Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Benefits of Multifaceted Chemopreventives in the Suppression of the Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) Tumorigenic Phenotype

Over one third of patients who have undergone oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) surgical resections develop life-threatening and often untreatable recurrences. A variety of drugs, intended for management of recurrent or disseminated cancers, were designed to exploit cancer cells' reliance upon overexpressed receptors and gratuitous signaling. Despite their conceptual promise, clinical trials showed these agents lacked efficacy and were often toxic. These findings are consistent with evasion of pathway-targeted treatments via extensive signaling redundancies and compensatory mechanisms common to cancers. Optimal secondary OSCC chemoprevention requires long-term efficacy with multifaceted, nontoxic agents. Accordingly, this study evaluated the abilities of three complementary chemopreventives, that is, the vitamin A derivative fenretinide (4-HPR, induces apoptosis and differentiation, inhibits signaling proteins, and invasion), the estrogen metabolite 2-methoxyestradiol (2-ME, apoptosis-inducing, antiangiogenic), and the humanized mAb to the IL6R receptor tocilizumab (TOC, reduces IL6 signaling) to suppress OSCC gratuitous signaling and tumorigenesis. Modeling studies demonstrated 4-HPR's high-affinity binding at STAT3′s dimerization site and c-Abl and c-Src ATP-binding kinase sites. Although individual agents suppressed cancer-promoting pathways including STAT3 phosphorylation, STAT3-DNA binding, and production of the trans-signaling enabling sIL6R, maximal chemopreventive effects were observed with agent combinations. OSCC tumor xenograft studies showed that locally delivered TOC, TOC+4-HPR, and TOC+4-HPR+2-ME treatments all prevented significant tumor growth. Notably, the TOC+4-HPR+2-ME treatment resulted in the smallest overall increase in tumor volume. The selected agents use diverse mechanisms to disrupt tumorigenesis at multiple venues, that is, intracellular, tumor cell-ECM, and tumor microenvironment; beneficial qualities for secondary chemopreventives. Cancer Prev Res; 10(1); 76–88. ©2016 AACR.
Mortality among participants in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study and the Women's Interagency HIV Study.

BACKGROUND Many studies that have reported decreases in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related mortality since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) have also reported steady increases in non-HIV-related mortality over the same time periods. We examined temporal trends and risk factors for accident- and injury-related mortality among HIV-infected and -uninfected participants in the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) and the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). METHODS Information on causes of death was recorded for all participants in the MACS and WIHS cohort studies who died, and causes of death were categorized as accident- or injury-related deaths or not. Mortality rates were calculated by time periods, prior to the widespread use of HAART (before 1997) and after (1997-2002), and risk factors. RESULTS Cause of death information was available for 619 women in the WIHS who died (during the period 1994-2002) and 1830 men in the MACS who died (during the period 1984-2002). The death rates were higher for accident- or injury-related mortality in the WIHS (2.96 deaths per 1000 person-years for the HIV-infected group and 2.96 per 1000 person-years for the HIV-uninfected group), compared with the participants in MACS (0.79 deaths per 1000 person-years for the HIV-infected group and 0.63 per 1000 person-years for the HIV-uninfected group). In the final multivariate analysis, the following factors were associated with significantly higher risk in men: higher education, depressive symptoms, and a greater number of sex partners. Among women, the significant risk factors for death were decreased CD4+ T cell count, unemployment, higher alcohol use, and injection drug use. CONCLUSION The characteristics of the men in the MACS who died and women in the WIHS who died differ, as do the risk factors for mortality. These results characterize important target groups for interventions to reduce accident- and injury-related deaths.
Generic analysis of bakery service encounters in Malaysia

