Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
αβ T-Cell Receptor Engineered γδ T Cells Mediate Effective Antileukemic Reactivity

Retroviral transfer of T-cell receptors (TCR) to peripheral blood–derived T cells generates large numbers of T cells with the same antigen specificity, potentially useful for adoptive immunotherapy. One drawback of this procedure is the formation of mixed TCR dimers with unknown specificities due to pairing of endogenous and introduced TCR chains. We investigated whether γδ T cells can be an alternative effector population for TCR gene transfer because the γδTCR is not able to form dimers with the αβTCR. Peripheral blood–derived γδ T cells were transduced with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I– or HLA class II–restricted minor histocompatibility antigen (mHag) or virus-specific TCRs. Because most γδ T cells do not express CD4 and CD8, we subsequently transferred these coreceptors. The TCR-transduced γδ T cells exerted high levels of antigen-specific cytotoxicity and produced IFN-γ and IL-4, particularly in the presence of the relevant coreceptor. γδ T cells transferred with a TCR specific for the hematopoiesis-specific mHag HA-2 in combination with CD8 displayed high antileukemic reactivity against HA-2–expressing leukemic cells. These data show that transfer of αβTCRs to γδ T cells generated potent effector cells for immunotherapy of leukemia, without the expression of potentially hazardous mixed TCR dimers. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(6): 3331-7)
Base Excision Repair and its Role in Maintaining Genome Stability

For all living organisms, genome stability is important, but is also under constant threat because various environmental and endogenous damaging agents can modify the structural properties of DNA bases. As a defense, organisms have developed different DNA repair pathways. Base excision repair (BER) is the predominant pathway for coping with a broad range of small lesions resulting from oxidation, alkylation, and deamination, which modify individual bases without large effect on the double helix structure. As, in mammalian cells, this damage is estimated to account daily for 104 events per cell, the need for BER pathways is unquestionable. The damage-specific removal is carried out by a considerable group of enzymes, designated as DNA glycosylases. Each DNA glycosylase has its unique specificity and many of them are ubiquitous in microorganisms, mammals, and plants. Here, we review the importance of the BER pathway and we focus on the different roles of DNA glycosylases in various organisms.
Assessment of CAUDA 70 Score in acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Background: Physicians lack a robust and validated method of measuring severity or predicting poor outcome in patients with acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD). To study the prognosis in COPD patients with acute exacerbation using CAUDA 70 score. Materials and Methods: 104 patients of age more than 40 years with acute exacerbation of COPD admitted department of respiratory medicine, narayana medical college and hospital, Nellore. CAUDA 70: C: Confusion, Acidosis (pH <7.35), Urea >7mmol/L, MRC Dyspnoea score >4, Albumin <35g/L, Age >70 years. One point was assigned to each variable present, giving a six point scoring system. The patients were followed up upto discharge and the outcome of the patients was correlated with the score to analyse prognosis. Results: 29(27.8%) patients obtained score upto 2. In these patients, 24 (82.75%) recovered without ventilation, 5 (17.24%) required NIV and no patients required invasive ventilation and there were no deaths in patients with this score. 75(72.2%) patients obtained scores of 3 to 6. In these, 48(64%) patients required NIV, 15(20%) patients required invasive ventilation, 4 (5.3%) patients died and only 8 (10.66%) patients recovered without any ventilation. Conclusions: CAUDA 70 score proved to be an effective scoring system in predicting the prognosis in Acute Exacerbation of COPD patients
THE ANATOMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROOTS AND PLANT RESPONSE TO SOIL FLOODING

