Membrane Proteins

The spontaneous reconstitution of lipid-protein complexes was examined by mixing bacteriorhodopsin or UDP-glucuronosyltransferase with preformed, unilamellar bilayers of pure dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine. Spontaneous insertion of these proteins into vesicles of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine was facilitated by resonicating the vesicles at 4 O C . The property of resonicated vesicles that led to spontaneous reconstitution could be annealed by melting the bilayers, which slowed down reconstitution. The overall process of reconstitution consisted, however, of two steps. There was an initial insertion f proteins into a small portion of vesicles followed by subsequent fusion between protein-free vesicles and vesicles containing lipid-protein complexes. The first step appeared to proceed rapidly in all vesicles in a gel phase, whether or not they were resonicated or whether or not resonicated vesicles were annealed. The rate of the second step was sensitive to these treatments. The membrane proteins also inserted into preformed vesicles in a liquid crystalline phase, but this step was slower than for vesicles in a gel phase. Fusion between protein-free and proteincontaining vesicles in a liquid crystalline phase was extremely slow. The data show that the spontaneous insertion of pure membrane proteins into preformed vesicles can be a facile event and that the overall reconstitution of membrane proteins into preformed unilamellar vesicles may be simpler to achieve than has been appreciated.
Qualitative and Quantitave Analysis of Saponin as Bioactive Agent of Sapindus emarginatus

The isolation of saponin from various solvent extract of the plant, Sapindus emarginatus were studied. Sapindus emarginatus belongs to sapindaceae family and was used traditionally for washing and hair cleansing purpose . Saponins are heterosides of plant origin and the type of molecules has an interesting pesticide potential. The saponin was isolated from the pericarp of fruit, which was further purified by solvent separation method. The isolated extract was purified by analytical method (Edeoga.et al). The IR spectra of saponin showed the peaks at-3434 (-OH stretching), 2928 (-CH3), 1731(C=O stretching of acid), 1636(C=C stretching), 1043 (C-O stretching of carbon oxygen singles bond) which indicated the presence of functional group. HPLC Chromatogram of plant extract, Sapindus emarginatus containing saponin. The HPLC studies of saponin shows the peak at 205nm which get matched with the Std. saponin and on the basis of that data reveals both qualitative and quantitative analysis of saponin. The amount of saponin present in Sapindus emarginatus was found to be 324.85microgm. /ml.
Non-Rigid Registration : Concepts , Algorithms and Applications

The previous chapters in this book have focused on rigid transformations for image-to-image and image-tophysical-space registration. In many applications a rigid transformation is sufficient to describe the spatial relationship between two images. For example, brain images of the same subject can be related by a rigid transformation since the motion of the brain is largely constrained by the skull. However, there are many other applications where non-rigid transformations are required to describe the spatial relationship between images adequately. For example, in intra-subject registration non-rigid transformations are required to accommodate any tissue deformation due to interventions or changes over time. Similarly, in inter-subject registration non-rigid transformations are often required to accommodate the substantial anatomical variability across individuals.
A quantum algorithm to approximate the linear structures of Boolean functions

A quantum algorithm to determine approximations of linear structures of Boolean functions is presented and analysed. Similar results have already been published (see Simon's algorithm) but only for some promise versions of the problem, and it has been shown that no exponential quantum speedup can be obtained for the general (no promise) version of the problem. In this paper, no additional promise assumptions are made. The approach presented is based on the method used in the Bernstein–Vazirani algorithm to identify linear Boolean functions and on ideas from Simon's period finding algorithm. A proper combination of these two approaches results here to a polynomial-time approximation to the linear structures set. Specifically, we show how the accuracy of the approximation with high probability changes according to the running time of the algorithm. Moreover, we show that the time required for the linear structure determine problem with high success probability is related to so called relative differential uniformity δf of a Boolean function f. Smaller differential uniformity is, shorter time is needed.