Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activation of the silent human cytokeratin 17 pseudogene-promoter region by cryptic enhancer elements of the cytokeratin 17 gene.

We have previously described the three loci CK-CA, CK-CB and CK-CC in the human genome that contain clustered type-I cytokeratin genes and reported the complete nucleic acid sequences of the functional cytokeratin 17 gene located in CK-CA and two closely related pseudogenes present in CK-CB and CK-CC [Troyanovsky, S.M. , Leube, R.E. & Franke, W.W. (1992) Eur. J. Cell Biol. 59, 127-137]. By nucleic acid sequence analysis, we now show that extensive similarities between the functional gene and the pseudogenes exist in the 5'-upstream region. However, despite the high degree of nucleic acid identity (94%), only the 5'-upstream region of the functional gene was able to induce significant transcriptional activity in transfected cells of epithelial origin. Using chimeric upstream regions consisting of different fragments from the pseudogene and the functional gene, we made the surprising observation that cis elements in the proximal 5'-upstream region of the pseudogene promoter can cooperate with distal enhancer elements of the functional gene to induce strong chloramphenicol-O-acetyltransferase activity in transfected HeLa cells. A major site in the proximal upstream region was identified by deoxyribonuclease protection experiments to be necessary for this cooperative effect. The structure and properties of this element were further analysed by transfection of different chloramphenicol-O-acetyltransferase gene constructs, and by nucleic acid sequence comparison to corresponding regions of the related cytokeratins 14 and 16. It is concluded that the upstream regions identified in this study contribute to the strong expression of the human cytokeratin 17 gene in a coordinated fashion.
Breast cancer diagnosis using a hybrid evolutionary neural network classifier

The important role that mammography is playing in breast cancer detection can be attributed largely to the technical improvements and dedication of radiologists to breast imaging. A lot of work is being done to ensure that these diagnosing steps are becoming smoother, faster and more accurate in classifying whether the abnormalities seen in mammogram images are benign or malignant. This paper takes a step in that direction by introducing a hybrid evolutionary neural network classifier (HENC) combining the evolutionary algorithm, which has a powerful global exploration capability, with gradient-based local search method, which can exploit the optimum offspring to develop a diagnostic aid that accurately differentiates malignant from benign pattern. The computational experiments show that the presented HENC approach can obtain better generalization and much lower computational cost than the existing methods reported recently in the literature using the widely accepted Wisconsin breast cancer diagnosis (WBCD) database with some improvements.
Hydrological Modeling and Prehistoric Settlement on Santa Rosa Island, California, USA

Fresh water availability was an important variable that influenced prehistoric human settlement on California's northern Channel Islands. Previous attempts to understand settlement on the islands use watershed size as a proxy for water at canyon mouths. In semi‐arid regions, this approach has limitations because streams may lose much or all of their flow to groundwater. We developed a distributed hydrological model for Santa Rosa Island that incorporates geospatial and temporal data for climate (precipitation, solar radiation, wind speed, relative humidity, temperature), soils, vegetation, and topography to simulate the complex land‐surface‐groundwater behavior of island hydrology for hypothetical wet, dry, and median centuries. Our simulations show that water flow is greatest in drainages on the northwest and east coasts of the island. This correlates with some of the earliest and most persistent settlement on the island. During the most extreme droughts of the last 2000 years during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (1150–600 cal BP), island populations contracted to a small number of large coastal villages. We argue that this was related in part to the greater availability of surface water at these locations. This study expands the theoretical and methodological scope of past studies that have applied hydrological simulation to archaeological investigations.
Dimensions of Trust in Government in the Digital Age

The introduction of information and communications technologies (ICTs) through which governments communicate with citizens is widely considered to be transforming the relationship between government and citizens. This paper sets out to investigate the impact these new ways of communicating have on the citizen‟s basic trust in government. The investigation focuses on the intersect between the citizen‟s trust in the online environment and their trust in government. The literature on trust is reviewed with the aim of determining the key differentiating features of the various disciplinary approaches to trust in the psychological, economic and sociological literatures. A new model is proposed that seeks to apply this understanding to the critical domain of the citizen‟s trust in e-government, and to define a valid way of investigating the key dimensions of trust in digital government.
Small planetary rovers

The authors argue that small rovers on the order of 1 to 2 kg are suitable for planetary exploration. Not only are they extremely cost effective but they also enable a number of new possibilities for scientific objectives. The authors describe their Attila robots which are prototypes for planetary rovers at the larger end of the scale (1.6 kg). The robots have 24 actuators and over 150 sensors, all connected via a local network to 11 onboard computers. <<ETX>>
Surgical management of noncolorectal cancer liver metastases