SUMMARY Ninety-one plant species from wetland (WL), intermediate (INT) and non-wetland (NWL) habitats were grown in flooded and drained soils and responses to flooding were assessed in relation to root anatomy and fractional root porosity (FRP). Flooding response and tolerance were related to FRP. Rooting depth increased with FRP in accordance with diffusion model predictions and emphasized the ventilating efficiency of aerenchyma. Major determinants of FRP were cortical cell configurations, closeness of cell packing, the relative proportions of configuration types, porous: non-porous tissue ratios, aerenchyma development and the type and degree of secondary growth. A classification of cortical types based on cell and aerenchyma patterns is presented. Aerenchyma, both schizogenous and lysigenous, developed preferentially where pre-aerenchymatous cortical cell configurations (in TS) were radial and particularly, cubic and radial typical of WL and INT species. Aerenchyma rarely formed from hexagonal non-radial arrays which occur chiefly in NWL and in the outer cortical zones of WL and INT plants. The ventilating potential in non-aerenchymatous tissue was shown to be greater for cubic (fractional porosity, FP, max. 0–2146) than for hexagonal arrays (FP max. 0˙0931); closer packing greatly accentuated the differences. It is suggested that cubic: hexagonal zonal ratios in roots may reflect a balance between respiratory and mechanical needs. In a majority of WL and INT species, shoot weights were unaffected by or increased with flooding and maximum rooting depths usually much exceeded 50 mm. Cubic packing raised the FRPs, as did aerenchyma which was often much greater under flooding. In the dicotyledonous species, a suppression of secondary growth in some, and a highly porous phelloderm in others, helped maintain high FRP. A minority of species were anatomically and responsively similar to NWL plants; survival under flooding was attributed to shallow rooting. Under flooding, the FRP of almost all NWL species was < 0˙055 due to hexagonal packing, a lack of aerenchyma and, in dicotyledonous plants, secondary growth with scanty phelloderm. Shoot weights were reduced in 50% of cases, rooting depths were <50 mm, and some species died. Some species were exceptional in having cubic and radial packings; a lack of aerenchyma was associated with continuing meristematic activity in the primary cortex.
Accessing bilingual code-switching competence

The present work is inspired by an interest in the syntactic regularities that underlie language alternations in Spanish-English bilingual speech, and the methodologies that may prove most reliable and informative in this exploration. Accordingly, it attends to the conceptual and methodological issues that must be addressed and surmounted, and taking account of these concerns, presents new methodologies for gathering codeswitching data. The robust findings attest to the validity of the methodologies and of the elicited data, affording a valuable source of facts for further research.
Acute phase response of piglets fed diets containing non-starch polysaccharide hydrolysis products and egg yolk antibodies following an oral challenge with Escherichia coli (k88)

Acute phase responses (APR) in pigs fed non-starch polysaccharides hydrolysis products (HP) and egg yolk antibodies against K88 fimbriae (EYA) following oral challenge with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli K88 (ETEC) were evaluated. The HP were products of incubating feedstuffs with a blend of carbohydrase enzymes. Forty, 21-d-old pigs (two pigs/pen) were assigned to four diets to give five pens per diet. The diets were: a control fed without or with 5 g kg-1 of HP and EYA either singly or in combination forming a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. Following a 9-d adaptation period, pigs were bled and given an oral dose of ETEC. Pigs were then bled and feed intake recorded within 48 h post-challenge. Pigs fed HP ate more (P < 0.05) than pigs not fed HP during the ETEC challenge. Interaction between additives and time was observed for packed cell volume (PCV, P = 0.0002), in which case pigs fed the control diet showed lower PCV at 6 h post-challenge than pigs fed additives. At 48 h post-challenge, main effects (.
AppAware: A Model for Privacy Policy Visualization for Mobile Applications

Privacy policies emerge as the main mechanism to inform users on the way their information is managed by online service providers, and still remain the dominant approach for this purpose. Literature notes that users find difficulties in understanding privacy policies because they are usually written in technical or legal language even, although most users are unfamiliar with them. These difficulties have led most users to skip reading privacy policies and blindly accept them. In an effort to address this challenge this paper presents AppWare, a multiplatform tool that intends to improve the visualization of privacy policies for mobile applications. AppWare formulates a visualized report with the permission set of an application, which is easily understandable by a common user. AppWare aims to bridge the difficulty to read privacy policies and android’s obscure permission set with a new privacy policy visualization model. To validate AppAware we conducted a survey through questionnaire aiming to evaluate AppAware in terms of installability, usability, and viability-purpose. The results demonstrate that AppAware is assessed above average by the users in all categories.
Confine: Automated System Call Policy Generation for Container Attack Surface Reduction

