Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TREATMENT OF LPS‐INDUCED TISSUE INJURY: ROLE OF LIPOSOMAL ANTIOXIDANTS

Tissue inury is a common occurrence in multiple organ failure, a possible clinical complication of Gram-negative bacterial sepsis. Gram-negative bacteria, in part through lipopolysaccharide (LPS), tumor necrosis factor, and other cytokines, activate neutrophils to increase oxygen consumption and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS have been suggested to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of multiple organ failure. Accordingly, we hypothesized that the susceptibility of tissues to ROS can be reduced by augmenting the antioxidant status of the affected tissues. Rats were challenged intravenously with LPS (Escherichia coli: 0111:B4) at a dose of 1 mg/kg body weight, and 0, 2, 4, or 6 h later were treated intravenously with plain liposomes or α-tocopherol liposomes (20 mg α-tocopherol/kg body weight); treated rats were then killed 24 h after LPS challenge. Animals challenged with LPS were extensively damaged in the liver, as evidenced by an increase in plasma alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase activities, and also in the lung, as indicated by a decrease in pulmonary angiotensin-converting enzyme and alkaline phosphatase activities. The injection of LPS also resulted in increased myeloperoxidase activities in the two organs, suggestive of activation of the inflammatory response. Within the pulmonary and hepatic organs of LPS-challenged animals, the involvement of oxidative stress mechanisms was evident, because a significant decrease in reduced glutathione and an increase in lipid peroxidation were observed. In contrast, the administration of α-tocopherol liposomes in the post-LPS-challenge period resulted in a significant alleviation of both lung and liver injuries, evidenced by a general reversal of the altered biochemical indices toward normal among treated animals. The therapeutic effect was found to be greater when liposomal α-tocopherol treatment was given earlier during the development of injury. Plain liposomes administered immediately after LPS injection also protected hepatic and pulmonary tissues from injuries. However, unlike α-tocopherol liposomes, plain liposomes did not confer any beneficial effect when administered at later timepoints post-LPS injection. These data suggest that α-tocopherol, administered in a liposomal form, may serve as a potentially effective pharmacological agent in the treatment of LPS-induced tissue injuries.
The effects of semantic context and the type and amount of acoustic distortion on lexical decision by younger and older adults.

PURPOSE In this study, the authors investigated how acoustic distortion affected younger and older adults' use of context in a lexical decision task. METHOD The authors measured lexical decision reaction times (RTs) when intact target words followed acoustically distorted sentence contexts. Contexts were semantically congruent, neutral, or incongruent. Younger adults (n = 216) were tested on three distortion types: low-pass filtering, time compression, and masking by multitalker babble, using two amounts of distortion selected to control for word recognition accuracy. Older adults (n = 108) were tested on two amounts of time compression and one low-pass filtering condition. RESULTS For both age groups, there was robust facilitation by congruent contexts but minimal inhibition by incongruent contexts. Facilitation decreased as distortion increased. Older listeners had slower RTs than younger listeners, but this difference was smaller in congruent than in neutral or incongruent conditions. After controlling for word recognition accuracy, older listeners' RTs were slower in time-compressed than in low-pass filtering conditions, but younger listeners performed similarly in both conditions. CONCLUSIONS These RT results highlight the interdependence between bottom-up sensory and top-down semantic processing. Consistent with previous findings based on accuracy measures, compared with younger adults, older adults were disproportionately slowed when speech was time compressed but more facilitated by congruent contexts.
Identification of a Sam68 Ribonucleoprotein Complex Regulated by Epidermal Growth Factor*

Sam68, Src associated in mitosis of 68 kDa, is a known RNA-binding protein and a signaling adaptor protein for tyrosine kinases. However, the proteins associated with Sam68 and the existence of a Sam68 complex, its mass, and regulation are, however, unknown. Herein we identify a large Sam68 complex with a mass >1 MDa in HeLa cells that is composed of ∼40 proteins using an immunoprecipitation followed by a mass spectrometry approach. Many of the proteins identified are RNA-binding proteins and are known components of a previously identified structure termed the spreading initiation center. The large Sam68 complex is a ribonucleoprotein complex, as treatment with RNases caused a shift in the molecular mass of the complex to 200–450 kDa. Moreover, treatment of HeLa cells with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate or epidermal growth factor induced the disassociation of Sam68 from the large complex and the appearance of Sam68 within the smaller complex. Actually, in certain cell lines such as breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and BT-20, Sam68 exists in equilibrium between a large and a small complex. The appearance of the small Sam68 complex in cells correlates with the ability of Sam68 to promote the alternative splicing of CD44 and cell migration. Our findings show that Sam68 exists in equilibrium in transformed cells between two complexes and that extracellular signals, such as epidermal growth factor stimulation, promote alternative splicing by modulating the composition of the Sam68 complex.
Sensitivity and kinase activity of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 and others to EGFR‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors

The presence of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) somatic mutations in non‐small‐cell lung cancer patients is associated with response to treatment with EGFR‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as gefitinib and erlotinib. More than 100 mutations in the kinase domain of EGFR have been identified. In particular there are many variations of deletion mutations in exon 19. In this study, using yellow fluorescent protein‐tagged fragments of the EGFR intracellular domain, we examined the differences in sensitivity to gefitinib, erlotinib and afatinib between several exon 19 mutants and other common EGFR mutations. We also used serum of patients undergoing treatment with EGFR‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors in this system. In addition, we examined the relative kinase activity of these mutants by measuring relative fluorescent intensity after immunofluorescence staining. We found that both sensitivity to EGFR‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors and relative kinase activity differed among several EGFR mutations found in the same region of the kinase domain. This study underscores the importance of reporting the clinical outcome of treatment in relation to different EGFR mutations.
Preconditioning Strategies for Fully Implicit Radiation Diffusion with Material-Energy Transfer

In this paper, we present a comparison of four preconditioning strategies for Jacobian systems arising in the fully implicit solution of radiation diffusion coupled with material energy transfer. The four preconditioning methods are block Jacobi, Schur complement, and operator splitting approaches that split the preconditioner solve into two steps. One splitting method includes the coupling of the radiation and material fields that appears in the matrix diagonal in the first solve, and the other method puts this coupling into the second solve. All preconditioning approaches use multigrid methods to invert blocks of the matrix formed from the diffusion operator. The Schur complement approach is clearly seen to be the most effective for a large range of weightings between the diffusion and energy coupling terms. In addition, tabulated opacity studies were conducted where, again, the Schur preconditioner performed well. Last, a parallel scaling study was done showing algorithmic scalability of the Schur preconditioner.
Distinct expression patterns of Eph receptors and ephrins relate to the structural organization of the adult rat peripheral vestibular system

Eph receptors and their ligands, termed ephrins, have been implicated in axon guidance, neuron–target interactions, regional compartmentalization, and synaptic functions in nervous systems. These activities of the Eph family molecules prompted us to investigate whether these molecules play roles in the maintenance, regeneration and plasticity in the mature peripheral vestibular system. Using reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR), Western blot and immunocytochemical analyses, we identified distinct and reciprocal expression patterns of full‐length isoforms of EphA5, EphA6, EphA7, EphB1, ephrin‐A2 and ephrin‐B1 that correlated with structural features of the peripheral vestibular system in adult rats. All of the Eph receptors and ephrins examined were localized in the cell bodies of vestibular ganglion neurons in vivo and in vitro, and were readily detected in their outgrowing neurites in vitro. In the utricle, these molecules were localized in distinct cellular and subcellular compartments corresponding to discrete features of utricular afferent innervation, e.g. defasciculation, branching and synapse formation. Taken together, these results identify the Eph receptors and ephrins as candidate molecular substrates for defining some aspects of the structural organization of the adult peripheral vestibular system.
Left Ventricular Function in Children and Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Background and Objectives Adult studies have reported that patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) show ultrastructural and functional myocardial deterioration. The aim of this study was to assess whether cardiac functional deterioration can be detected in pediatric patients with type I DM and whether or not a relatively short duration of DM and hyperglycemia influences cardiac function. Subjects and Methods Forty-seven children and adolescents with DM and 38 healthy subjects (control group) were enrolled. Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), DM-induced complications, and left ventricular (LV) function as assessed using conventional and unconventional echocardiography {tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) and vector velocity imaging (VVI)} were evaluated. Results The conventional echocardiographic parameters, with the exception of early peak mitral inflow velocity, the findings of pulsed wave TDI at the annular level, and regional ventricular function by VVI, were not significantly different between the two groups. Using the conventional and unconventional indices of systolic and diastolic function, no significant relationship was found between the duration of DM and the echocardiographic parameters. The deceleration time (DT) and E'/A' had an inverse correlation with HbA1c (p=0.042 and p=0.016, respectively). Conclusion Patients with DM in childhood and early adolescence rarely have insight on the significance of DM, and their diet is difficult to control. An alteration of myocardial function induced by DM may begin earlier than generally thought, and these changes are accelerated when glycemic control is poor. We recommend the early institution of close observation of patients with diabetes for alterations in cardiac function, in addition to other diabetic complications.
AVLSI Chip for Ray Tracing Bicubic Patches