The number of hepatectomies performed for metastatic cancer has dramatically increased over the past 2 decades. Hepatectomy for stage IV colorectal cancer is now considered the standard of care for resectable patients with isolated hepatic disease and acceptable performance status. However, the indications for resection of noncolorectal origin liver metastases are not as clearly defined. This review focuses on emerging data for the resection of noncolorectal metastatic disease to the liver, with a focus on indications for surgical resection. Specifically, we review the current data on the surgical management of nonneuroendocrine and neuroendocrine tumors metastatic to the liver. Cancer 2014;120:3111–3121. © 2014 American Cancer Society.
A Multiphase Synchronous Buck Converter With a Fully Integrated Current Balancing Scheme

A multiphase synchronous buck converter has been developed, in which the number of switching phases is determined by the sensed average load current. The maximum number of switching phases is four. The dc resistance (DCR) of switching inductor is used to detect the average current, which is also utilized to balance the load current among the multiple switching phases. The instantaneous inductor current is sensed as well to generate the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) signal to switch the inductors. The multiphase synchronous buck converter implemented in a 0.13-μm BCDMOS process shows 91.1% maximum power efficiency when the input voltage is 2.8 V, output voltage is 1.0 V, and output current is 2.0 A.
Gonorrhea in Men Sex Men and Heterosexual Men

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infectious disease known since ancient times, with biblical (Old Testament) references. The etiologic agent is Neisseria gonorrhoeae, commonly called gonococcus. N. gonorrhoeae has accumulated mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance so that from the year 2007 it joined the list of multi-resistant, informally called “Superbugs” (Shafer in Neisseria Molecular Mechanisms of Pathogenesis, 2010).
Measurement of Muscle Blood Flow in the Human Forearm with Radioactive Krypton and Xenon

IN 1949 Kety proposed that if the rate of removal from the site of injection of an intramuscularly injected radioactive isotope was limited principally by flow, then the clearance of the tracer from the injection site could be used to measure local blood flow. ' In the past, sodium-24 or iodine-131 has been used for this purpose, but with considerable variability in the results obtained in serial studies of the same persons.2 The chemically inert gases krypton-85 and xenon-133 have certain advantages over Na24 and I 131. They are chemically and physiologically inert; they are not normally present in the body; and they are rapidly excreted from the body via the lungs.3 The long physical half-life of Kr 85 ( 10.3 years) and the half-life of Xe'33 (5.27 days) make the use of these nuclides more convenient than Na 24 (15 hours). Finally, the lower gamma ray energies of Kr85 (0.513 mev) and Xe'33 (0.081 mev) are more suitable for external radiation detection than the high energy of Na24 (1.368 mev), which is difficult to localize accurately in the body. Accordingly, blood flow to forearm muscle was estimated by external monitoring of the rate of disappearance of radioactivity following intramuscular injection of an aqueous solution of Kr85 or Xe 33
A quantum mechanical representation in phase space

A quantum mechanical representation suitable for studying the time evolution of quantum densities in phase space is proposed and examined in detail. This representation on L2 (2) phase space is based on definitions of the operators P and Q in phase space that satisfy various correspondences for the Liouville equation in classical and quantum phase space, as well as quantum position and momentum L2 (1) spaces. The definitions presented here, P=p/2−iℏ∂/∂q and Q=q/2+iℏ∂/∂p, are related to definitions that have been recently proposed [J. Chem. Phys. 93, 8862 (1990)]. The resulting quantum phase space representation shares many of the mathematical properties of usual representations in coordinate and momentum spaces. Within this representation, time evolution equations for complex‐valued functions (wave functions) and their square magnitudes (distribution functions) are derived, and it is shown that the coordinate and momentum space time evolution equations can be recovered by a simple Fourier projection.
Rural Hispanic Populations at Risk in Developing Diabetes: Sociocultural and Familial Challenges in Promoting a Healthy Diet

Type II diabetes affects Hispanic populations disproportionately and is the fifth leading cause of death for Hispanic people in the United States (Smith & Barnett, 2005). Risk of diabetes is of great concern throughout the United States and is clearly of epidemic proportions for regions such as the Southwest and Texas where the primary minority populations are Mexican American. We conducted four focus groups with a total of 49 Hispanic participants (23 adults and 26 adolescents) from rural West Texas communities to gain insights about participants' eating habits, knowledge of diabetes, and potential barriers to preventive care. From the data, we identified a three-tiered predisposition or vulnerability to diabetes—heredity; preferences for unhealthy, culturally based food; and temptations from U.S. mainstream fast food culture. These vulnerabilities added to the sociocultural concerns that participants identified—importance of parental and familial modeling; challenges to healthy eating based on a culturally based diet and mainstream fast food culture; and a lack of support from the larger sociocultural networks such as teachers, community leaders, and the media. From these data, we have a better understanding of familial and sociocultural factors that need to be addressed in the development of preventive public awareness and educational plans. We outline implications for practitioners and educators from an integrated cultural biomedical approach.
Ethics and investment funds