Reducing the attack surface of the OS kernel is a promising defense-in-depth approach for mitigating the fragile isolation guarantees of container environments. In contrast to hypervisor-based systems, malicious containers can exploit vulnerabilities in the underlying kernel to fully compromise the host and all other containers running on it. Previous container attack surface reduction efforts have relied on dynamic analysis and training using realistic workloads to limit the set of system calls exposed to containers. These approaches, however, do not capture exhaustively all the code that can potentially be needed by future workloads or rare runtime conditions, and are thus not appropriate as a generic solution. Aiming to provide a practical solution for the protection of arbitrary containers, in this paper we present a generic approach for the automated generation of restrictive system call policies for Docker containers. Our system, named Conﬁne , uses static code analysis to inspect the containerized application and all its dependencies, identify the superset of system calls required for the correct operation of the container, and generate a corresponding Seccomp system call policy that can be readily enforced while loading the container. The results of our experimental evaluation with 150 publicly available Docker images show that Conﬁne can successfully reduce their attack surface by disabling 145 or more system calls (out of 326) for more than half of the containers, which neutralizes 51 previously disclosed kernel vulnerabilities.
Temperature and CO2Responses of Leaf and Canopy Photosynthesis: a Clarification using the Non-rectangular Hyperbola Model of Photosynthesis

Abstract The responses of C3leaf and canopy gross photosynthesis to increasing temperature and CO2can be readily understood in terms of the temperature and CO2dependencies of quantum yield (φi) and light-saturated photosynthesis (Asat), the two principal parameters in the non-rectangular hyperbola model of photosynthesis. Here, we define these dependencies within the mid-range for C3herbaceous plants, based on a review of the literature. Then, using illustrative parameter values, we deduce leaf and canopy photosynthesis responses to temperature and CO2in different environmental conditions (including shifts in the temperature optimum) from the assumed sensitivities of φiandAsatto temperature and CO2. We show that: (1) elevated CO2increases photosynthesis more at warm than at cool temperatures because of the large combined CO2-responses of both φiandAsatat high temperatures; (2) elevated CO2may substantially raise the temperature optimum of photosynthesis at warm temperatures, but not at the cool temperatures which prevail for much of the time at temperate and high latitudes; (3) large upward shifts in the temperature optimum of canopy gross photosynthesis occur at high irradiances, following the response ofAsat, and are probably important for global carbon fixation; (4) canopy gross photosynthesis shows smaller CO2-temperature interactions than leaf photosynthesis, because leaves in canopies receive lower average irradiances and so more strongly follow the dependencies of φi; and (5) at very low irradiances, the temperature optimum of photosynthesis is low and is raised very little by increasing CO2.
A Conceptual Framework and Architectural Considerations for Capability Enhancement in Software Defined Networks

—Software defined networking (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm which gained a lot of interests from both academia and industry. SDN decomposes the control plane from the data plane and allows for the network logic to run on a software-based controller. This decomposition of network operations offers the simplification of network management and greater ease of configuration through network programmability. In this paper, we first comprehensively discuss the state-of-the-art experiences in this field and their existing challenges. We also categorize the challenges facing SDN and its integration with other technologies such as network function virtualization (NFV), internet of thing (IoT), 5G networks, big data, and optical networks. Then, considering the key issues, we revisit the SDN architecture and propose a comprehensive conceptual framework and some detailed architectural considerations for enhancing the capabilities of SDN networks. The proposed conceptual framework also applies IoT controllers and hypervisors to support IoT applications and virtualized networks respectively. Moreover, we present future research works according to the proposed framework.
Estimating the age of juvenile loggerhead sea turtles in the North Atlantic

