Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-coding RNAs in epithelial immunity to Cryptosporidium infection

SUMMARY Cryptosporidium spp. is a protozoan parasite that infects the gastrointestinal epithelium and causes diarrhoeal disease worldwide. It is one of the most common pathogens responsible for moderate to severe diarrhoea in children younger than 2 years. Because of the ‘minimally invasive’ nature of Cryptosporidium infection, mucosal epithelial cells are critical to the host's anti-Cryptosporidium immunity. Gastrointestinal epithelial cells not only provide the first and most rapid defence against Cryptosporidium infection, they also mobilize immune effector cells to the infection site to activate adaptive immunity. Recent advances in genomic research have revealed the existence of a large number of non-protein-coding RNA transcripts, so called non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), in mammalian cells. Some ncRNAs may be key regulators for diverse biological functions, including innate immune responses. Specifically, ncRNAs may modulate epithelial immune responses at every step of the innate immune network following Cryptosporidium infection, including production of antimicrobial molecules, expression of cytokines/chemokines, release of epithelial cell-derived exosomes, and feedback regulation of immune homoeostasis. This review briefly summarizes the current science on ncRNA regulation of innate immunity to Cryptosporidium, with a focus on microRNA-associated epithelial immune responses.
Long‐term weight loss and weight‐loss maintenance strategies

It has been suggested that about 20% of subjects undergoing weight‐loss programmes can achieve a certain degree of long‐term success. At present, surgery remains the only method resulting in long‐term sustained weight loss, but access remains restricted. Hence it is important to analyse, in addition to pharmacotherapy, the methods to improve the effects of diet, exercise and behavioural modification. Since these techniques are less spectacular than others, there is a risk that their potential will be overlooked, in spite of the fact that they remain the main alternative for most subjects undergoing weight‐loss therapy. This review summarizes realistic treatment alternatives and also provides data from a day care treatment, a strategy not much reported in the literature. This is a standard treatment modality for diabetes but less common in obesity treatment.
Temperature-Dependent Internal Quantum Efficiency of Blue High-Brightness Light-Emitting Diodes

Internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of a blue high-brightness InGaN/GaN light-emitting diode (LED) was evaluated from the external quantum efficiency measured as a function of current at various temperatures ranged between 13 and 440 K. Processing the data with a novel evaluation procedure based on the ABC-model, we have determined the temperature-dependent IQE of the LED structure and light extraction efficiency of the LED chip. Separate evaluation of these parameters is helpful for further optimization of the heterostructure and chip designs. The data obtained enable making a guess on the temperature dependence of the radiative and Auger recombination coefficients, which may be important for identification of dominant mechanisms responsible for the efficiency droop in III-nitride LEDs. Thermal degradation of the LED performance in terms of the emission efficiency is also considered.
The Particle Swarm Interval Rule Optimizer with an Application to Drug Design Data

Life sciences have become a wide area for applications of informatics. One prominent topic in life sciences is the design of new drugs. Chemists use combinatorial libraries for creating new molecules in laboratory, but the challenge is to find appropriate design proposals by computational means before spending costs and time in laboratory. Our aim is to generate rules for required molecular properties of specific classes of molecules. Since the encoded molecular data are high dimensional and often have complex structures, computationally intelligent methods constitute a coherent approach to the problem. In our contribution we propose a new optimization method for interval rules, the particle swarm interval rule optimizer (PSO-lntRule). Its characteristics are described and compared to the previously developed interval rule optimizers.
A novel decoupling capacitor for power integrity of quad flat nonlead (QFN) package

This paper describes the progressions for power and signal integrity issues on quad flat non-lead (QFN) package. A novel decoupling capacitor is achieved by modifying the footprint of QFN package. The modified footprint is connected to printed circuit board (PCB) power plane and coated the solder mask above. A large decoupling capacitor between power and ground is achieved by thin film solder mask and large size of die pad, which parallel to and decrease the input impedance of power delivery network (PDN) without parasitic effects at low frequency. After 2 GHz, adding more vias can decrease and shift the high impedance caused by equivalent inductance of via to high frequency. This novel decoupling capacitor is fully compatible with PCB process and significantly decreasing the high impedance of PDN.
An Optimal Iterative Algorithm for Extracting MUCs in a Black-box Constraint Network

