Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bisphenol-A and Nonylphenol Induce Apoptosis in Reproductive Tract Cancer Cell Lines by the Activation of ADAM17

Endocrine-disruptor chemicals (EDCs), such as bisphenol A (BPA) and nonylphenol (NP), have been widely studied due to their negative effects on human and wildlife reproduction. Exposure to BPA or NP is related to cell death, hormonal deregulation, and cancer onset. Our previous studies showed that both compounds induce A Disintegrin And Metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17) activation. Here, we show that BPA and NP induce apoptosis in prostate and ovary cancer cell lines, in a process dependent on ADAM17 activation. ADAM17 knockdown completely prevented apoptosis as well as the shedding of ADAM17 substrates. Both compounds were found to induce an increase in intracellular calcium (Ca2+) only in Ca2+-containing medium, with the NP-treated cells response being more robust than those treated with BPA. Additionally, using a phosphorylated protein microarray, we found that both compounds stimulate common intracellular pathways related to cell growth, differentiation, survival, and apoptosis. These results suggest that BPA and NP could induce apoptosis through ADAM17 by activating different intracellular signaling pathways that may converge in different cellular responses, one of which is apoptosis. These results confirm the capacity of these compounds to induce cell apoptosis in cancer cell lines and uncover ADAM17 as a key regulator of this process in response to EDCs.
K-Medoids Clustering of Data Sequences With Composite Distributions

This paper studies clustering of data sequences using the k-medoids algorithm. All the data sequences are assumed to be generated from unknown continuous distributions, which form clusters with each cluster containing a composite set of closely located distributions (based on a certain distance metric between distributions). The maximum intracluster distance is assumed to be smaller than the minimum intercluster distance, and both values are assumed to be known. The goal is to group the data sequences together if their underlying generative distributions (which are unknown) belong to one cluster. Distribution distance metrics based k-medoids algorithms are proposed for known and unknown number of distribution clusters. Upper bounds on the error probability and convergence results in the large sample regime are also provided. It is shown that the error probability decays exponentially fast as the number of samples in each data sequence goes to infinity. The error exponent has a simple form regardless of the distance metric applied when certain conditions are satisfied. In particular, the error exponent is characterized when either the Kolmogrov–Smirnov distance or the maximum mean discrepancy are used as the distance metric. Simulation results are provided to validate the analysis.
Age differences in head motion and estimates of cortical morphology

Cortical morphology is known to differ with age, as measured by cortical thickness, fractal dimensionality, and gyrification. However, head motion during MRI scanning has been shown to influence estimates of cortical thickness as well as increase with age. Studies have also found task-related differences in head motion and relationships between body-mass index (BMI) and head motion. Here I replicated these prior findings, as well as several others, within a large, open-access dataset (Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, CamCAN). This is a larger dataset than these results have been demonstrated previously, within a sample size of more than 600 adults across the adult lifespan. While replicating prior findings is important, demonstrating these key findings concurrently also provides an opportunity for additional related analyses: Critically, I test for the influence of head motion on cortical fractal dimensionality and gyrification; effects were statistically significant in some cases, but small in magnitude.
Signal Detection Theory (SDT) Is Effective for Modeling User Behavior Toward Phishing and Spear-Phishing Attacks

Objective: To examine the utility of equal-variance signal detection theory (EVSDT) for evaluating and understanding human detection of phishing and spear-phishing e-mail scams. Background: Although the majority of cybersecurity breaches are due to erroneous responses to deceptive phishing e-mails, it is unclear how best to quantify performance in this context. In particular, it is unclear whether equal variances can safely be assumed in the SDT model, or, relatedly, whether degree of targeting, or threat level, primarily affects mean separation or evidence variability. Method: Through an online inbox simulation, the present research found that differences in susceptibility to phishing and spear-phishing e-mails could be carefully quantified with respect to detection accuracy and response bias through the use of an EVSDT framework. Results: The results indicated that EVSDT-based point metrics are effective for modeling and measuring phishing susceptibility in the inbox task, without the need for parameter estimation or model comparison involving unequal-variance SDT (UVSDT). Threat level modulated mean separation, with no effects on signal variances. Conclusion: These findings support the viability of using EVSDT to initially assess and subsequently monitor training effectiveness for phishing susceptibility, thereby providing measures that are superior to more intuitive metrics, which typically confound an individual’s bias and accuracy. Effects of threat level mapped clearly onto distribution means with no effect on variances, suggesting phishing susceptibility primarily reflects temporally stable discriminative characteristics of observers. Notably, results indicated that people are particularly poor at identifying spear-phishing e-mail threats (demonstrating only 40% accuracy).
Interactive Summarization and Exploration of Top Aggregate Query Answers