Analysis of previously published records shows that the modal size of juvenile loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) found around the United Kingdom (the area north of 49°N and east of 12°W) is a carapace length of 20.5 cm. These turtles are believed to originate from nesting beaches in North America (principally Florida). We estimated their trans-Atlantic drift time using data from satellite-tracked buoys and from a mathematical model and, hence, estimated that the modal age of these juvenile turtles was between 1.80 and 3.75 years.
Editors’ Introduction

I n “Global Capitalism Meets National Spirit: Discourses in Media Texts on a Cross-Border Acquisition,” authors Janne Tienari, Eero Vaara, and Ingmar Björkman remind us that strategizing is not a mechanical, rational-analytic procedure but rather a complex social process that often encompasses disparate perspectives. The study is noteworthy in many respects. First, it adds to the interesting but under-investigated perspective that strategizing involves influencing the beliefs and actions of key stakeholders through discourse. Second, it highlights the special challenges inherent in strategizing across national boundaries. Finally, it focuses on an analysis of public discourse; although several studies have examined the contributions of discourse within organizations to strategy formation (e.g. Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991), less attention has been given to more public forms of communication. Several interesting observations result from the authors’ examination of the public statements of key stakeholders involved in a cross-border acquisition. First, they find that stakeholders do not rely only on rationalistic discourse to communicate and persuade. Rather, their primary formof discourse reflects their position: Those in favor of the acquisition, including the CEOs from both the acquiring and target firms, relied on rational-analytic logic to support the move, whereas those opposing the acquisition, including government representatives of the acquisition target’s country and a domestic competitor of the target firm, chose a more affectively oriented nationalistic form of discourse. Second, they suggest that the most effective discursive strategy may be one that does not rely solely on one particular form of discourse. More specifically, they suggest that the most successful form of
Effect of cropping season and possible compounds involved in the resistance of Lycopersicon hirsutum f. typicum to Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lep., Gelechiidae)

The effect of cropping season on the resistance of the accession LA 1777 of Lycopersicon hirsutum f. typicum to the tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) and the preliminary identification of the possible compounds involved in this trait were the objectives of this study. Two experiments were carried out with the accession LA1777 and the commercial cultivar Santa Clara of Lycopersicon esculentum. The first experiment was carried out during the summer season (January to April 1997) and the second was carried out during the autumn–winter season (May to September 1997). The accession LA 1777 was significantly more resistant to T. absoluta than the commercial cultivar, especially during the autumn–winter cropping season. Either antibiosis or antixenosis was probably responsible for the higher larvae mortality (54.2 and 91.2% for the summer and autumn–winter seasons, respectively) and longer larval development of T. absoluta (14.2 and 25.9 days for summer and autumn–winter seasons, respectively) on L. hirsutum f. typicum as compared with L. esculentum (11.0 and 19.6 days for summer and autumn–winter seasons, respectively). Insect fecundity parameters such as oviposition period, number of eggs/female, and rate of larvae eclosion were also negatively affected by L. hirsutum f. typicum. Fourteen main peaks were observed in total ion chromatograms of both tomato species. Eleven of these were present only in chromatograms of the accession, one was only present in chromatograms of the commercial cultivar, and two peaks were present in chromatograms from both when hexane extracts of leaves were subjected to a gas chromatographic–mass spectrometric analysis (GC–MS). However, the matches obtained between the peak spectra and the MS database were too low to justify even preliminary identification of the compounds.
Alternative inoculum sources for fire blight: the potential role of fruit mummies and non-host plants