A VLSI chip for ray tracing bicubic patches in Bezier form is explored. The purpose of the chip is to calculate the intersection point of a ray with the bicubic patch to a specified level of accuracy, returning the location of the intersection on the patch and on the ray. This is done by computing the intersection of the ray with a bounding volume of the patch and repeatedly subdividing the patch until the bounding volume of subpatches hit by the ray is smaller than the accuracy requirement. There are two operating modes, one in which only the nearest intersection is found and another in which all intersections are found. This algorithm correctly handles rays tangentially intersecting a planar patch and ray intersections at a silhouette edge of the patch. Estimates indicate that such a chip could be implemented in 2 micron NMOS and could compute patch/ray intersections at the rate of one every 15 microseconds for patches that are prescaled and specified to 12 bits fixed point for each of the x, y and z components. A version capable of handling 24 bit patches could compute patch/ray intersections at the rate of one every 140 microseconds. Images drawn using a software version of the algorithm are presented and discussed.
Cyclic‐AMP‐responsive transcriptional activation of CREB‐327 involves interdependent phosphorylated subdomains.

Cyclic AMP‐regulated gene expression is mediated by specific phosphoproteins (CREBs) which bind to cAMP‐responsive elements of gene promoters. By analyzing the transactivation activities and phosphorylations in vivo of deletion and point mutated chimeric fusion proteins of the placental CREB‐327, in which the DNA‐binding domain is replaced by the heterologous binding‐domain of the yeast transcription factor GAL4, we localized the cAMP‐responsive and phosphorylated domain to a minimal‐essential sequence module of 46 amino acids (residues 92–137). This serine‐rich, multiply‐phosphorylated sequence consists of at least three interdependent subdomains required for transcriptional activation. Although phosphorylation of serine‐119 by cyclic AMP‐dependent protein kinase A is necessary for transcriptional activation, such activation requires both a phosphorylated heptadecapeptide domain located ten residues amino terminal to the serine‐119 and an eleven‐residue domain carboxyl terminal to the serine‐119. Deletion of these two domains does not impair phosphorylation of serine‐119. Further, deletion of the carboxyl‐terminal domain does not alter phosphorylation of the heptadecapeptide domain. We propose that akin to the phosphorylation‐dependent activation of enzymes, the transcriptional transactivation functions of CREB‐327 involve a phosphorylation‐dependent allosteric conformational mechanism.
Privacy Risks in Mobile Dating Apps

Dating apps for mobile devices, one popular GeoSocial app category, are growing increasingly popular. These apps encourage the sharing of more personal information than conventional social media apps, including continuous location data. However, recent high profile incidents have highlighted the privacy risks inherent in using these apps. In this paper, we present a case study utilizing forensic techniques on nine popular proximity-based dating apps in order to determine the types of data that can be recovered from user devices. We recover a number of data types from these apps that raise concerns about user privacy. For example, we determine that chat messages could be recovered in at least half of the apps examined and, in some cases, the details of any users that had been discovered nearby could also be extracted.
A new functional model for determining minimum and maximum detectable deformation gradient resolved by satellite radar interferometry

In this paper, a functional model for determining the minimum and maximum detectable deformation gradient in terms of coherence for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors is presented. The model is developed based on a new methodology that incorporates both real and simulated data. Sets of representative surface deformation models have been simulated, and the associated phase from these models introduced into real SAR data acquired by European Remote Sensing 1 and 2 satellites. Subsequently, interferograms were derived, and surface deformation was estimated. A number of cases of surface deformation with varying magnitudes and spatial extent have been simulated. In each case, the resultant surface deformation has been compared with the "true" surface deformation as defined by the deformation model. Based on these comparisons, a set of observations that lead to a new functional model has been established. Finally, the proposed model has been validated against external datasets and proven viable. Although the major weakness of the model is its reliance on visual interpretation of interferograms, this model can serve as a decision-support tool to determine whether or not to apply satellite radar interferometry to study a given surface deformation.
La circulation des matières premières au Paléolithique. Vol. 1 et 2.

Apprehendee par le biais de la circulation des matieres premieres lithiques, la question des rapports que l'homme a entretenus avec l'espace pendant deux millions d'annees, en Afrique et en Europe occidentale et centrale, est envisagee dans une double perspective : diachronique du changement, d'une part, synchronique de la variabilite, d'autre part. Etendue des territoires parcourus, structuration de la mobilite, modalites d'acquisition et de gestion des ressources, phenomenes d'interaction entre groupes, sont autant d'aspects de ces rapports homme / espace qui font l'objet d'une investigation. Dans ce travail de synthese a partir de donnees bibliographiques, les acquis des travaux anterieurs sont renouveles par une methode d'analyse propre ou la relation entre gestion technique des materiaux et distances de circulation tient une place preeminente. Dans la perspective diachronique du changement, les modifications mises en evidence s'inscrivent dans la continuite, avec toutefois des paliers et des points d'inflexion ; notamment, l'on ne peut parler de rupture entre Paleolithique moyen et superieur, mais plutot d'une acceleration dans le rythme du changement. Dans la perspective synchronique de la variabilite des comportements, les differences relevant du domaine socio-economique qui opposent toujours zones oceaniques et zones plus continentales de l'Europe, conduisent a souligner l'influence du milieu exterieur sur les strategies de subsistance. Parallelement, les constantes comportementales qui relevent du domaine techno-economique s'expriment independamment du contexte environnemental, suggerant une conception commune, chez des groupes contemporains, des contraintes qu'impose leur culture technique.
Dysfunction in early auditory processing in major depressive disorder revealed by combined MEG and EEG.