The study aimed to describe the staging of service encounters in a bakery in Sarawak, Malaysia. The specific aspects studied were categories of transactions, staging of transactions, and nonverbal enactment of stages of transactions. A total of 100 interactions between Chinese vendors and Chinese, Malay, and Indigenous customers at a bakery operated by Chinese vendors in Sibu, Sarawak were observed and recorded. The analysis revealed five categories: Instant Buying, where customers bought the cakes on the spot; transactions where customers waited for the cakes to be baked; transactions where customers placed an order for the cakes; transactions where the customers picked up the cakes they had ordered; and unsuccessful sales. The four obligatory stages were Sale Request, Sale Compliance, Purchase, and Goods Handover. While all four stages could be realized nonverbally, the Purchase and Goods Handover stages in the service encounters were always performed nonverbally. The results suggest no difference in the role of nonverbal communication in service encounters with Chinese and non-Chinese customers but there are cultural differences in the staging. The Chinese vendors were more likely to omit the opening (Sale Initiation and Greeting) and closing (Purchase Closure) in their interactions with non-Chinese customers than with Chinese customers. The results suggest that service encounters in high-context cultures involving customers from other ethnic groups are more likely to be instrumental exchanges with an omission of the politeness rituals that characterize interpersonal relationships.
Business Analytics Success: A Conceptual Framework and an Application to Virtual Organizing

abstraCt The chapter presents a conceptual framework that identifies technological and organizational factors that impact the success of business analytics (BA) use in organizations in general and virtual organizations in particular. The framework explores BA success through three business disciplines: decision sciences (DS), information systems (IS), and management. We believe that BA success comes from proper interaction between the three disciplines. Though the concept of BA has been around for a long time in business literature, its full potential use has not been realized in organizations for a variety of reasons. The information and communication technologies (ICT) that have made virtual organizations, and flattening of the world possible have also created a better infrastructure/environment for use of BA by providing the capability to collect massive amounts of data and by providing easier-to-use analytic tools. Currently, BA is being touted as the next information technology (IT) capability that will generate considerable value including competitive advantage to businesses. In this chapter we present and discuss our framework, discuss its viability through existing examples of BA success, and finally apply the framework to a special emerging context in organizations, virtual organizing. Implications of this framework for identifying and filling research gaps in this area and implications for managers interested in exploring BA use in their organizations are presented.
A bias-reduction technique for Monte Carlo pricing of early-exercise options

We present a new method for reducing the bias present in Monte-Carlo estimators of the price of American-style contingent claims. At each exercise opportunity (in a time discretization), we assume there is an unbiased estimator of the claim value at the next exercise opportunity. We approximate the distribution of this statistic using the central limit theorem, and use this to derive an asymptotic expression for the bias. This expression is easily estimated in the context of a simulation, which allows for the straightforward computation of bias-reduced estimators of the claim value. We conclude by presenting a well-studied multivariate pricing example to show that this method offers significant improvements over the vanilla stochastic mesh technique, and that it is much more computationally efficient approach to reducing bias than nonparametric bootstrapping.
Inflammation and coagulation

In the pathogenesis of sepsis, inflammation and coagulation play a pivotal role. Increasing evidence points to an extensive cross-talk between these two systems, whereby inflammation leads to activation of coagulation, and coagulation also considerably affects inflammatory activity. Molecular pathways that contribute to inflammation-induced activation of coagulation have been precisely identified. Pro-inflammatory cytokines and other mediators are capable of activating the coagulation system and down-regulating important physiologic anticoagulant pathways. Activation of the coagulation system and ensuing thrombin generation is dependent on expression of tissue factor and the simultaneous down-regulation of endothelial-bound anticoagulant mechanisms and endogenous fibrinolysis. Conversely, activated coagulation proteases may affect specific cellular receptors on inflammatory cells and endothelial cells and thereby modulate the inflammatory response.
Tautomerization-dependent recognition and excision of oxidation damage in base-excision DNA repair