The new tool to measure frailty in the elderly recently promoted by Kenneth Rockwood and colleagues[1][1] is one of many produced in what appears to be a never-ending search for a Holy Grail: a precise and useful measure of frailty in the geriatric population. The care of geriatric patients is
Striatal GDNF administration increases tyrosine hydroxylase phosphorylation in the rat striatum and substantia nigra

Glial cell line‐derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) improves motor dysfunction associated with aging in rats and non‐human primates, in animal models of Parkinson's disease, and may improve motoric function in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. These improvements are associated with increased dopamine function in the nigrostriatal system, but the molecular events associated with this increase are unknown. In these studies, 100 µg of GDNF was injected into the striatum of normal aged (24‐month‐old) male Fischer 344 rats. The protein levels and phosphorylation of TH, ERK1/2, and related proteins were determined by blot‐immunolabeling of striatum and substantia nigra harvested 30 days after injection. In GDNF‐treated rats, TH phosphorylation at Ser31 increased ∼40% in striatum and ∼250% in the substantia nigra. In the substantia nigra, there was a significant increase in ERK1 phosphorylation. In striatum, there was a significant increase in ERK2 phosphorylation. Microdialysis studies in striatum showed that both amphetamine‐ and potassium‐evoked dopamine release in GDNF recipients were significantly increased. These data show that GDNF‐induced increases in dopamine function are associated with a sustained increase in TH phosphorylation at Ser31, which is greatest in the substantia nigra and maintained for at least one month following a single striatal administration of GDNF. These findings, taken from the nigrostriatal system of normal aged rats, may help explain the long lasting effects of GDNF on dopamine function and prior studies supporting that a major effect of GDNF involves its effects on dopamine storage and somatodendritic release of dopamine in the substantia nigra.
A Simple Ultrasound Score for the Accurate Detection of Inflammatory Activity in Crohn's Disease

Background: Ultrasound is accurate in the detection of Crohn's disease. Our aim was to identify ultrasound parameters contributing to inflammatory disease activity, develop a simple score, and validate this score prospectively. Methods: This study comprised 2 single-center investigations. The first was a retrospective study on a population that had received colonoscopies (as a gold-standard diagnostic) within 60 days of ultrasound. The second was a prospective study on 2 populations: patients requiring induction with adalimumab and patients on adalimumab maintenance therapy. Ultrasound and endoscopy were preformed within 14 days in both prospective groups. The endoscopy results were graded with the Simple Endoscopic Score and the Rutgeerts score and compared with 5 ultrasound parameters. We used a proportional odds model to determine which ultrasound parameters correlated significantly with the endoscopy results. We then developed a predictive ultrasound score for disease activity, plotted the receiver operating characteristic curves, and undertook prospective validation of the score. Results: We evaluated 160 patients retrospectively to compare ultrasound and colonoscopy. Two of 5 parameters were found to correlate significantly with disease activity: bowel wall thickness (P = <0.0001) and color Doppler signal (P = 0.0292). We developed a score that uses weighted variables. The area under the corresponding receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.8658. Conclusions: A simple ultrasonographic score that accurately identifies Crohn's disease activity has been developed and validated. Ultrasound may be a surrogate for endoscopy to guide disease management, but future studies should be conducted to establish interrater variability.
Illness representations of coronary artery disease: an empirical examination of the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire (IPQ) in patients undergoing surgery, angioplasty and medication.

BACKGROUND This study sought to validate empirically, through factor analysis, the theoretically developed Illness Perceptions Questionnaire (IPQ) measure of illness representations, and investigated how illness representations varied within an illness condition between different treatments. METHODS Two hundred and fourteen coronary artery disease (CAD) patients, 70 of whom were undergoing medication, 71 to undergo angioplasty and 73 to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG), completed the New Zealand Heart Attack Recovery Project version of the IPQ. The core cognitive illness representation statement responses were subject to principal components analyses (PCA), with oblique rotation. Identity data were examined regarding symptom frequency. Subscales based on factor structures and frequency scores were utilized to investigate treatment group differences in illness beliefs through analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). FINDINGS PCA of the core components indicated four factors labelled: 'illness impact', 'duration', 'control', and 'self-image', accounting for 46.5% of the variance. The most frequently experienced symptoms were fatigue, breathlessness and chest-pain (angina). ANCOVAs showed significant treatment group differences in frequency of chest-pain experienced (medicationrevascularization groups, p<.001). DISCUSSION The results produced a modified structure for the IPQ, which appeared to reflect the nature of the illness under study and the possible fractionation of the core illness representation components. Responses on the subscales created were also related to the position within the 'subjective experience with the illness' that a patient had reached and the treatment being undertaken.
Expression Compatibility Problem