We present a non-intrusive iterative algorithm for extracting Minimal Unsatisfiable Cores in black-box constraint networks. The problem can be generalized as the one of finding a minimal subset satisfying an upward-closed property P. If performance is measured as the number of infeasibility property checks, we show that the proposed algorithm, ADEL, is optimal both for small and for large MUCs and that it consistently outperforms existing approaches in between those two extremal cases.
Chemotherapy-induced myeloid suppressor cells and antitumor immunity: The Janus face of chemotherapy in immunomodulation

Tumor recurrence remains a major problem for patients with cancer, even after initial beneficial responses to standard-of-care chemotherapeutic agents. With the recent advances in immunotherapy strategies, there is growing interest in synergistically combining immunotherapy with conventional chemotherapy to achieve durable antitumor effects. In some cases, chemotherapy-induced myeloid suppressor cells represent a critical obstacle to achieving this goal.
Direct Transfer of Learned Information Among Neural Networks

A touted advantage of symbolic representations is the ease of transferring learned information from one intelligent agent to another. This paper investigates an analogous problem: how to use information from one neural network to help a second network learn a related task. Rather than translate such information into symbolic form (in which it may not be readily expressible), we investigate the direct transfer of information encoded as weights. Here, we focus on how transfer can be used to address the important problem of improving neural network learning speed. First we present an exploratory study of the somewhat surprising effects of pre-setting network weights on subsequent learning. Guided by hypotheses from this study, we sped up back-propagation learning for two speech recognition tasks. By transferring weights from smaller networks trained on subtasks, we achieved speedups of up to an order of magnitude compared with training starting with random weights, even taking into account the time to train the smaller networks. We include results on how transfer scales to a large phoneme recognition problem.
A common Shox2–Nkx2-5 antagonistic mechanism primes the pacemaker cell fate in the pulmonary vein myocardium and sinoatrial node

In humans, atrial fibrillation is often triggered by ectopic pacemaking activity in the myocardium sleeves of the pulmonary vein (PV) and systemic venous return. The genetic programs that abnormally reinforce pacemaker properties at these sites and how this relates to normal sinoatrial node (SAN) development remain uncharacterized. It was noted previously that Nkx2-5, which is expressed in the PV myocardium and reinforces a chamber-like myocardial identity in the PV, is lacking in the SAN. Here we present evidence that in mice Shox2 antagonizes the transcriptional output of Nkx2-5 in the PV myocardium and in a functional Nkx2-5+ domain within the SAN to determine cell fate. Shox2 deletion in the Nkx2-5+ domain of the SAN caused sick sinus syndrome, associated with the loss of the pacemaker program. Explanted Shox2+ cells from the embryonic PV myocardium exhibited pacemaker characteristics including node-like electrophysiological properties and the capability to pace surrounding Shox2− cells. Shox2 deletion led to Hcn4 ablation in the developing PV myocardium. Nkx2-5 hypomorphism rescued the requirement for Shox2 for the expression of genes essential for SAN development in Shox2 mutants. Similarly, the pacemaker-like phenotype induced in the PV myocardium in Nkx2-5 hypomorphs reverted back to a working myocardial phenotype when Shox2 was simultaneously deleted. A similar mechanism is also adopted in differentiated embryoid bodies. We found that Shox2 interacts with Nkx2-5 directly, and discovered a substantial genome-wide co-occupancy of Shox2, Nkx2-5 and Tbx5, further supporting a pivotal role for Shox2 in the core myogenic program orchestrating venous pole and pacemaker development. Summary: Antagonism between Shox2 and Nkx2-5 in the cardiac venous pole of mouse embryos regulates cell fate, morphogenesis and the distinction between pacemaker cells and working myocardium.
CELL ADHESION MOLECULE EXPRESSION WITHIN HUMAN GLOMERULAR AND KIDNEY ORGAN CULTURE