Significance Oxidative DNA damage can be cytotoxic or mutagenic to cells. NEIL1 (Nei-like 1) is a DNA repair glycosylase guarding the mammalian genome against various oxidized DNA bases; yet how NEIL1 recognizes and catalyzes the removal of its substrates remains poorly understood. Here we integrate crystal structures of a NEIL1/double-stranded DNA complex, computational simulations, and biochemical analyses and show that NEIL1 promotes tautomerization of thymine glycol—a cognate substrate—for efficient substrate recognition and excision. Such tautomerism-dependent substrate recognition and catalysis is, to the best of our knowledge, reported for the first time in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. NEIL1 (Nei-like 1) is a DNA repair glycosylase guarding the mammalian genome against oxidized DNA bases. As the first enzymes in the base-excision repair pathway, glycosylases must recognize the cognate substrates and catalyze their excision. Here we present crystal structures of human NEIL1 bound to a range of duplex DNA. Together with computational and biochemical analyses, our results suggest that NEIL1 promotes tautomerization of thymine glycol (Tg)—a preferred substrate—for optimal binding in its active site. Moreover, this tautomerization event also facilitates NEIL1-catalyzed Tg excision. To our knowledge, the present example represents the first documented case of enzyme-promoted tautomerization for efficient substrate recognition and catalysis in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction.
Visual Analysis of Social Media Data

The application of visual analytics, which combines the advantages of computational knowledge discovery and interactive visualization, to social media data highlights the many benefits of this integrated approach. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/nhoq71gqyXE is a video demonstrating a prototype system for visual-interactive analysis of large georeferenced microblog datasets, describing the design of the system, and detailing its application to the VAST 2011 Challenge dataset. The dataset models an epidemic outbreak in a fictitious metropolitan area. The video shows how the system can detect the epidemic and analyze its development over time. The system was implemented by Juri Buchmueller, Fabian Maass, Stephan Sellien, Florian Stoffel, and Matthias Zieker at the University of Konstanz (they also produced this video). Further information on the system and the VAST challenge dataset can be found in E. Bertini et al., "Visual Analytics of Terrorist Activities Related to Epidemics," Proc. IEEE Conf. Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST 11), IEEE CS, pp. 329-330, 2011.
Optimization of visual training for full recovery from severe amblyopia in adults

The severe amblyopia induced by chronic monocular deprivation is highly resistant to reversal in adulthood. Here we use a rodent model to show that recovery from deprivation amblyopia can be achieved in adults by a two-step sequence, involving enhancement of synaptic plasticity in the visual cortex by dark exposure followed immediately by visual training. The perceptual learning induced by visual training contributes to the recovery of vision and can be optimized to drive full recovery of visual acuity in severely amblyopic adults.
Measuring expatriate return on investment: empirical evidence from global firms

Obtaining a return on investment (ROI) from expatriates is viewed as important in many global firms, as evidenced by the considerable efforts of firms to reduce the costs of their mobility programs. This research examines how expatriate ROI is measured for long-term assignments in 50 global firms, representing a total population of 56,000 expatriates (including 37,000 long-term assignees), across 18 industries, and with headquarters in North America, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Australia. Our findings suggest that firms do not have formal procedures in place to measure expatriate ROI and instead rely heavily on informal practices that are predominantly used in spite of a global strategy, not because of it. We found that measuring expatriate ROI is a challenging and complex process that managers are not equipped to address. We offer recommendations for practice and suggest that managers in global firms seeking to obtain higher rates of return from their expatriates must improve the planning and management of their international assignment programs.
PHYTOTOXITY OF WASTE WATERS WITH Cr AND

The dry and fresh biomass and metal concentration (Cr, Ni) in roots and shoots of mustard (S. alba L.) seedlings was evaluated in laboratory experiments with three types of washing waste-waters from cutlery production line. All tested washing waters reduced root dry mass, where-as the dry mass of shoots was either not affected or it increased. The effect of tested washing waters was stronger on fresh mass production than on dry mass production. This indicates problems in water reception and translocation. While the accumulation of Cr was higher in the roots, Ni was distributed equally through the whole plant seedling. Cr uptake in the roots and shoots was in average about 1.7 and 7.3 times, respectively, lower than that of Ni. Ni percentage uptake from washing waters in the roots and shoots was nearly equal and range from 10.2 to 15.8%.
Modification of cellular effects of exposure to gamma-radiation by microwaves and magnetic field