We present a system for summarization and interactive exploration of high-valued aggregate query answers to make a large set of possible answers more informative to the user. Our system outputs a set of clusters on the high-valued query answers showing their common properties such that the clusters are diverse as much as possible to avoid repeating information, and cover a certain number of top original answers as indicated by the user. Further, the system facilitates interactive exploration of the query answers by helping the user (i) choose combinations of parameters for clustering, (ii) inspect the clusters as well as the elements they contain, and (iii) visualize how changes in parameters affect clustering. We define optimization problems, study their complexity, explore properties of the solutions investigating the semi-lattice structure on the clusters, and propose efficient algorithms and optimizations to achieve these goals. We evaluate our techniques experimentally and discuss our prototype with a graphical user interface that facilitates this interactive exploration. A user study is conducted to evaluate the usability of our approach.
SAP97‐mediated rescue of NMDA receptor surface distribution in a neuronal model of Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expansion of the CAG repeat tract in the HTT gene, leading to motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms. At the cellular level, NMDA‐type glutamate receptors are upregulated at glutamatergic extrasynaptic sites in HD, triggering cell death signaling pathways and driving HD neurodegeneration. Extrasynaptic and synaptic glutamate receptor trafficking and surface distribution are regulated by the α and β N‐terminal isoforms of SAP97, a postsynaptic density protein localized at glutamatergic synapses. Here we examined the surface distribution of NMDARs and AMPARs in a cellular model of HD, and whether the manipulation of individual SAP97 isoforms can regulate receptor distribution in diseased neurons. Using dSTORM super‐resolution imaging, we reveal that mutant HTT drives the elevation of extrasynaptic NMDAR clusters located 100–500 nm from the postsynaptic density. This was accompanied by a decline in synaptic NMDAR‐mediated currents while surface NMDAR‐mediated currents remained unchanged. These effects were induced within 3 days of mutant HTT expression in rat hippocampal neurons in vitro, and were specific for NMDARs and not observed with AMPARs. Intriguingly, upregulation of either α‐ or βSAP97 expression increased synaptic and/or perisynaptic NMDAR localization and prevented the shift of NMDARs to extrasynaptic sites in mutant HTT neurons. This was accompanied by the rescue of normal synaptic NMDAR‐mediated currents. Taken together, our high‐resolution data reveals plasticity in surface NMDAR localization driven by mutant HTT and identifies the similar but independent roles of SAP97 N‐terminal isoforms in maintaining normal synaptic function in pathological states.
Effectiveness of therapeutic clowning on handwashing habits remains unknown

Commentary on: Arikan D, Gurarslan Bas N, Kurudirek F, Bastopcu A, Uslu H. The effect of therapeutic clowning on handwashing technique and microbial colonization in preschool children. J Nurs Scholarsh ; article in press. Handwashing is an effective and convenient practice to prevent many infectious diseases.1 Children, especially preschoolers, will benefit the most from proper handwashing as they are vulnerable to infectious diseases. Traditional educations on handwashing may not effectively engage preschool children. Arikan and colleagues proposed an entertaining method, that is, using therapeutic clowning, to teach handwashing technique among preschool children.2 They evaluated their proposed therapeutic …
The next‐generation K‐means algorithm

Typically, when referring to a model‐based classification, the mixture distribution approach is understood. In contrast, we revive the hard‐classification model‐based approach developed by Banfield and Raftery (1993) for which K‐means is equivalent to the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. The next‐generation K‐means algorithm does not end after the classification is achieved, but moves forward to answer the following fundamental questions: Are there clusters, how many clusters are there, what are the statistical properties of the estimated means and index sets, what is the distribution of the coefficients in the clusterwise regression, and how to classify multilevel data? The statistical model‐based approach for the K‐means algorithm is the key, because it allows statistical simulations and studying the properties of classification following the track of the classical statistics. This paper illustrates the application of the ML classification to testing the no‐clusters hypothesis, to studying various methods for selection of the number of clusters using simulations, robust clustering using Laplace distribution, studying properties of the coefficients in clusterwise regression, and finally to multilevel data by marrying the variance components model with K‐means.
Influence of PLA Filament Conditions on Characteristics of FDM Parts

Additive manufacturing technologies play an important role in Industry 4.0. One of the most prevalent processes is fused deposition modelling (FDM) due to its versatility and low cost. However, there is still a lack of standardization of materials and procedures within this technology. This work aims to study the relationship of certain operating parameters and the conditions of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) polymer with the results of the manufactured parts in dimensional terms, surface quality, and mechanical strength. In this way, the impact of some material characteristics is analyzed, such as the pigmentation of the material and the environmental humidity where it has been stored. The manufacturing parameter that relates to these properties has been the extrusion temperature since it is the most influential in this technology. The results are quite affected especially by humidity, being a parameter little studied in the literature.
Associations between adherence to dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet and migraine headache severity and duration among women

