Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The response of dental pulp-derived cells to zoledronate depends on the experimental model.

AIM To investigate whether zoledronate (ZOL) can cause a cytotoxic response in dental pulp-derived cells (DPCs) in vitro. METHODOLOGY Cell activity was assessed utilizing MTT tests, (3) [H]thymidine, and (3) [H]leucine incorporation assays in human DPCs in response to ZOL. Cell activity assays were also preformed on calcium phosphate-coated plates. Cell death was analysed with annexin V/propidium iodide, trypan blue staining and Western blot analysis. RESULTS Micromolar concentrations of ZOL were required to decrease the activity of DPCs. The decreased activity of DPCs was associated with the occurrence of apoptosis and necrosis. No adverse effects were observed when DPCs were cultured on calcium phosphate-coated plates with ZOL. CONCLUSION High concentrations of soluble ZOL were required to cause adverse effects in vitro. These adverse effects are abolished when the bisphosphonate was bound to a mineralized surface. However, the clinical relevance of these results remains to be determined.
La correción del sesgo de selección en los análisis de corte transversal de discriminación salarial por sexo: estudio comparativo en los países de la Unión Europea

La correccion del sesgo de seleccion muestral en la estimacion de ecuaciones salariales y el correcto tratamiento de los terminos de correccion reduce los porcentajes de discriminacion salarial por sexo habitualmente obtenidos en los analisis de corte transversal. Proponemos un nuevo metodo para descomponer las diferencias salariales observadas entre hombres y mujeres basado en la correcta descomposicion de los terminos de correccion, y realizamos una aplicacion en catorce paises de la UE que constituye la primera comparacion homogenea del tema porque descompone dichos terminos de correccion en los componentes habituales (caracteristicas y remuneraciones), considerando las diferentes pautas de participacion laboral existentes en tales paises que son ocasionadas tanto por diferentes procesos de seleccion laboral, como por distintas caracteristicas personales
Next generation of smart sensorless drives for sustainable underwater vehicles

Both Autonomous and Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle play a key role in the development of offshore industrial installations assuring both cost and safety improvements in a very harsh environment. In order to improve performances, reliability and sustainability of underwater robotics, there is the need of a new generation of motors and drives devoted to this kind of applications. In this work authors focus their attention to most interesting aspect of the development of this new generation of products, introducing design examples and results of experimental activities performed on motors installed on Tifone, Marta and Feel Hippo AUVs.
Molecular mechanism of psychosine‐induced cell death in human oligodendrocyte cell line

This study delineates the molecular mechanism underlying psychosine‐induced oligodendroglial cell death. An immortalized human oligodendroglial cell line, MO3.13, was treated with exogenous psychosine (β‐galactosylsphingosine), a toxic metabolite that accumulates in the tissues of patients with Krabbe's disease. The mode of cell death induced by psychosine was found to be apoptotic, as revealed by different apoptotic markers viz., TUNEL, DNA fragmentation and caspase cleavage/activation. The action of psychosine was redox sensitive, as measured by changes in mitochondrial membrane potential (ψΔ), and this effect of psychosine could be reversed by pre‐treatment with the antioxidant molecules N‐acetyl‐l‐cysteine or pro‐cysteine. Psychosine directly affects the mitochondria as revealed by the activation of caspase 9 but not caspase 8. Up‐regulation of the c‐jun/c‐jun N‐terminal kinase pathway by psychosine leads to the induction of AP‐1 and, at the same time, psychosine also down‐regulates the lipopolysaccharide‐induced NF‐κB transactivation. These observations indicate that the mechanism of action of psychosine is, through the up‐regulation of AP‐1, a pro‐apoptotic pathway as well as, through the down‐regulation of the NF‐κB pathway, an antiapoptotic pathway.
Simian-Human Immunodeficiency Viruses and Their Impact on Non-Human Primate Models for AIDS

© 2012 Smith et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Simian-Human Immunodeficiency Viruses and Their Impact on Non-Human Primate Models for AIDS
CLINICAL AND IMAGING STUDY: Glucocorticoid negative feedback in methadone‐maintained former heroin addicts with ongoing cocaine dependence: dose–response to dexamethasone suppression