A glomerular and kidney organ culture method was developed to study cytokine inducibility of adhesion molecules and MHC antigen expression. Glomerular cells showed constitutive expression of intercellular cell adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) and MHC class I and II antigens, but not vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1 (VCAM‐1), E‐selectin, or P‐selectin. Expression of E‐selectin on glomerular endothelial cells (ECs) was induced by interleukin‐1 (IL‐1), tumour necrosis factor (TNF), interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) and granulocyte/macrophage‐colony stimulating factor (GM‐CSF); this induction was inhibited by transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) and by IL‐4. P‐selectin expression was never seen within glomeruli. VCAM‐1 was constitutively expressed by Bowman's capsule and proximal tubules and was weakly induced on glomerular ECs by TNF and IL‐4 in combination. Glomerular endothelial ICAM‐1 expression was increased by IL‐1, TNF, IFN‐γ, and GM‐CSF, while TGFβ inhibited induction by TNF and IL‐1. Expression of MHC class I and II antigens by glomerular ECs was constitutive; further upregulation of MHC class II by IFN‐γ was observed. These studies suggest that leukocyte–endothelial cell interactions that occur within the kidney follow broadly similar principles as are proposed to occur elsewhere in the body but, in addition, there are subtle differences that reflect local conditions. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Excitation of primary afferent neurons by near-infrared light in vitro

Near-infrared light therapy is an emerging neurostimulation technology, but its cellular mechanism of action remains unresolved. Using standard intracellular recording techniques, we observed that 5–10 ms pulses of 1889 nm light depolarized the membrane potential for hundreds of milliseconds in more than 85% of dorsal root ganglion and nodose ganglion neurons tested. The laser-evoked depolarizations (LEDs) exhibited complex, multiphasic kinetics comprising fast and slow components. There was no discernable difference in the LEDs in intact ganglion neurons and in acutely isolated neurons. Thus, the LED sensor seems to reside within the neuronal membrane. The near-uniform distribution of responsive neurons increased membrane conductance, and the negative reversal potential value (−41±2.9 mV) suggests that LED is unrelated to the activation of heat-sensitive transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1 channels. The long duration of LEDs favors an involvement of second messengers.
HLA and insulin gene associations with IDDM

The HLA DR genotype frequencies in insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) patients and the frequencies of DR alleles transmitted from affected parent to affected child both indicate that the DR3‐associated predisposition is more “recessive” and the DR4‐associated predisposition more “dominant” in inheritance after allowing for the DR3/DR4 synergistic effect. B locus distributions on patient haplotypes indicate that only subsets of both DR3 and DR4 are predisposing Haterogeneity is detected for both the DR3 and DR4 predisposing haplotypes based on DR genotypic class. With appropriate use of the family structure of the data a control population of “unaffected” alleles can be defined. Application of this method confirms the predisposing effect associated with the class 1 allele of the polymorphic region 5′ to the insulin gene.
ANALYSIS OF MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF NON-NEUROTYPICAL STUDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS OFFERED BY POLISH STATE-OWNED UNIVERSITIES. SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

More and more high functioning pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are finishing school, graduating and entering higher education, but in Poland the exact number of these students is still unknown. For academics, especially outside the field of pedagogy and psychology, it is a major challenge to work with students with such dysfunctions. This can activate the social labelling process and negative stigmatisation on the part of people who do not have the knowledge and ability to interact with people with autistic traits. This, in turn, can contribute to perpetuating the stigmatic identity of non‑neurotypical students. This article is exploratory. Its purpose is to present the complexity of the situation of students with ASD within the exceptional environment of a university. The inspiration was a controversial article published in a newspaper which evoked a media debate on this issue and activated the process of objectification of social representations of non‑neurotypical adults, especially those with autistic traits.
CONTRIBUTION OF ENDOTOXIN IN MACROPHAGE CYTOKINE RESPONSE TO AMBIENT PARTICLES IN VITRO