Purpose/introduction: Migraine is a common disorder, with attacks causing neurological dysfunction and pain. Many foods are involved in reducing the severity of migraine attacks. This study aimed to assess the effects that adhering to the Dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet had on headache severity and duration among women suffering from migraine. Methods and materials: Two hundred and sixty-six women (18–45 years) were enrolled after being referred to a headache clinic for the first time. Dietary intake was assessed daily using a Food Frequency Questionnaire. Anthropometric measurements were assessed for all cases, as well as headache duration of each attack; Visual Analog Scale and Migraine Disability Assessment questionnaires were evaluated by a neurologist. Results: The mean age, weight, and height of the study participants were 34.32 (SD 7.86) years, 69.41 (13.02) kg, and 161 (0.05) cm, respectively. The results of analysis in the crude model showed that individuals with the greatest adherence to the DASH diet displayed a 30% lower prevalence in severe headaches, compared to those with the lowest adherence (OR=0.70, 95%CI=0.49–0.99, P<0.05). Also, after controlling for potential confounders, subjects in the highest quartile of DASH diet adherence were 46% less likely to have severe headaches, and also saw a 36% lower occurrence of moderate headaches, compared to those in the bottom quartile (OR=0.54, 95%CI=0.35–0.83, P<0.005 and OR=0.64, 95%CI=0.44–0.95, P<0.005, respectively). These results showed a significant positive correlation between adherence to DASH diets and lower rates of mean headache duration for each attack in the last month (β=−1.49, CI=0.21–2.7, P=0.02). Conclusion: This study showed that the DASH diet is associated with lower headache severity and duration in migraine patients.
MicroRNA-142-3p Promotes Cellular Invasion of Colorectal Cancer Cells by Activation of RAC1

Background: Colorectal cancer has been proved more difficult to treat owing to potently malignant metastasis. The present study was aimed to explore the functional role of miR-142-3p in cell migration and invasion of colorectal cancer cells, as well as its underlying mechanism. Materials and Methods: Expressions of miR-142-3p were analyzed in colorectal cancer tissues and cell lines. Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1 (RAC1) was predicted as a target of miR-142-3p using software and network resources. SW480 cells were transfected with miR-142-3p expression plasmid and miR-142-3p silencer plasmid, and the expression of RAC1 and the cellular invasion were measured. Results: In colorectal cancer cells transfected with miR-142-3p expression plasmid, RAC1 was specifically upregulated and invasiveness of cells was downregulated. Moreover, RAC1 was significantly associated with tumor stage (P = .029) and tumor metastasis (P = .012). Conclusion: miR-142-3p promotes cellular invasion in colorectal cancer cells by activating RAC1. Thereby, miR-142-3p is a potential candidate for molecular targeted therapy of colorectal cancer.
Psychopathic Personality Traits and the Successful Criminal

A significant body of literature links psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits with criminal behavior and involvement with the criminal justice system. However, very little research has examined whether psychopathic personality traits are related to being a successful criminal (e.g., evading detection). This study addresses this gap in the literature by examining whether psychopathic personality traits are associated with the likelihood of being processed by the criminal justice system (i.e., arrest). Our findings reveal that psychopathic personality traits are generally not associated with criminal success. Specifically, individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits commit more crimes and report more arrests, but they do not seem to have an advantage when it comes to avoiding arrest for the crimes they commit. We discuss the implications of these findings for the psychopathy literature.
Cooperative NOMA with full‐duplex amplify‐and‐forward relaying

In this paper, we study the performance of a cooperative non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system with a dedicated relay. This relay is full duplex (FD) and works in an amplify‐and‐forward (AF) mode. Our NOMA system consists of two users where one of them is near to the base station and the other one is assumed to be far from the base station. We derive exact expressions for outage probability and ergodic achievable rate of two NOMA users. The simulations demonstrate that in the case of imperfect self‐interference cancelation, our proposed FD‐AF relaying scheme has better performance rather than FD decode‐and‐forward NOMA scheme. In addition, we calculate the outage probability of users in high signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) regime and derive diversity order of unity for each of NOMA users. We show that in high SNRs, the ergodic achievable rate of near user increases with transmit SNR, but the rate of far user tends to a fixed value. Ergodic sum rate expression in high SNR regime shows that it is independent of NOMA power allocation coefficient and increases log‐linearly with transmit SNR. Finally, we verify our analytical formulas for outage probability and ergodic achievable rate by Monte Carlo simulations.
Construction of a microRNA-associated feed-forward loop network that identifies regulators of cardiac hypertrophy and acute myocardial infarction

