Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stromal-Derived Factor-1α Correlates With Circulating Endothelial Progenitor Cells and With Acute Lesion Volume in Stroke Patients

Background and Purpose—Endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) are important participants of neovascularization and are mobilized through signaling with stromal-derived factor (SDF-1α), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and stem cell factor. The association between EPC levels and these growth factors (GF) in acute stroke has not been previously established. We aimed to determine the association between EPC and these GF, and to elucidate a relationship between these GF and stroke severity in acute stroke patients. Methods—Seventeen patients were selected from 175 patients with imaging-confirmed acute ischemic stroke. EPC were quantified using CD34, CD133, and VEGF-R2 markers. Plasma VEGF, SDF-1α, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and stem cell factor were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay on days 1 and 3, and brain MRI was performed at baseline and on days 1 and 5 after the stroke onset. Results—Levels of SDF-1α strongly (r=0.6) correlated with .
Identiﬁcation of the Ca 2 (cid:1) Blocking Site of Acid-sensing Ion Channel (ASIC) 1: Implications for Channel Gating

Acid-sensing ion channels ASIC1a and ASIC1b are ligand-gated ion channels that are activated by H (cid:1) in the physiological range of pH. The apparent afﬁnity for H (cid:1) of ASIC1a and 1b is modulated by extracellular Ca 2 (cid:1) through a competition between Ca 2 (cid:1) and H (cid:1) . Here we show that, in addition to modulating the apparent H (cid:1) afﬁnity, Ca 2 (cid:1) blocks ASIC1a in the open state (IC 50 (cid:1) 3.9 mM at pH 5.5), whereas ASIC1b is blocked with reduced afﬁnity (IC 50 (cid:2) 10 mM at pH 4.7). Moreover, we report the identiﬁcation of the site that mediates this open channel block by Ca 2 (cid:1) . ASICs have two transmembrane domains. The second transmembrane domain M2 has been shown to form the ion pore of the related epithelial Na (cid:1) channel. Conserved topology and high homology in M2 suggests that M2 forms the ion pore also of ASICs. Combined substitution of an aspartate and a glutamate residue at the beginning of M2 completely abolished block by Ca 2 (cid:1) of ASIC1a, showing that these two amino acids (E425 and D432) are crucial for Ca 2 (cid:1) block. It has previously been suggested that relief of Ca 2 (cid:1) block opens ASIC3 channels. However, substitutions of E425 or D432 individually or in combination did not open channels constitutively and did not abolish gating by H (cid:1) and modulation of H (cid:1) afﬁnity by Ca 2 (cid:1) . These results show that channel block by Ca 2 (cid:1) and H (cid:1) gating are not intrinsically linked. and We report that of two the transmembrane Our results show that the relief of Ca
Surgical site infections - review of current knowledge, methods of prevention.

This paper presentes the current state of konwledge regarding the everlasting problem in surgery- surgical site infections. INTRODUCTION Surgical site infections have accompanied humanity since the dawn of time. Development of medicinie has reduced their percentage, but still they are a huge problem to face with. Surgical site infections cause a significant increase in a cost of hospitalization. This is the main reason why the whole scientific world is looking for prevention of these complications. MATERIALS AND METHODS The aim of the paper is to present current views on the etiology and methods of prevention of surgical site infection. RESULTS Patients own pathogens are most often responsible for surgical site infections. In hospitalizations over 5-7 days exogenous and hospital flora have the advantage. The most common isolated pathogen is Staphylococcus aureus. The percentage of MRSA-resistant methicillin strains is increasing. Pre-operative antibiotic therapy reduces the frequency of surgical site infection in many surgical procedures. Time of administration, type and dose of antibiotic play an important role in preventing post-operative infections. Pre-operative skin antiseptic is also important. The two most commonly used ingredients are chlorhexidine gluconate and povidone iodine. Recent reports point the chlorhexidine alcohol solution as an agent with a higher degree of efficacy. CONCLUSIONS In 2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the new guidelines for prevention of surgical site infections. This practical tips and tricks should be implemented to every surgical procedure.
Robots with insect brains

A literal approach to mechanistic explanation provides insight in neuroscience It is an engineer's dream to build a robot as competent as an insect at locomotion, directed action, navigation, and survival in complex conditions. But as well as studying insects to improve robotics, in parallel, robot implementations have played a useful role in evaluating mechanistic explanations of insect behavior, testing hypotheses by embedding them in real-world machines. The wealth and depth of data coming from insect neuroscience hold the tantalizing possibility of building complete insect brain models. Robotics has a role to play in maintaining a focus on functional understanding—what do the neural circuits need to compute to support successful behavior?
Metal oxide control of exciton-plasmon coupling