Combined cocaine and illicit opiate use is common. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that cocaine dependence in former heroin‐addicted patients maintained on methadone treatment is associated with enhanced glucocorticoid negative feedback. Multiple dose dexamethasone suppression tests, using a conventional 2.0 mg dose, and two lower doses, 0.5 mg and 0.125 mg, were performed in 10 methadone‐maintained former heroin addicts with ongoing cocaine dependence (C‐MM), 10 stabilized methadone‐maintained former heroin addicts with no ongoing drug or alcohol use (MM), and 22 normal volunteers (NV). At 9 hours, there was no difference in plasma adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) and/or cortisol levels among groups on the baseline day, as well as after the two lower doses of dexamethasone. At 17 hours, C‐MM and MM had significantly lower plasma ACTH and/or cortisol levels than NV. However, C‐MM did not significantly differ from MM in their hormonal levels. When the hormonal responses to dexamethasone are expressed as magnitude of lowering from baseline, there was no significant difference at any dose among groups. Therefore, C‐MM exhibited a normal glucocorticoid negative feedback in the morning. Using the standard interpretation of dexamethasone suppression testing based on the examination of the actual hormonal levels rather than the difference from baseline condition, C‐MM appear to have glucocorticoid effects similar to MM, yet were both greater than NV in the late afternoon. Thus, further studies are needed to know whether altered glucocorticoid negative feedback is related to chronic cocaine exposure, or is the result of former heroin addiction and/or its long‐term treatment with methadone.
Usability for medical devices

Use errors caused by poor usability of medical devices are a significant hazard. Regulatory authorities are addressing the issue by implementing guidelines and standards to improve usability engineering practices and minimize usability issues. This document introduces usability engineering, gives examples of critical usability hazards on medical devices and details the relevant regulations addressing usability for medical devices for Europe and the USA.
Reducing the Energy Dissipation of the Issue Queue by Exploiting Narrow Immediate Operands

In contemporary superscalar microprocessors, issue queue is a considerable energy dissipating component due its complex scheduling logic. In addition to the energy dissipated for scheduling activities, read and write lines of the issue queue entries are also high energy consuming pieces of the issue queue. When these lines are used for reading and writing unnecessary information bits, such as the immediate operand part of an instruction that does not use the immediate field or the insignificant higher order bits of an immediate operand that are in fact not needed, significant amount of energy is wasted. In this paper, we propose two techniques to reduce the energy dissipation of the issue queue by exploiting the immediate operand files of the stored instructions: firstly by storing immediate operands in separate immediate operand files rather than storing them inside the issue queue entries and secondly by issue queue partitioning based on widths of immediate operands of instructions. We present our performance results and energy savings using a cycle accurate simulator and testing the design with SPEC2K benchmarks and 90 nm CMOS (UMC) technology.
Bond to Society, Collectivism, and Conformity: A Comparative Study of Japanese and American College Students

An argument is developed that the purported collectivism in Japanese society generates stronger social bonds in Japan than in the more individualistic United States, which might then explain the lower level of deviance often found in Japan. We test this using survey data from samples of Japanese and American college students on measures of deviance and social bonds. Results indicate that Japanese students engage in significantly less deviance than Americans, and although variables from Hirschi's (1969) social control theory behave similarly across cultures as predictors of deviance, the theory failed to account for the lower level of deviance among Japanese.
USE OF MICROBEAM AT JAEA TAKASAKI

The TIARA facilities of JAEA in Takasaki is equipped with a several-MeV light-ion and a several-dozen-MeV heavy-ion microbeam formation systems of focusing type, and a several-hundred-MeV heavy-ion microbeam formation system of collimating type. The microbeams with a spot size of 1 μm or less in diameter are extensively utilized for the research in materials science and biotechnology. An in-air micro-PIXE analysis system using a 2 MeV proton microbeam is quite useful for medical science and dentistry to visualize twodimensional distribution of very small quantities of elements in a microscopic area like cells with very high sensitivity. A single-ion hit system using a severalhundred-MeV heavy-ion microbeam is available for medical and biological applications such as elucidations of cellular radiation response. Highly stable ion beams with energy spread less than 0.02 % are required for the microbeam production. Improvements of accelerator performance are indispensable to realize the ion beams of high quality. A flattop acceleration system and a magnetic field stabilization system have been developed for the JAEA AVF cyclotron. These accelerator technologies are also required for very precise spectroscopic studies in nuclear physics. Ultrahigh energy resolution of 0.005 % has been achieved at the RCNP cyclotron facility of Osaka University.
Subproblems of Semantic Memory : A Review of “ Human Associative Memory ”

In the first place, I liked the title; human conceptual memory is associative, and it is nice to see that assertion right up front in the title of this important book. I have always considered the issue of whether any memory system was associative or nonassociative to be fundamental. The first memory paper I ever wrote (Wickelgren, 1965) presented a definition of one type of associative memory and one type of nonassociative memory and asserted that the evidence favored the assumption that verbal short-term memory is associative. Since then, about half a dozen subsequent papers of mine were also concerned with this issue and related issues concerned with the associative character of verbal long-term memory (Wickelgren, 1972) and the nonassociative character of visual sensory memory (Wickelgren & Whitman, 1970). Partly because the general notion of associative memory has been around since Aristotle, the most common reaction to my work on this topic has been largely “ho hum. ” Also, the decade of the 60’s was not a good time for definitions, arguments, and evidence favorable to the assumption that human conceptual memory is associative. Computer models and transformational generative grammar were “in,” and, for completely illogical reasons, associative memory was “out. ” The notion that memory is associative suffered from “guilt by association. ” Nearly universal acceptance of the hypothesis of associative memory throughout the early history of psychology led to the ridiculous notion during the 60’s that the assumption of associative memory was directly linked to a noncognitive, operationist, crassly empirical, S-R approach to psychology. As a consequence, a lot of psycholoinguists and cognitive memory researchers threw out the baby with the bath water and went off developing theories of the human mind that either ignored memory altogether or worked with some
Impact of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene polymorphism on neural tube defects.