Feed-forward loops (FFLs) are three-gene modules that exert significant effects on a series of biological processes and carcinogenesis development. MicroRNA-associated FFLs (miR-FFLs) represent a new era in disease research. However, analysis of the miR-FFL network motifs has yet to be systematically performed, and their potential role in cardiac hypertrophy and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) requires investigation. The present study used a computational method to establish a comprehensive miR-FFL network for cardiac hypertrophy and AMI, by integrating high-throughput data from different sources and performing multi-aspect analysis of the network features. Several heart disease-associated miR-FFL motifs were identified that were specific or common to the two diseases investigated. Functional analysis further revealed that miR-FFL motifs provided specific drug targets for the clinical treatment of cardiac hypertrophy and AMI. Associations between specific drugs associated with heart disease and dysregulated FFLs were also identified. The present study highlighted the components of FFL motifs in cardiac hypertrophy and AMI, and revealed their possibility as heart disease biomarkers and novel treatment targets.
A clinico-pathological study of non-urothelial bladder cancers in a cohort of patients from a tertiary care urology unit in Sri Lanka

Bladder cancer is the ninth most commonest cancer worldwide. The spectrum of bladder cancer is quite diverse and the majority (90-95%) of cancers are urothelial in origin [1]. Non-urothelial bladder cancers are known to occur in around 5% of all bladder cancers [1]. Due to the rarity of non-urothelial bladder cancers, understanding of the clinico-pathological characteristics and effective management strategies are poor, particularly in the South Asian region [2]. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the clinico-pathological characteristics of non-urothelial bladder cancers.
Normothermic ex-vivo liver perfusion: where do we stand and where to reach?

ABSTRACT Introduction: Nowadays liver transplantation is considered as the treatment of choice, however, the scarcity of suitable donor organs limits the delivery of care to the end-stage liver disease patients leading to the death while on the waiting list. The advent of ex-situ normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) has emerged as an alternative to the standard organ preservation technique, static cold storage (SCS). The newer technique promises to not only restore the normal metabolic activity but also attempt to recondition the marginal livers back to the pristine state, which are otherwise more susceptible to ischemic injury and foster the poor post-transplant outcomes. Areas covered: An extensive search of all the published literature describing the role of NMP based device in liver transplantation as an alternative to SCS was made on MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, BIOSIS, Crossref, Scopus databases and clinical trial registry on 10 May 2018. Expert commentary: The main tenet of NMP is the establishment of the physiological milieu, which permits aerobic metabolism to continue through out the period of preservation and limits the effects of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. In addition, by assessing the various metabolic and synthetic parameters the viability and suitability of donor livers for transplantation can be determined. This important technological advancement has scored satisfactorily on the safety and efficacy parameters in preliminary clinical studies. The present review suggests that NMP can offer the opportunity to assess and safely utilize the marginal donor livers if deemed appropriate for the transplantation. However, ongoing trials will determine its full potential and further adoption.
“Phobie à deux” and other reasons why clinicians do not apply exposure with response prevention in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

ABSTRACT Meta-analyses suggest that exposure with response prevention (ERP) is the most efficacious treatment for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and treatment guidelines for the disorder accordingly recommend ERP. Despite this, many therapists, including those with a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic background, do not perform ERP in patients with OCD. The present study aimed to elucidate the reasons why. German therapists (N = 216) completed an anonymous online survey, the newly developed Reasons for Not Performing Exposure in OCD Scale (REPEX), that inquired whether, to what extent, and how they perform ERP in the treatment of OCD. We also asked their reasons for not applying ERP in the past. Most therapists considered ERP an efficient treatment for OCD. Marked differences emerged between physicians and psychologists, however. The former used exposure less often and for a shorter period, preferred in sensu to in vivo exposure, and conducted exposure less often in the personal environment of the patient than did psychologists. Both groups were familiar with clinical guidelines to a similar extent. A factor analysis of the REPEX scale revealed five factors. Patient lack of motivation, preference for exposure to be self-help as well as alleged organizational difficulties were endorsed most often. The latter was correlated with the age of the therapist and was far more often affirmed by physicians. Fear of side effects was named by a subgroup of clinicians; in the context of patient ambivalence, this may foster “phobie à deux”. Unlike prior research, lack of expertise was rarely identified as a reason not to use ERP. Recommendations for improving adherence to guidelines are discussed.