A key application of metallic nanostructures is enhancement of the radiative decay rates of quantum emitters. In this contribution we investigate control of emission dynamics of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) using combination of both metal oxides and plasmonic effects of gold thinfilms. Different metal oxides, including Cu, Ag and Al oxides are investigated. We show how such oxides can dramatically change the decay of QDs via photocatalytic processes in the absence and presence of plasmonic fields. The outcomes show the distinct impact of such oxides, ranging from total annihilation of QD emission to their plasmonic revival via Purcell effect.
Balancing volumetric and gravimetric uptake in highly porous materials for clean energy

Delivering methane and hydrogen The pressure for onboard storage of methane and hydrogen on vehicles is usually limited to 100 bar for the use of lightweight containers, but the amount stored can be increased with the use of absorbent materials. Efficient storage and delivery require a balance of volumetric and gravimetric storage. Chen et al. designed a metal-organic framework with trialuminum nodes and a large hexadentate aromatic linker that optimizes both parameters. This material surpassed the U.S. Department of Energy targets for methane and had a deliverable capacity of 14% by weight for hydrogen. Science, this issue p. 297 An aluminum-based framework material achieves high gravimetric and volumetric uptake and delivery of methane and hydrogen. A huge challenge facing scientists is the development of adsorbent materials that exhibit ultrahigh porosity but maintain balance between gravimetric and volumetric surface areas for the onboard storage of hydrogen and methane gas—alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. Here we report the simulation-motivated synthesis of ultraporous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) based on metal trinuclear clusters, namely, NU-1501-M (M = Al or Fe). Relative to other ultraporous MOFs, NU-1501-Al exhibits concurrently a high gravimetric Brunauer−Emmett−Teller (BET) area of 7310 m2 g−1 and a volumetric BET area of 2060 m2 cm−3 while satisfying the four BET consistency criteria. The high porosity and surface area of this MOF yielded impressive gravimetric and volumetric storage performances for hydrogen and methane: NU-1501-Al surpasses the gravimetric methane storage U.S. Department of Energy target (0.5 g g−1) with an uptake of 0.66 g g−1 [262 cm3 (standard temperature and pressure, STP) cm−3] at 100 bar/270 K and a 5- to 100-bar working capacity of 0.60 g g−1 [238 cm3 (STP) cm−3] at 270 K; it also shows one of the best deliverable hydrogen capacities (14.0 weight %, 46.2 g liter−1) under a combined temperature and pressure swing (77 K/100 bar → 160 K/5 bar).
SrAl2O4:Eu2+, Dy3+ doped-nanoparticles prepared by pulsed laser ablation in liquids

SrAl2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+ nanoparticles prepared by pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL) could be a green and versatile technique to obtain inorganic nanoparticles with persistent luminescence and different morphologies and sizes. Laser ablation technique could deliver large amounts of energy highly concentrated into one point of a material and has been carried out in vacuum, in air and in liquids. Because of the unique confinement effect from liquid environment, there is many advantages when the laser ablation occurs in liquid. In this paper, we focus on the control of the size through proper laser parameters, choice of the reaction solution. Persistent luminescent SrAl2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+ phosphor was obtained by laser ablation in liquids.
VIA dishing metrology for novel 3D NAND using neural network assisted white light interferometry

In traditional 3D NAND design, peripheral circuit accounts for 20-30% of the chip real-estate, which reduces the memory density of flash memory. As 3D NAND technology stacks to 128 layers or higher, peripheral circuits may account for more than 50% of the overall chip area. On the contrast, the XtackingTM technology arranges array and logic parts on two different wafers, and connects the memory arrays to the logic circuit by metal VIAs (Vertical Interconnect Accesses) to achieve unprecedented high storage density as well as DRAM level I/O speed. As a consequence, it becomes increasingly significant to monitor metal VIAs depth before wafer bonding process as to ensure reliability of array-logic connections. Currently, AFM (Atom Force Microscopy) is the main stream method of VIA depth monitoring. Apparently, AFM wins the battle of precision, however the low throughput limited its usage in mass production. In order to accomplish the requirement of VLSI production, a WLI (White Light Interferometry) metrology is revisited and a novel neural network assisted method was developed to monitor VIA depth. Basically, there are two major limitations that keep WLI tools from wider use, transparent film impact and diffraction limitation. In this work, realization of neural network is illustrated and inline dishing measurement is achieved with high accuracy and precision.
Persistent luminescence features in hexagonal Sr0.75Al1.5Si0.5O4:Eu2+ phosphor