OBJECT Neural tube defects (NTDs) are among the most common congenital malformations worldwide. Their etiology and exact mechanisms of development are incompletely understood. Many enzymes involved in folate metabolism and the genes encoding these enzymes have been studied as candidates in their etiology. A mutation in the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene--a C-->T transition at nucleotide 677--is one among them. The mutation results in substitution of alanine by valine at a functionally important site in the enzyme. It has been shown to be a risk factor for development of NTDs in certain populations. The present study was conducted to evaluate the role of MTHFR 677 C-->T mutation as a risk factor for NTD in the South Indian population and to determine the relative importance of the genotypes in the affected child and its mother. METHODS Blood samples were collected from the test and the control groups. The test group consisted of children with NTDs and their mothers, while the control group consisted of apparently healthy controls. MTHFR C677T polymorphism in the 3 groups was determined by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism studies. Comparison of polymorphism in the 3 groups was using the chi-square test. RESULTS There was a significant difference in the prevalence of MTHFR 677 C-->T mutation among the 3 groups (p = 0.002). The risk conferred by the TT genotype in the child was statistically significant (OR 12.625, 95% CI 1.430-111.465). In the mothers, however, although there was an increased prevalence of the mutation compared with the control individuals, the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.152). CONCLUSIONS The MTHFR 677TT genotype is considered to be a definite risk factor for development of NTDs. It is the TT genotype status of the developing embryo, rather than the TT genotype status of its mother, that is the critical genetic determinant of MTHFR-related NTD risk.
Geomorphological applications of cosmogenic isotope analysis

Cosmogenic isotope analysis involves the measurement of cosmogenic nuclides that have accumulated in the upper few metres of the Earth’s surface as a result of interactions between cosmic rays and target elements. The concentrations of these cosmogenic nuclides can provide quantitative estimates of the timing and rate of geomorphic processes. In dating applications the concentration of cosmogenic nuclides is interpreted as reflecting the time elapsed since a surface exposure event. However, over most of the Earth’s surface for most of the time the landsurface experiences incremental denudation and in these circumstances cosmogenic nuclide concentrations are related to the rate of denudation. Applications of event dating using cosmogenic isotopes include constructional landforms such as volcanic and depositional features, fault displacement, meteorite impacts, rapid mass movement, bedrock surfaces rapidly eroded by fluvial or wave action or exposed by glacial retreat, and the burial of sediment or ice. Strategies for quantifying rates of incremental change include estimates of denudation rates from site-specific samples and from fluvial sediment samples reflecting catchment-wide rates, and measurements of cosmogenic nuclide concentrations in soils and regolith to quantify rates of rock weathering. The past decade has seen a rapid growth in applications of cosmogenic isotope analysis to a wide range of geomorphological problems, and the technique is now playing a major role in dating and quantifying rates of landscape change over timescales of several thousands to several millions of years.
Plasticité intrathalamique des synapses inhibitrices : implication des canaux calciques de type T dans la LTD des synapses NRT-TC lors des rythmes du sommeil profond.

Le thalamus, via les neurones glutamatergiques thalamocorticaux (TC), est le dernier relai dans le cheminement des informations de la peripherie vers le cortex. Le reseau intrathalamique repose sur les interactions entre ces neurones TC et des neurones GABAergiques regroupes dans le Noyau Reticule Thalamique (NRT). Ces deux types de neurones contribuent au traitement des informations issues de la peripherie et a la genese des activites oscillantes pendant le sommeil. Pendant les phases de sommeil a ondes lentes les neurones TC et NRT emettent de maniere periodique et synchrone des bouffees de potentiels d'action a haute frequence associees a de forts influx de calcium dus a l'activation des canaux calciques de type T. Au cours de ma these, j'ai cherche a determiner si ces activites etaient susceptibles de modifier la force synaptique. En utilisant un protocole d'induction mimant l'excitabilite des neurones thalamiques durant le sommeil a ondes lentes, j'ai mis en evidence une depression a long terme (LTD) de la synapse GABAergique entre les neurones NRT et TC. J'ai montre que cette LTD etait d'origine post-synaptique et necessitait en synergie 1) l'activation des recepteurs GABAA presents a la synapse, 2) une forte entree de calcium dans les neurones TC specifiquement par les canaux calciques de type T, 3) l'activation des recepteurs metabotropiques du glutamate. L'exigence d'une entree massive de calcium par les canaux calciques de type T suggere que seules les activites thalamocorticales associees au sommeil a ondes lentes sont susceptibles de declencher cette LTD.
Extracellular matrix deposited by synovium‐derived stem cells delays replicative senescent chondrocyte dedifferentiation and enhances redifferentiation