Cellular effects of exposure to gamma-radiation in combination with magnetic field and microwave radiation have been investigated. The degree of chromatin condensation and permeability of cytoplasmic membrane in exfoliated human buccal epithelium cells have been evaluated. The exposure of cells to gamma-radiation induced chromatin condensation and cell membrane damage. Strong correlation between changes in heterochromatinization and cells' membrane permeability has been proved. Protective and recovery effects of low-dose microwave radiation exposure have been shown on gamma radiation-induced chromatin condensation and cells membrane damage. Exposure to magnetic field revealed such an effect only in the case of chromatin condensation.
Bipolar rating scales: A survey and novel correlation measures based on nonlinear bipolar scoring functions

© 2017, Budapest Tech Polytechnical Institution. All rights reserved. A bipolar rating scale is a linearly ordered set with symmetry between elements considered as negative and positive categories. First, we present a survey of bipolar rating scales used in psychology, sociology, medicine, recommender systems, opinion mining, and sentiment analysis. We discuss different particular cases of bipolar scales and, in particular, typical structures of bipolar scales with verbal labels that can be used for construction of bipolar rating scales. Next, we introduce the concept of bipolar scoring function preserving linear ordering and the symmetry of bipolar scales, study its properties, and propose methods for construction of bipolar scoring functions. We show that Pearson’s correlation coefficient often used for analysis of relationship between profiles of ratings in recommender systems can be misleading if the rating scales are bipolar. Basing on the general methods of construction of association measures, we propose new correlation measures on bipolar scales free from the drawbacks of Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Our correlation measures can be used in recommender systems, sentiment analysis and opinion mining for analysis of possible relationship between opinions of users and their ratings of items. http://dx.doi. org/10.12700/APH.14. 3.2017. 3.3
Acceleration of Human Neutrophil Apoptosis by TRAIL1

Neutrophil granulocytes have a short lifespan, with their survival limited by a constitutive program of apoptosis. Acceleration of neutrophil apoptosis following ligation of the Fas death receptor is well-documented and TNF-α also has a transient proapoptotic effect. We have studied the role of the death receptor ligand TRAIL in human neutrophils. We identified the presence of mRNAs for TRAIL, TRAIL-R2, and TRAIL-R3, and cell surface expression of TRAIL-R2 and -R3 in neutrophil populations. Neutrophil apoptosis is specifically accelerated by exposure to a leucine zipper-tagged form of TRAIL, which mimics cell surface TRAIL. Using blocking Abs to TRAIL receptors, specifically TRAIL-R2, and a TRAIL-R1:FcR fusion protein, we have excluded a role for TRAIL in regulating constitutive neutrophil apoptosis. No additional proapoptotic effect of leucine zipper TRAIL was identified following TRAIL treatment of neutrophils in the presence of gliotoxin, an inhibitor of NF-κB, suggesting TRAIL does not activate NF-κB in human neutrophils. TRAIL treatment of human neutrophils did not induce a chemotactic response. The susceptibility of neutrophils to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis suggests a role for TRAIL in the regulation of inflammation and may provide a mechanism for clearance of neutrophils from sites of inflammation.
Review Paper: The Challenge of Emerging Zoonoses in Asia Pacific

Diseases transmitted from animals have assumed substantial public health importance. Avian influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and Nipah virus infection are a few examples of growing number of diseases that humans can contract from animals. These diseases can cause huge economic losses in addition to mortality and morbidity. In developing countries of Asia, there is a continuous and close contact between animals and humans, especially in rural settings. The prevailing sociocultural practices and weak public health infrastructure further enhances the vulnerability of Asia as the epicenter of outbreaks due to zoonotic infections. There is a clear need of greater awareness and application of a multisectoral and multidisciplinary approach to prevent and control zoonotic infections.
Intermediate to Long-Term Outcomes of Total Ankle Replacement with the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement (STAR).

