Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antigen-presenting dendritic cells provide the reducing extracellular microenvironment required for T lymphocyte activation

T lymphocytes are defective in cystine uptake and thus require exogenous thiols for activation and function. Here we show that monocyte-derived human dendritic cells (DCs) release cysteine in the extracellular space. Cysteine generation is increased by lipopolysaccharide and tumor necrosis factor α, and by contact with T cells specifically recognizing soluble or alloantigens. These stimuli also induce thioredoxin (TRX) accumulation in DCs. However, only the contact with antigen-specific T cells triggers TRX secretion by the antigen-presenting cells. Fewer extracellular thiols are recovered after DC–T cell interactions when cystine uptake or TRX activity are inhibited. In addition, glutamate (Glu) and anti-TRX-inactivating antibodies inhibit antigen-dependent T lymphocyte proliferation. These findings indicate that, during antigen presentation, DCs uptake cystine and release cysteine and TRX, thus providing a reducing microenvironment that facilitates immune response.
A Quick Forecasting Evaluation Method for the Comprehensive Performance of PINS Based on the Long-Term Reproducibility

The long-term reproducibility of the platform inertial navigation system (PINS) is key parameter to evaluate whether the comprehensive performance of PINS has met the navigation accuracy. Under the conditions of given standard trajectory parameters, PINS navigation error model can accurately describe the propagation relationship between each individual performance parameter of the PINS and comprehensive performance, but the model calculation consumes a long time, which can't meet the demand of PINS application and decision, for which a comprehensive PINS prediction method is proposed combined PINS navigation error model with least squares support vector machine regression, and the PINS overall performance evaluation function is given. Using initial alignment errors and long-term repeatability parameters which characterize the overall performance of the PINS to test the combination forecasting method, the results show that this method has high prediction accuracy and pretty predicting aging, the overall performance of the PINS can be quickly and accurately judged by using the evaluation function, results a good practical application value.
USE OF ANTIHYPERTENSIVES AND THE RISK OF PARKINSON DISEASE

The objective of the article by Becker et al.1 was “to explore the association between antihypertensive drug use and the risk of developing a first-time diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). ” However, the authors mention the possible neuroprotective effects of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and calcium channel blockers. If addressing possible neuroprotective effects is the primary purpose of the investigation, the logical analysis would be to examine whether use of different classes of antihypertensives among individuals …
Risk factor assessment tools for the prevention of periodontitis progression a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES (i) To identify characteristics of currently published patient-based tools used to assess levels of risk for periodontitis progression and (ii) systematically review the evidence documenting the use of patient-based risk assessment tools for predicting periodontitis progression. MATERIAL AND METHODS A systematic review was prepared on the basis of an electronic search of the literature supplemented with manually searching the relevant journals of the latest 5 years. Prospective and retrospective cohort studies were included as no randomized controlled clinical trials were available. RESULTS The search identified 336 titles, and 19 articles were included in this systematic review. The search identified five different risk assessment tools. Results of nine of 10 cohort studies reporting outcomes of 2110 patients indicate that risk assessment tools are able to identify subjects with different probability of periodontitis progression and/or tooth loss. Subjects with higher risk scores showed more progression of periodontitis and tooth loss. CONCLUSIONS In treated populations, results of patient-based risk assessments, for example periodontal risk calculator (PRC) and periodontal risk assessment (PRA), predicted periodontitis progression and tooth loss in various populations. Additional research on the utility of risk assessment and results in improving patient management are needed.
Chapter 5: Physics of energetic ions

This chapter reviews the progress accomplished since the redaction of the first ITER Physics Basis (1999 Nucl. Fusion 39 2137–664) in the field of energetic ion physics and its possible impact on burning plasma regimes. New schemes to create energetic ions simulating the fusion-produced alphas are introduced, accessing experimental conditions of direct relevance for burning plasmas, in terms of the Alfvénic Mach number and of the normalised pressure gradient of the energetic ions, though orbit characteristics and size cannot always match those of ITER. Based on the experimental and theoretical knowledge of the effects of the toroidal magnetic field ripple on direct fast ion losses, ferritic inserts in ITER are expected to provide a significant reduction of ripple alpha losses in reversed shear configurations. The nonlinear fast ion interaction with kink and tearing modes is qualitatively understood, but quantitative predictions are missing, particularly for the stabilisation of sawteeth by fast particles that can trigger neoclassical tearing modes. A large database on the linear stability properties of the modes interacting with energetic ions, such as the Alfvén eigenmode has been constructed. Comparisons between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements of mode structures and drive/damping rates approach a satisfactory degree of consistency, though systematic measurements and theory comparisons of damping and drive of intermediate and high mode numbers, the most relevant for ITER, still need to be performed. The nonlinear behaviour of Alfvén eigenmodes close to marginal stability is well characterized theoretically and experimentally, which gives the opportunity to extract some information on the particle phase space distribution from the measured instability spectral features. Much less data exists for strongly unstable scenarios, characterised by nonlinear dynamical processes leading to energetic ion redistribution and losses, and identified in nonlinear numerical simulations of Alfvén eigenmodes and energetic particle modes. Comparisons with theoretical and numerical analyses are needed to assess the potential implications of these regimes on burning plasma scenarios, including in the presence of a large number of modes simultaneously driven unstable by the fast ions.
Pre‐reproductive isolation as a consequence of allopatric differentiation between populations of Drosophila melanogaster