Fire blight is the most damaging bacterial disease in apple production worldwide. Cankers and symptomless infected shoots are known as sites for the overwintering of Erwinia amylovora, subsequently providing primary inoculum for infection in the spring. In the present work, further potential sources of inoculum were investigated. Real-time PCR assays covering a 3-year-period classified 19·9% of samples taken from fruit mummies as positive. Bacterial abundance in fruit mummies during autumn, winter and spring was up to 109 cells per gram of tissue and correlated well with later infection rates of blossoms. Blossoms of non-host plants growing close to infected trees were also shown to be colonized by E. amylovora and to enable epiphytic survival and propagation of bacteria. The results indicate a potential role of fruit mummies and buds in overwintering and as a source of primary inoculum for dissemination of the pathogen early in the growing season. Non-host blossoms may also serve as an inoculum source in the build-up of the pathogen population. Both aspects may contribute significantly to the epidemiology of E. amylovora. The significance of infected rootstocks as an inoculum source is also discussed. Fruit mummies might be used to determine pathogen pressure in an orchard before the beginning of the blooming period.
Analysis of thyroid absorbed dose in cervical CT scan with the use of bismuth shielding

The Computed Tomography (CT) has become an important tool to diagnose cancer and to obtain additional information for different clinical questions. Today, it is a very fast, painless and noninvasive test that can be performed high quality images. However, CT scan usually requires a higher radiation exposure dose than a conventional radiography examination. The aim of this study is to determine the dose variation deposited in thyroid and in nearby radiosensitive organs, such as: lenses, pharynx, hypophysis, salivary gland and spinal cord with and without the use of bismuth shielded. A cervical CT scan was performed on anthropomorphic male phantom model Alderson Rando, using a GE scanner, Discovery model with 64 channels. Dose measurements have been performed by using radiochromic film strips to register the individual doses in the organs of interest. The results show us that the thyroid received the highest dose, 24.70 mGy, in the phantom, according to the incidence of the primary X-ray beam.
The Vascular Epiphyte Flora of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, México

Abstract An analysis of the vascular epiphytes of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve was made based on eight years of field work and herbarium data. Four hundred and sixty five species and infraspecies of vascular epiphytes from 131 genera and 31 families are listed. Approximately 9% were found to be true epiphytes, whereas 0.65% were accidental epiphytes. Orchidaceae was the most species-rich family, although the genera Peperomia, Tillandsia, and Polypodium were the most rich in epiphytes.
Hybridizing the Cuckoo Search Algorithm with Different Mutation Operators for Numerical Optimization Problems

Abstract The Cuckoo search (CS) algorithm is an efficient evolutionary algorithm inspired by the nesting and parasitic reproduction behaviors of some cuckoo species. Mutation is an operator used in evolutionary algorithms to maintain the diversity of the population from one generation to the next. The original CS algorithm uses the Lévy flight method, which is a special mutation operator, for efficient exploration of the search space. The major goal of the current paper is to experimentally evaluate the performance of the CS algorithm after replacing the Lévy flight method in the original CS algorithm with seven different mutation methods. The proposed variations of CS were evaluated using 14 standard benchmark functions in terms of the accuracy and reliability of the obtained results over multiple simulations. The experimental results suggest that the CS with polynomial mutation provides more accurate results and is more reliable than the other CS variations.
Balance between anionic and cationic extracellular peroxidase activities in Sedum album leaves after ozone exposure. Analysis by high‐performance liquid chromatography

Peroxidase activity was assayed with different electron donors (guaiacol, ascorbate, syringaldazine) in the intercellular fluid of Sedum album L. leaves after ozone exposure. Anionic and cationic peroxidases were separated and purified by high performance ion-exchange and gel permeation chromatography. Both isoperoxidases were tested as regards their molecular weight and apparent kinetic constants with different substrates. Ascorbate peroxidase activity was rapidly stimulated after ozone exposure, whereas syringaldazine peroxidase activity reached its maximum 24 h later. Increases in ascorbate and syringaldazine peroxidase activities occurred simultaneously with increases in cationic and anionic peroxidase activities, respectively. Apparent Km values indicate a high affinity of cationic peroxidases for ascorbate and of anionic peroxidases for syringaldazine. The metabolic role of this balance between cationic and anionic peroxidases after ozone exposure is discussed.