BACKGROUND Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show impairments in cognitive functions. However, neural mechanisms underlying these disturbances are poorly understood. We investigated whether MDD affects neural mechanisms of involuntary attention studied by auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) and auditory evoked magnetic fields (AEFs). METHODS AEPs and AEFs were studied in a passive odd-ball paradigm in 13 drug-free patients with unipolar MDD during an acute episode and 12 age-and sex-matched healthy subjects. Auditory responses to monaurally presented frequent "standard" tones, infrequent "deviant" tones (10% and 20% frequency change) and occasional "novel" sounds (complex sounds) were simultaneously recorded with whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). RESULTS P1 and P1m latencies were decreased in patients with MDD, compared with those in healthy subjects. Further, the mismatch negativity amplitude to the 10% frequency deviance in the EEG, but not in the MEG, was increased in MDD. We observed no differences in N1/N1m and P3a responses in the MEG and EEG. The magnitude of decrease in P1/P1m latency correlated negatively with the severity of depression in the patients. CONCLUSIONS Early auditory processing is impaired in patients with MDD during an acute episode, probably reflecting dysfunctional frontotemporal neural circuits. These dysfunctions may contribute to the cognitive disturbances observed in people with MDD.
Antirheumatic effect of IDS 23, a stinging nettle leaf extract, on in vitro expression of T helper cytokines.

OBJECTIVE Stinging nettle leaf extracts are registered in Germany for adjuvant therapy of rheumatic diseases. In a whole blood culture system the nettle extract IDS 23 (Rheuma-Hek) inhibited lipopolysaccharide stimulated monocyte cytokine expression, indicating an immunomodulating effect. We investigated the immunomodulating effects of IDS 23 on phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in vitro. METHODS Using commercial immunoassays the distinct cytokine patterns of Th1 and Th2 cells were determined. Interleukin 2 (IL-2) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) mRNA expression was evaluated by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with PHA stimulated PBMC. RESULTS IDS 23 inhibited PHA stimulated production of Th1-specific IL-2 and IFN-gamma in PBMC culture (n = 10) in a dose dependent manner up to 50+/-32% and 77+/-14%, respectively. In contrast, IDS 23 stimulated the secretion of Th2-specific IL-4. The dose dependent inhibiting effect on IL-2 and IFN-gamma expression was also detected with RT-PCR, while the amount of actin-specific mRNA transcript was not modified by IDS 23. CONCLUSION Our results suggest the effective ingredient of IDS 23 acts by mediating a switch in T helper cell derived cytokine patterns. IDS 23 may inhibit the inflammatory cascade in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
Padronização da PCR em tempo real para a genotipagem de HPV 6-11, HPV 16 e HPV 18 utilizando controle interno

O Papilomavírus humano (HPV) é um dos agentes etiológicos mais comuns das infecções sexualmente transmissíveis. Os tipos de alto risco oncogênico têm relação com o desenvolvimento das neoplasias intra-epiteliais e do câncer invasor do colo uterino, da vulva, da vagina e da região anal. Neste contexto, o objetivo desse estudo foi padronizar a técnica de Reação de Polimerase em Cadeia em tempo real (RT-PCR) para diagnóstico de HPV e genotipar os HPV 6-11, 16 e 18 em amostras cérvico-vaginais de mulheres atendidas pelo Serviço Integrado de Saúde (SIS) da Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul. Foi realizado um estudo transversal, em que a coleta de amostras foi efetivada no período de fevereiro a maio de 2015 com mulheres que realizaram a coleta de Papanicolau. As amostras foram analisadas pelo método de RT-PCR utilizando fluorescência por SYBR Green. Para presença do HPV foram utilizados primers consenso e para a detecção dos genótipos de HPV-06/11, 16 e 18 foram utilizados primers específicos. A β-globina foi utilizada como controle interno. Foram padronizadas as técnicas de RT-PCR para diagnóstico e genotipagem com controle interno e testadas em 99 amostras cérvico-vaginais. As amostras testadas foram negativas para HPV utilizando a técnica padronizada. Concluiu-se que foi possível padronizar a técnica de RT-PCR para diagnóstico HPV e genotipagem de HPV-16 com controle interno.