While pre‐reproductive isolations are more and more frequently described between closely related species or within species, very little is known about their conditions of emergence. In Brazzaville, two populations (Kronenbourg and Loua) of Drosophila melanogaster show a premating isolation. Two hypotheses were proposed to explain such a situation: a local sympatric differentiation or an allopatric divergence followed by a secondary contact. A microsatellite analysis, using markers on all chromosomes, strongly suggests that the Kronenbourg population has a European origin. Therefore, the allopatric divergence between Kronenbourg and Loua populations is probably responsible for the sexual isolation observed today in sympatry, after a recent introduction of a European propagule in Brazzaville.
Sensitivity analysis for fuzzy linear programming problems with fuzzy variables

In this paper, we study how changes in the coecients of objective function, the coecients matrix and the right-hand-side vector of constraints of the fuzzy linear programming problems with the fuzzy order relation in the objective function and the constraints under ranking function aect the fuzzy optimal solution. We consider separate cases when changes occur in the data of the problem and derive bounds for parameter when the data are perturbed, while the fuzzy optimal solution is invariant. Finally, we obtain the optimal value function with fuzzy coecients in each case and the results are described
Machine Learning Approaches Distinguish Multiple Stress Conditions using Stress-Responsive Genes and Identify Candidate Genes for Broad Resistance in Rice[C][W][OPEN]

Meta-analysis of differentially expressed rice genes under different stress conditions accurately classified them using machine learning approaches and identified genes likely to confer broad resistance to multiple abiotic and biotic stresses. Abiotic and biotic stress responses are traditionally thought to be regulated by discrete signaling mechanisms. Recent experimental evidence revealed a more complex picture where these mechanisms are highly entangled and can have synergistic and antagonistic effects on each other. In this study, we identified shared stress-responsive genes between abiotic and biotic stresses in rice (Oryza sativa) by performing meta-analyses of microarray studies. About 70% of the 1,377 common differentially expressed genes showed conserved expression status, and the majority of the rest were down-regulated in abiotic stresses and up-regulated in biotic stresses. Using dimension reduction techniques, principal component analysis, and partial least squares discriminant analysis, we were able to segregate abiotic and biotic stresses into separate entities. The supervised machine learning model, recursive-support vector machine, could classify abiotic and biotic stresses with 100% accuracy using a subset of differentially expressed genes. Furthermore, using a random forests decision tree model, eight out of 10 stress conditions were classified with high accuracy. Comparison of genes contributing most to the accurate classification by partial least squares discriminant analysis, recursive-support vector machine, and random forests revealed 196 common genes with a dynamic range of expression levels in multiple stresses. Functional enrichment and coexpression network analysis revealed the different roles of transcription factors and genes responding to phytohormones or modulating hormone levels in the regulation of stress responses. We envisage the top-ranked genes identified in this study, which highly discriminate abiotic and biotic stresses, as key components to further our understanding of the inherently complex nature of multiple stress responses in plants.
REGULATION OF MOTONEURONAL CALCITONIN GENE-RELATED PEPTIDE BY TESTOSTERONE IN THE RAT SPINAL NUCLEUS OF THE BULBOCAVERNOSUS : AN IN VIVO IMMUNCCTTOCHEMICAL STUDY