Ambient particles may cause pulmonary inflammation with ensuing morbidity. Particle-induced production of proinflammatory cytokines in vitro has been used as an indicator of particle toxicity. To identify particle components that were related to particle toxicity, Andersen dichotomous impactors were used to collect ambient fine (PM 2.5 ) and coarse (PM 2.5-10 ) particles in central Taiwan with extraction in endotoxin-free water. Mouse mono-cyte-macrophage cell line RAW 264.7 cells were exposed to particle extracts at 40 g/ml for 16 h, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF- f ) was measured in the medium by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Cell viabilities were all greater than 82%. Coarse particles stimulated higher TNF- f production than fine particles, and this was associated with greater particulate endotoxin content. Polymyxin B inhibited 42% of TNF- f production elicited by coarse particles and 32% of TNF- f production elicited by fine particles. In fine particles, TNF- f production was negatively correlated with Zn content, while no element in coarse particles correlated with TNF- f production. Results suggest that endotoxin and other components may be important factors for TNF- f production by macrophages in vitro.
Identification of a Class of HCV Inhibitors Directed Against the Nonstructural Protein NS4B

An activity identified in hepatitis C virus NS4B paves the way for a distinct new class of antivirals. Hepatitis C is a surreptitious infection leading to inflammation of the liver, chronic liver disease, and ultimately causing cirrhosis. Nearly 150 million infected patients worldwide are in serious need of an alternative to viral suppressants in current use that have significant toxicities and are often ineffective. Cho and colleagues now take a closer look at the molecular virology of hepatitis C and identify a crucial new function for a largely uncharacterized protein, NS4B. They found that a particular region of this protein, which is critically involved in forming small vesicle aggregates that form the hypothesized platform to facilitate viral genome replication, can be manipulated to serve as a readout for high-throughput screens aimed at uncovering small-molecule pharmacological inhibitors of hepatitis C genome replication. Screening through a milieu of possibilities, they demonstrate the utility of two such compounds and tease apart the mechanism and biochemical activities by which these small inhibitors disrupt NS4B function and ultimately viral replication. Whether these new compounds can be used as monotherapies or in amalgamation with current strategies awaits further testing. New classes of drugs are needed to combat hepatitis C virus (HCV), an important worldwide cause of liver disease. We describe an activity of a key domain, an amphipathic helix we termed 4BAH2, within a specific HCV nonstructural protein, NS4B. In addition to its proposed role in viral replication, we validate 4BAH2 as essential for HCV genome replication and identify first-generation small-molecule inhibitors of 4BAH2 that specifically prevent HCV replication within cells. Mechanistic studies reveal that the inhibitors target 4BAH2 function by preventing either 4BAH2 oligomerization or 4BAH2 membrane association. 4BAH2 inhibitors represent an additional class of compounds with potential to effectively treat HCV.
Combined Pool/Bilateral Short-Term Hydrothermal Scheduling Model for Day-Ahead Energy Markets

This paper proposes a combined pool/bilateral short term hydrothermal scheduling model (PDC) for the context of the day-ahead energy markets. Some innovative aspects are introduced in the model, such as: i) the hydraulic generation is optimized through the opportunity cost function proposed; ii) there is no decoupling between physical and commercial dispatches, as is the case today in Brazil; iii) interrelationships between pool and bilateral markets are represented through a single optimization problem; iv) risk exposures related to future deficits are intrinsically mitigated; v) the model calculates spot prices in an hourly basis and the results show a coherent correlation between hydrological conditions and calculated prices. The proposed PDC model is solved by a primal-dual interior point method and is evaluated by simulations involving a test system. The results are focused on sensitivity analyses involving the parameters of the model, in such a way to emphasize its main modeling aspects. The results show that the proposed PDC provides a conceptual means for short term price formation for hydrothermal systems.
Wind power trading with block demand and linear supply in deregulated electricity market