We solve the Expression Compatibility Problem (ECP) – a variation of the famous Expression Problem (EP) which, in addition to the classical EP concerns, takes into consideration the replacement, refinement, and borrowing of algebraic datatype (ADT) cases. ECP describes ADT cases as components and promotes ideas from Lightweight Family Polymorphism, Class Sharing, and Expression Families Problem (EFP). Our solution is based on a formal model for Component-Based Software Engineering that pertains to EP. We provide the syntax, static semantics, and dynamic semantics of our model. We also show that our model solves EFP as well. Moreover, we show how to embed the model in Scala.
N6‐isopentenyladenosine inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis in a human colon cancer cell line DLD1

N6‐isopentenyladenosine (i6A) is a modified nucleoside with a pentaatomic isopentenyl derived from mevalonate that induces inhibition of tumor cell proliferation and apoptosis in several tumor cell lines. In this study, we reported that N6‐isopentenyladenosine inhibited the proliferation and promotes apoptosis in DLD1 human colon cancer cells. It suppressed the proliferation of cells through inhibition of DNA synthesis, causing a cell cycle arrest that correlated with a decrease in the levels of cyclin E, cyclin A and cyclin D1 and with a concomitant increase in the levels of cyclin‐dependent kinase inhibitor p21waf and p27kip1. Moreover, it induced apoptosis through an increase in the number of annexin V‐positive cells, a downregulation of antiapoptotic products and caspase‐3 activation. The apoptotic effects of N6‐isopentenyladenosine were accompanied by sustained phosphorylation and activation of c‐jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK) that induced phosphorylation of c‐jun. Overall, our data show that JNK, could play an important role in i6A‐mediated apoptosis in DLD1 human colon cancer cells © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An Economic Analysis of the Software Market with a Risk-Sharing Mechanism

Inadequate software security is blamed for poor network security when viruses and worms cause major disruptions. However, software vendors have little incentive to improve the security quality of their products because they are not directly liable for losses incurred due to poor security. The concept of software liability has been intensely discussed by computer scientists and jurists for years as a possible solution for improving software security. This paper examines a risk-sharing mechanism between a software vendor and its customers as a way to implement software liability. It considers both the software vendor's incentive to share risks with customers and the question of whether risk-sharing leads to better software security. The model provides evidence of underprovided security quality under monopoly with complete information, as has been observed in the market. The policy implications of the risk-sharing mechanism and the possible impact of competition on software vendors' incentive for risk-sharing are examined. Information asymmetry is found to be a key factor in voluntary risk-sharing under monopoly; the risk-sharing level can be a signal of unobservable security quality.
Inflammatory Subtypes in Asthma are Related to Airway Hyperresponsiveness to Mannitol and Exhaled NO

Asthma may be defined as eosinophilic or non-eosinophilic based on the presence of eosinophils in sputum. Recently a further classification into four inflammatory subtypes has been suggested. The aim of the present study was to describe the association between these inflammatory subtypes and markers of airway inflammation and hyperresponsiveness. In 62 adult non-smoking asthmatics, (18–65 yr) not taking inhaled steroids, sputum induction, bronchial challenge with mannitol and measurement of exhaled NO (eNO) were performed. Based on the eosinophil and neutrophil proportions in sputum, subjects were categorised into four inflammatory subtypes: Eosinophilic asthma: i.e., sputum eosinophils > 1.0%. Neutrophilic asthma: i.e., sputum neutrophils > 61%. Mixed granulocytic asthma: both increased eosinophils and neutrophils. Paucigranulocytic asthma: i.e., normal levels of both eosinophils and neutrophils. Among subjects with non-eosinophilic asthma, neutrophilic asthma was associated with low levels of eNO (Median (IQR): 12 ppb (8–27 ppb), whereas subjects with non-eosinophilic asthma of the paucigranulocytic subtype had levels of eNO (48 ppb (29–65 ppb)) that were comparable to subjects with eosinophilic asthma of the mixed granulocytic type (47 ppb (33–112 ppb). Purely eosinophilic asthma was associated with higher levels of eNO (77 ppb (37–122 ppb)). Furthermore, a low degree of airway hyperresponsiveness to mannitol was observed in neutrophilic asthma (PD15: (Median (IQR) 512 mg (291–610 mg))), whereas it was moderate in paucigranulocytic asthma (238 mg (77–467 mg)) and comparable to eosinophilic asthma of the mixed granulocytic subtype (186 mg (35–355 mg)). The highest degree of AHR to mannitol was observed in purely eosinophilic asthma (107 mg (68–245 mg)). In conclusion, further subclassification of eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic asthma showed significant differences in airway hyperresponsiveness to mannitol and exhaled NO levels among the four inflammatory subtypes.