Rare earth doped aluminates, such as SrAl2O4:Eu2+,Dy3+ and CaAl2O4:Eu2+,Nd3+ , are among the best known materials for persistent luminescence or afterglow emission. Their Eu2+ counterparts, which were beforehand finely studied, also exhibit long lasting luminescence properties. It recently appeared that the hexagonal polymorph of SrAl2O4, which is not stable at room temperature, could have promising luminescent properties. A recently efficient way to elaborate the hexagonal Sr1-x/2Al1-xSixO4:Eu2+, with interesting photoluminescence properties, has been developed by full glass crystallization. Still, the persistent luminescence properties of this strontium aluminosilicate compound have never been reported. Here, advanced optical properties such as persistent luminescence emission, persistent luminescence decay and thermoluminescence have been performed in order to report about the persistent luminescence potential of the strontium aluminosilicate hexagonal polymorph.
Bazedoxifene Attenuates Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Formation via Downregulation of Interleukin-6/Glycoprotein 130/Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 Signaling Pathway in Apolipoprotein E–Knockout Mice

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by aortic dilatation and predominantly affects an elderly population. Accumulating evidence suggests that Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) play an important role in formation of AAAs. However, it remains unclear whether Bazedoxifene (BAZ) could suppress the activation of IL-6/GP130/STAT3 in vascular cells and the formation of AAA. Here we explored the effect of BAZ on AngII-stimulated AAA formation. ApoE–/– mice infused with AngII for 28 days using osmotic minipumps were treated with placebo or 5mg/kg BAZ. In our results most of the AngII-induced mice developed AAA with exacerbated inflammation, degradation of elastin fibers, STAT3 phosphorylation, and increased expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). These effects were markedly attenuated by BAZ. Furthermore, BAZ suppressed the stimuli-induced (IL-6 or AngII) expression of P-STAT3, MMP2 and MMP9 in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). BAZ inhibited wound healing, colony formation and suppressed STAT3 nuclear translocation in vitro. In conclusion, these results indicated that BAZ downregulated IL-6/GP130/STAT3 signaling and interfered with AAA formation induced by AngII in ApoE–/– mice, which indicates a novel potential strategy for the prevention and therapy of AAA.
HpaR, the Repressor of Aromatic Compound Metabolism, Positively Regulates the Expression of T6SS4 to Resist Oxidative Stress in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

HpaR, a MarR family transcriptional regulator, was first identified in Escherichia coli W for its regulation of the hpa-meta operon. Little else is known regarding its functionality. Here, we report that in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, HpaR negatively regulates the hpa-meta operon similar to in E. coli W. To investigate additional functions of HpaR, RNA sequencing was performed for both the wild-type and the ΔhpaR mutant, which revealed that the type VI secretion system (T6SS) was positively regulated by HpaR. T6SS4 is important for bacteria resisting environmental stress, especially oxidative stress. We demonstrate that HpaR facilitates bacteria resist oxidative stress by upregulating the expression of T6SS4 in Y. pseudotuberculosis. HpaR is also involved in biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance, adhesion to eukaryotic cells, and virulence in mice. These results greatly expand our knowledge of the functionality of HpaR and reveal a new pathway that regulates T6SS4.
Energy Transparency for Deeply Embedded Programs

Energy transparency is a concept that makes a program’s energy consumption visible, from hardware up to software, through the different system layers. Such transparency can enable energy optimizations at each layer and between layers, as well as help both programmers and operating systems make energy-aware decisions. In this article, we focus on deeply embedded devices, typically used for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and demonstrate how to enable energy transparency through existing static resource analysis (SRA) techniques and a new target-agnostic profiling technique, without hardware energy measurements. Our novel mapping technique enables software energy consumption estimations at a higher level than the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), namely the LLVM intermediate representation (IR) level, and therefore introduces energy transparency directly to the LLVM optimizer. We apply our energy estimation techniques to a comprehensive set of benchmarks, including single- and multithreaded embedded programs from two commonly used concurrency patterns: task farms and pipelines. Using SRA, our LLVM IR results demonstrate a high accuracy with a deviation in the range of 1% from the ISA SRA. Our profiling technique captures the actual energy consumption at the LLVM IR level with an average error of 3%.
Immunomodulatory Effect of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells: The Cutting Edge of Clinical Application

Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) represent a promising tool for soft tissue engineering as well as for clinical treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune pathologies. The well-characterized multi-differentiation potential and self-renewal properties of ASCs are coupled with their immunomodulatory ability in providing therapeutic efficacy. Yet, their impact in immune or inflammatory disorders might rely both on cell contact-dependent mechanisms and paracrine effects, resulting in the release of various soluble factors that regulate immune cells functions. Despite the widespread use of ASCs in clinical trials addressing several pathologies, the pathophysiological mechanisms at the basis of their clinical use have been not yet fully investigated. In particular, a thorough analysis of ASC immunomodulatory potential is mandatory. Here we explore such molecular mechanisms involved in ASC immunomodulatory properties, emphasizing the relevance of the milieu composition. We review the potential clinical use of ASC secretome as a mediator for immunomodulation, with a focus on in vitro and in vivo environmental conditions affecting clinical outcome. We describe some potential strategies for optimization of ASCs immunomodulatory capacity in clinical settings, which act either on adult stem cells gene expression and local microenvironment. Finally, we discuss the limitations of both allogeneic and autologous ASC use, highlighting the issues to be fixed in order to significantly improve the efficacy of ASC-based cell therapy.
A Computational Theory for the Emergence of Grammatical Categories in Cortical Dynamics