The course of rnammalian sexual differentiation is largely under the control of the principal male gonadal steroid, the androgen testosterone. Despite the importance of androgens in the rnediation of sexual differentiation, the molecular basis of androgenic activity in the central nervous system remains poorly characterized. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has previously been reported to be regulated by testosterone in the Spinal Nucleus of the Bulbocavernosus (SNB) . The locus of androgenic regulation of CGRP expression within SNB motoneurons remains unclear, as the SNE3 is a component of a highly androgen sensitive neuromuscular circuit, with multiple possible targets for androgenic action . The present research utilizes a mosaic paradigm to test the hypothesis that the intracellular androgen receptor of SNB motoneurons regulates CGRP expression directiy in this cell population . Females heterozygous for the testicular feminization (tfm) androgen receptor mutation were androgenized perinatally to rescue the SNB and were implanted at sixty days with silastic capsules containing testosterone or nothing . Previous work has estabfished that this method yields females with -iiiapproximately half of the population of SNB motoneurons expressing functional androgen receptors . The remaining SNB motoneurons express non functional androgen receptors . This cellular mosaic of androgen receptors within the SNB allows for celiular analysis of androgen receptor activity in this neuronal population . Mosaic females were sacrificed six to eight weeks following implantation and spinal sections containing SNB motoneurons were immunolabeled simultaneously for CGRP and androgen receptor . Testosterone was found to decrease the proportion of CGRP immunoreactive SN6 motoneurons only in cells immunolabeled for functional androgen receptor . This finding clearly demonstrates the necessity of functional androgen receptor in SNB motoneurons for androgenic regulation of CGRP . The absence of an effect for ! estosterone on cells not immunoreactive for androgen receptor challenges rnodels of androgenic regulation of CGRP within the SNB based on retrograde influence of the SNB target muscles . The current report constitutes, to the best of my knowledge, the first unambiguous in vivo denionstration of the necessity of a steroid receptor for steroid induced alterations in gene expression in a defined cell population .
Impaired expression of sex hormone receptors in male reproductive organs of diabetic rat in response to oral antidiabetic drugs.

INTRODUCTION Few oral antidiabetic drugs have been evaluated for their reproductive complication. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of metformin, pioglitazone and sitagliptin on the structure of male reproductive system through an immunohistopathological study. MATERIAL AND METHODS Sprague-Dawley male rats were injected with streptozotocin. The diabetic rats were divided into four groups (n = 8/each group); diabetic control, metformin-, pioglitazone- and sitagliptin-treated groups in addition to a normal control group (n = 8). At the end of the experiment, blood samples were collected for biochemical assessment. Testis, epididymis and seminal vesicle were dissected and processed for histopathological examination using routine and immune-staining. RESULTS All drugs significantly (p < 0.05) decreased fasting blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin, total cholesterol, triglycerides and malondialdehyde compared to the diabetic control group. Metformin has induced the least pathologic changes on the structure of the testis, epididymis and seminal vesicle among the studied drugs. Metformin succeeded to restore weights of testis, epididymis and seminal vesicle as well as testosterone hormone level back to values of the NC group while the pioglitazone and sitagliptin failed to do that. A significant reduction (p < 0.05) in testicular ERa and ERb immunoexpression of pioglitazone-treated group as well as suppression of ERb and AR immunoreactivity in in epididymus and seminal vesicles of pioglitazone- and sitagliptin-treated rats were observed compared to the control animals. CONCLUSIONS Histological structure as well ER and AR expression in the system organs were negatively and significantly affected with all studied drugs. Metformin has the least effect on the structure of the studied male reproductive organs. Thus, pioglitazone and sitagliptin treatment should be avoided in young male diabetic patients.
Evidence for the fusion of myoblasts in amphibian embryos. II. Xenoplastic transplantations of somitic cells from anuran to urodele embryos

In order to further support the thesis that myoblast fusions lead to the formation of multinucleate myotubes during early amphibian development, prospective myoblasts from frog embryos (Rana pipiens; Xenopus laevis) were orthotopically and heterotopically transplanted into embryonic salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum; A. tigrinum). The stages employed ranged from gastrula to early tail bud. After the hosts had developed to more advanced stages, they were fixed, sectioned in the frontal plane, and prepared for histological observation. Of special interest in these xenoplastic combinations are the nuclear and cytoplasmic differences between anuran and urodele embryonic cells.
Building Compressed Database Systems

Over the last decades, improvements in CPU speed have outpaced improvements in disk access rates by orders of magnitude, motivating the use of data compression techniques in database systems to trade reduced disk I/O against additional CPU overhead for compression and decompression of data. In this thesis, we study how to build compressed database systems that achieve better performance than conventional database systems. We address the following four issues. First, we study how to compress string data stored in database systems. Despite the abundance of string-valued attributes in relational schemas, there is little work on compression for string attributes in a database context. We propose a Hierarchical Dictionary Encoding strategy that intelligently selects the most effective compression method for string-valued attributes, and achieves significant performance improvement over standard compression techniques such as Lempel-Ziv. Second, we examine how to run queries efficiently on compressed data. None of the previous work suitably addresses the role of the query optimizer: during query execution, data are either eagerly decompressed when they are read into main memory, or data lazily stay compressed in main memory and are decompressed only on demand. We introduce the compression-aware query optimization problem and propose two algorithms: a provably optimal algorithm and a fast algorithm that almost always generates optimal execution strategies. Experiments using TPC-H data demonstrate that our approach results in up to an order speed-up over existing approaches. Third, we study the problem of automatically selecting compression methods based on a query workload, which is crucial for the performance and usability of compressed database systems. We examine the complexity of the problem and propose a solution that conducts a cost-based search on possible compression configurations. Our experiments using both real and TPC-H data demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Finally, we examine how to compress results shipped to clients that have limited bandwidth connections or severe storage restrictions. We choose a combination of compression methods that use statistical and semantic information of the query results to enhance the effect of compression.
Heat‐shock protein 90 is down‐regulated during pupal diapause in the flesh fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis, but remains responsive to thermal stress