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of extracellular matrix (ECM) deposited by synovium‐derived stem cells (SDSCs) on articular chondrocyte expansion and maintenance of differentiation status and redifferentiation capacity. Passage 0 (P0) pig articular chondrocytes were expanded for six passages on plastic flasks (Plastic), SDSC‐derived ECM (ECM), or substrate switching from either Plastic to ECM (PtoE) or ECM to Plastic (EtoP). Cell morphology, gene expression profiles, and immunophenotypes at each passage were used to characterize differentiation status of expanded cells. Chondrocytes at P0, P2, and P6 were assessed for redifferentiation capacity in a pellet culture system treated with either TGF‐β1‐ or serum‐containing medium for 14 days, using histology, immunohistochemistry, biochemistry, Western blot, and real‐time PCR. We found that ECM not only greatly enhanced chondrocyte expansion but also delayed dedifferentiation of expanded chondrocytes. Intriguingly, compared to a dramatic decrease in CD90+/CD105+ cells and CD90+ cells, CD105+ cells dramatically increased when chondrocytes were plated on Plastic; on the contrary, ECM expansion dramatically increased CD90+ cells and delayed the decrease of CD90+/CD105+ cells. Interestingly, expanded chondrocytes on ECM also acquired a strong redifferentiation capacity, particularly in the pellets treated with TGF‐β1. In conclusion, the ratio of CD90 to CD105 may serve as a marker indicative of proliferation and redifferentiation capacity of dedifferentiated chondrocytes. ECM deposited by SDSCs provides a tissue‐specific three‐dimensional microenvironment for ex vivo expansion of articular chondrocytes while retaining redifferentiation capacity, suggesting that ECM may provide a novel approach for autologous chondrocyte‐based cartilage repair. J. Cell. Physiol. 227: 2163–2174, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Targeted Therapy of Cancer: New Prospects for Antibodies and Immunoconjugates

ABSTRACT Immunotherapy of cancer has been explored for over a century, but it is only in the last decade that various antibody‐based products have been introduced into the management of patients with diverse cancers. At present, this is one of the most active areas of clinical research, with eight therapeutic products already approved in oncology. Antibodies against tumor‐associated markers have been a part of medical practice in immunohistology and in vitro immunoassays for several decades, have even been used as radioconjugates in diagnostic imaging, and are now becoming increasingly recognized as important biological agents for the detection and treatment of cancer. Molecular engineering has improved the prospects for such antibody‐based therapeutics, resulting in different constructs and humanized/human antibodies that can be administered frequently. Consequently, a renewed interest in the development of antibodies conjugated with radionuclides, drugs, and toxins has emerged. We review how antibodies and immunoconjugates have influenced cancer detection and therapy, and also describe promising new developments and challenges for broader applications.
Neural Network-Based Passivity Control of Teleoperation System Under Time-Varying Delays

In this paper, a novel neural network (NN)-based four-channel wave-based time domain passivity approach (TDPA) is proposed for a teleoperation system with time-varying delays. The designed wave-based TDPA aims to robustly guarantee the channels passivity and provide higher transparency than the previous power-based TDPA. The applied NN is used to estimate and eliminate the system’s dynamic uncertainties. The system stability with linearity assumption on human and environment has been analyzed using Lyapunov method. The proposed algorithm is validated through experimental work based on a 3-DOF bilateral teleoperation platform in the presence of different time delays.
Fueling connections between chemistry and biology

Chemical reactions create far-from-equilibrium materials by mastering self-assembly [Also see Report by Boekhoven et al.] Many biological functions are the result of architectures that form through strong, directional interactions between subunits that constitute the cellular structure. These self-assembly processes display rich, dynamic behavior, where growth and shrinkage are carefully controlled by biochemical feedback mechanisms. One fascinating example is the guanosine triphosphate (GTP)–mediated assembly and disassembly of tubulin into microtubules (1). The realization of a chemically fueled synthetic mimic is a long-standing challenge in the field of supramolecular chemistry (2). On page 1075 of this issue, Boekhoven et al. (3) demonstrate the far-from-equilibrium self-assembly of molecular subunits driven by the consumption of a chemical fuel, leading to the transient formation of fibrous hydrogel materials. These conditions result in peculiar self-assembly processes unprecedented in synthetic systems, mimicking in part the fluctuations observed in microtubules.