A general agreement in psycholinguistics claims that syntax and meaning are unified precisely and very quickly during online sentence processing. Although several theories have advanced arguments regarding the neurocomputational bases of this phenomenon, we argue that these theories could potentially benefit by including neurophysiological data concerning cortical dynamics constraints in brain tissue. In addition, some theories promote the integration of complex optimization methods in neural tissue. In this paper we attempt to fill these gaps introducing a computational model inspired in the dynamics of cortical tissue. In our modeling approach, proximal afferent dendrites produce stochastic cellular activations, while distal dendritic branches–on the other hand–contribute independently to somatic depolarization by means of dendritic spikes, and finally, prediction failures produce massive firing events preventing formation of sparse distributed representations. The model presented in this paper combines semantic and coarse-grained syntactic constraints for each word in a sentence context until grammatically related word function discrimination emerges spontaneously by the sole correlation of lexical information from different sources without applying complex optimization methods. By means of support vector machine techniques, we show that the sparse activation features returned by our approach are well suited—bootstrapping from the features returned by Word Embedding mechanisms—to accomplish grammatical function classification of individual words in a sentence. In this way we develop a biologically guided computational explanation for linguistically relevant unification processes in cortex which connects psycholinguistics to neurobiological accounts of language. We also claim that the computational hypotheses established in this research could foster future work on biologically-inspired learning algorithms for natural language processing applications.
PrivacyShield

Current in-situ privacy solution approaches are inadequate in protecting sensitive information. They either require extra configuration effort or lack the ability to configure user desired privacy settings. Based on in-depth discussions during a design workshop, we propose PrivacyShield, a mobile system for providing subtle just-in-time privacy provisioning. PrivacyShield leverages the screen I/O device (screen digitizer) of smartphones to recognize gesture commands, even when the phone's screen is turned off. Based on gesture command inputs, various privacy-protection policies can be configured on-the-fly. We develop a novel stroke-based approach to address the challenges in segmenting and recognizing gesture command inputs, which helps the system in achieving good usability and performance. PrivacyShield also provides developers with APIs to enable just-in-time privacy provisioning in their applications. We have implemented an energy efficient PrivacyShield prototype on the Android platform, including smartphones with and without a low-power co-processor. Evaluation results show that our gesture segmentation algorithm is fast enough for real-time performance (introducing less than 200ms processing latency) and accurate (achieving an accuracy of 95% for single-character gestures and 89% for even three-character gestures). We also build a non-touch-screen-based just-in-time privacy provisioning prototype called the wrist gesture method. We compare the performance of the two prototypes by doing a 6-week field study with 12 participants and show why a simplistic solution falls short in providing privacy configurations. We also report the participants' perceptions and reactions after the field study.
Isotope

Existing storage stacks are top heavy and expect little from block storage. As a result, new high-level storage abstractions—and new designs for existing abstractions—are difficult to realize, requiring developers to implement from scratch complex functionality such as failure atomicity and fine-grained concurrency control. In this article, we argue that pushing transactional isolation into the block store (in addition to atomicity and durability) is both viable and broadly useful, resulting in simpler high-level storage systems that provide strong semantics without sacrificing performance. We present Isotope, a new block store that supports ACID transactions over block reads and writes. Internally, Isotope uses a new multiversion concurrency control protocol that exploits fine-grained, subblock parallelism in workloads and offers both strict serializability and snapshot isolation guarantees. We implemented several high-level storage systems over Isotope, including two key-value stores that implement the LevelDB API over a hash table and B-tree, respectively, and a POSIX file system. We show that Isotope’s block-level transactions enable systems that are simple (100s of lines of code), robust (i.e., providing ACID guarantees), and fast (e.g., 415MB/s for random file writes). We also show that these systems can be composed using Isotope, providing applications with transactions across different high-level constructs such as files, directories, and key-value pairs.
Effective Verification for Low-Level Software with Competing Interrupts

Interrupt-driven software is difficult to test and debug, especially when interrupts can be nested and subject to priorities. Interrupts can arrive at arbitrary times, leading to an exponential blow-up in the number of cases to consider. We present a new formal approach to verifying interrupt-driven software based on symbolic execution. The approach leverages recent advances in the encoding of the execution traces of interacting, concurrent threads. We assess the performance of our method on benchmarks drawn from embedded systems code and device drivers, and experimentally compare it to conventional approaches that use source-to-source transformations. Our results show that our method significantly outperforms these techniques. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first to demonstrate effective verification of low-level embedded software with nested interrupts.