BACKGROUND The Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement (STAR) prosthesis has been in clinical use since 1981, with investigational use in the U.S. since 1998. Few studies of the North American version of the STAR are available. This prospective cohort study analyzed intermediate to long-term outcomes of total ankle arthroplasty with use of the STAR prosthesis at two Canadian centers. METHODS Consecutive patients who received the STAR prosthesis between 2001 and 2005 were enrolled at two large, urban teaching hospitals. Patients were annually evaluated clinically, and the Ankle Osteoarthritis Scale (AOS) and the Short Form (SF)-36 were administered. RESULTS One hundred and eleven ankles underwent arthroplasty with the STAR prosthesis. One-half of the patients were male; the mean age was 61.9 ± 11.7 years. Sixty-eight of the ankles underwent a total of 121 additional procedures during ankle arthroplasty, including gastrocnemius release, subtalar arthrodesis, triple arthrodesis, tendoachilles lengthening, and removal of hardware. The mean duration of follow-up for all living patients without revision (seventy-three ankles) was 9.0 ± 1.0 years. Thirteen (12%) of the ankles required metal component revision at a mean of 4.3 ± 3.0 years (range, 0.6 to 10.2 years). Twenty (18%) of the prostheses underwent polyethylene bearing exchange, mostly due to fracture, at a mean of 5.2 ± 2.1 years (range, 1.5 to 9.3 years). Most (97%) of the revisions and exchanges occurred in patients with a diagnosis of primary, secondary, or posttraumatic osteoarthritis (p = 0.0003). The mean change from baseline to final follow-up was -36.5 ± 23.3 points for AOS pain, -38.6 ± 26.8 points for AOS disability, and 9.6 ± 10.3 points for the SF-36 physical component summary score. The SF-36 mental component summary score was unchanged. CONCLUSIONS Intermediate patient-reported outcomes were good after ankle arthroplasty with the STAR prosthesis performed by experienced surgeons, and long-term outcomes demonstrated a 12% rate of metal component revision and 18% rate of polyethylene bearing failure. The revision rate was substantially higher among the first twenty ankles than among subsequent ankles, but the early ankles had nearly two years' longer follow-up than subsequent ankles. Additional study to elucidate possible reasons for polyethylene bearing failure is warranted. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
11 Gene Expression in Embryonic Neural Development and Stem Cell Differentiation

The concept of neural induction, i.e. the definition of the neural plate domain in the ectoderm, was first proposed by Spemman and Mangold after the classic experiment in which transplantation of the frog embryo’s dorsal blastopore lip induced a complete neural axis from the acceptor embryo’s ectoderm. Since then, much effort has been made aimed at identify the signals that confer the neural bias to the ectoderm. The resulting picture clearly indicates that neural induction is a multi-step process that requires the interplay of various pathways. The result of neural induction is the definition of a neural plate composed by proliferating neuroepithelial cells expressing pan-neural genes.
Effects of Alcohol on Peripheral Vision as a Function of Attention

Twelve males were tested under a control and two alcohol treatments in a perimeter apparatus used for testing peripheral vision. They were required to fixate either on a steady-state central fixation light and detect peripheral lights, or to count blinks produced by the cessations of the fixation light and to detect peripheral lights. Alcohol produced an impairment of peripheral vision only under conditions where the central fixation light blinked and thus required information processing. No performance decrement occurred when the central light did not blink. The results suggest that alcohol interferes with central information processing rather than peripheral sensory mechanisms.
Efficient key assignment scheme for mobile agent systems

Agent security is always a key concern to many mobile agent systems such as distributed intrusion detection systems (DIDS), where an attacker might turn to the mobile agent directory server if he fails to locate the critical IDS hosts/agents. Previous work on mobile agent security (e.g. Volker and Mehrdad's scheme, 1998) often suffers from large code size of the agent and the high computational cost. In this paper, we would like to address these two issues with a new RSA-based key assignment scheme. Both the details of the scheme and its implementation are given. Our analysis shows that not only the above two issues are improved significantly, but the scheme also provides agent's adaptability through dynamic key management and access control strategy.