In the emerging electricity markets, a suitable trading mechanism is required to accommodate the wind power generations to recover their costs. In this paper block bidding mechanism is extended to demand side with linear supply. This may result in system stability. This may benefit the wind generators as more instability of generation is there due to unpredictability of wind flow. In block bidding scenario wind generators can predict their generation for the demand in a better way for a bigger time block. In this paper a practical approach is proposed by taking variable block demand. Market clearing price has been analyzed in both supply side and demand side bidding scenarios for bid trading models. This paper can be a guideline for the policy makers and Market Operators to promote the wind power with system transparency. Calculations have been done with the help of MATRIX LABORATORY.
E Box-Dependent Activation of Telomerase by Human Papillomavirus Type 16 E6 Does Not Require Induction of c-myc

ABSTRACT Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) E6 activates telomerase specifically in epithelial cells. The oncogene c-myc has also been shown to activate telomerase in several cell types. Here we show that while both HPV-16 E6 and c-myc require intact E boxes to transactivate the hTERT promoter, E6 does not induce hTERT transcription simply by inducing expression of c-myc. Moreover, hTERT transactivation by HPV-16 E6 correlates with its ability to bind the cellular E6-associated protein (E6AP), suggesting that E6 and E6AP may target a regulator of hTERT expression.
Über das Fließverhalten von Epoxidharzsystemen und vibrationsunterstützte Harzinfiltrationsprozesse

Die Arbeit thematisiert das rheologische Fliesverhalten von Epoxidharzsystemen, die in den Industriezweigen Windkraft, Automobilbau und Luftfahrt fur die Herstellung endlosfaserverstarkter Kunststoffbauteile in Harzinfiltrationsverfahren zur Anwendung kommen. Die Auswirkungen des identifizierten scherverdunnenden Fliesverhaltens bei der Infiltration poroser Faserstrukturen werden im Rahmen einer numerischen Parameterstudie mit CFD-Simulationen untersucht und in Fullversuchen verifiziert. Auserdem werden die Effekte von uber einen Vibrationsmotor erzeugten Wandvibrationen auf Harzinfiltrationsprozesse experimentell untersucht.
Toward a Cloud Architecture for Medical Imagery Grid applications : The Acigna-G Project

Acigna-G is a new Grid Computing platform we propose, for hosting and interacting with GNU/Linux Grid applications through a web portal, without or with a minimal API use. It aims to provide a convenient Cloud Service for Medical Imagery Grid applications. It extends our GIC architecture with an implementation of a light version of the Virtually-distribution Parallel Architecture and the Multi-level Services architecture that permit the deployment of distributed Grid applications onto our platform. We propose these architecture as solutions to achieve both the convenience of PaaS Cloud services and the richness of Grid applications. We show how we deploy a MAS segmentation algorithm for Medical Imagery onto our Acigna-G platform.
Joint switched selection-combining diversity and incremental Amplify-and-Forward relaying over Rayleigh fading channels

In this paper, an adaptive diversity-combining technique and Amplify-and-Forward (AF) dual-hop incremental relaying are jointly used to enhance the reliability of wireless data links. The proposed scheme exploits the efficient use of the bandwidth by adopting incremental relaying (IR) and the reduction of the processing power by using a switched diversity-combining (SDC) technique. For theoretical analysis, a three-nodes-network is considered: single antenna source and relay, and a multiple antenna destination. Performance analysis of the proposed scheme, assuming Rayleigh fading channel models, is shown by simulation results. The obtained results illustrate that the proposed scheme offers the desired bit error rate (BER) requirements while reducing considerably the average receiver channel estimations as well as the processing power.
Pulsed Load Modulation (PLM) Technique for Efficient Power Amplification

A new concept of pulsed load modulation (PLM) is introduced for efficient power amplification. The proposed technique allows the power amplifier (PA) to maintain maximum efficiency until the output power of the amplifier is backed off by 6 dB. The PLM amplifier contains two pulse-biased PAs connected with a lambda/4 transmission line and a high- Q bandpass resonator. For maximum efficiency and linearity, the load impedance of the amplifier is digitally modulated using the switched-resonator concept. A prototype amplifier is implemented using two PAs and a diplexer for the 1.87-GHz band. The measured efficiency of the amplifier at peak output power is 51%. Compared with 25.5% of the conventional class-B amplifier, the PLM amplifier obtains an improved efficiency of 38% at 6-dB output power back-off.