Heat‐shock protein 23 (hsp23) and hsp70 are both known to be strongly up‐regulated during pupal diapause in the flesh fly Sarcophaga crassipalpis. This prompted us to investigate whether hsp90 was also up‐regulated during diapause. To test this possibility, we developed a partial clone of a hsp90 family member for use as a probe in Northern blot hybridization. Both high and low temperature exposure up‐regulated hsp90 transcripts in nondiapausing individuals. In contrast to hsp23 and hsp70, hsp90 was down‐regulated following entry into diapause, and returned to prediapause levels after diapause termination. The response of hsp90 to heat shock and cold shock remained intact during diapause: both shocks evoked elevated expression. The results indicate differential regulation of hsps during diapause and in response to thermal injury inflicted on diapausing pupae.
Robustness via structured H ∞/H ∞ synthesis

Multi-objective H ∞/H ∞-synthesis with structured control laws is discussed and used as a means to enhance robustness of the system in the presence of real parametric uncertainty. NP-hardness of the computation of the structured singular value μ excludes its use within an optimisation procedure and raises the question of how to replace it. We show that the semi-structured distance to instability can be used for that purpose and we indicate how the resulting mixed H ∞ program can be solved efficiently. The method is applied to the regulation of a flexible geostationary satellite.
Mathematical Explanations Of Empirical Facts, And Mathematical Realism

A main thread of the debate over mathematical realism has come down to whether mathematics does explanatory work of its own in some of our best scientific explanations of empirical facts. Realists argue that it does; anti-realists argue that it doesn't. Part of this debate depends on how mathematics might be able to do explanatory work in an explanation. Everyone agrees that it's not enough that there merely be some mathematics in the explanation. Anti-realists claim there is nothing mathematics can do to make an explanation mathematical; realists think something can be done, but they are not clear about what that something is. I argue that many of the examples of mathematical explanations of empirical facts in the literature can be accounted for in terms of Jackson and Pettit's [1990] notion of program explanation, and that mathematical realists can use the notion of program explanation to support their realism. This is exactly what has happened in a recent thread of the debate over moral realism (in this journal). I explain how the two debates are analogous and how moves that have been made in the moral realism debate can be made in the mathematical realism debate. However, I conclude that one can be a mathematical realist without having to be a moral realist.
An extremely low noise, phase lockable, sapphire loaded cavity based microwave oscillator

This paper demonstrates an extremely low noise, phase-lockable microwave oscillator for next generation coherent radar applications. The design, built with commercially available hardware, is comprised of a high-Q sapphire loaded cavity feedback oscillator, a frequency locked loop for noise degeneration, a narrow band phase locked loop geared for noise measurement using the two-oscillator method and a servo loop for temperature stabilization.
La refactorización de software basada en valor: Revisión sistemática de la literatura

Resumen. El mantenimiento del producto software es una de las fases que mas costos tiene a lo largo de la vida de una aplicacion software. La refactorizacion del codigo fuente es una de las tecnicas utilizadas para intentar mejorar la mantenibilidad. Actualmente la refactorizacion se basa en un enfoque de “valor neutro”, siendo dificil priorizar la gran cantidad de opciones de refactorizacion que puede tener un producto software. Para cubrir estas carencias, una nueva rama de la ingenieria esta emergiendo, la Ingenieria del Software Basada en Valor, estableciendo que las funcionalidades de un sistema tienen diferente grado de importancia, y que algunas de ellas aportan mas “valor” que otras. Este articulo presenta una revision sistematica de la literatura sobre la refactorizacion basada en valor. Se identificaron 15 articulos primarios de un total de 2300. Los trabajos analizados muestran el uso de diferentes tecnicas para abordar el problema de la refactorizacion y el valor que pueden aportar al software que sera refactorizado, existiendo opiniones opuestas sobre como afecta las refactorizaciones a la mantenibilidad. Como conclusion de la revision se tiene que: ningun articulo habla directamente del valor ni se cuantifica el valor que puede aportar una refactorizacion al software sobre el que va a ser aplicada. Finalmente, la mayoria de los estudios sugieren que las refactorizaciones semiautomaticas o asistidas son las mas adecuadas para llevar a cabo la refactorizacion.