Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pancreatic microcirculatory changes in experimental pancreatitis of graded severity in the rat.

BACKGROUND A technique with two complementary methods, intravital microscopy (IVM) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), was developed to analyze pancreatic tissue perfusion. METHODS After initial in vivo and in vitro validation of the techniques, we studied pancreatic microcirculation in models of mild, moderate, and severe pancreatitis. Anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly allocated to the three models or to serve as controls. Stable systemic hemodynamic parameters were maintained with normal saline solution infusion. Exocrine capillary perfusion was assessed by IVM; hemoglobin oxygenation and hemoglobin content were measured by DRS. RESULTS Capillary perfusion in mild pancreatitis initially increased significantly at 30 minutes to 155% +/- 38% of baseline values but returned to baseline within 3 hours. Hemoglobin content and oxygen saturation remained stable. In moderate and severe pancreatitis capillary perfusion significantly decreased versus the control group to 12% +/- 6% and 6% (range, 0% to 14%) of baseline values, respectively, at 6 hours. Oxygen saturation decreased significantly in moderate pancreatitis from 48.5% +/- 2.3% to 41.6% +/- 3.5% (p < 0.05) and in severe pancreatitis from 47.2% +/- 1.5% to 38.9% +/- 0.5% (p < 0.05), whereas hemoglobin content did not change. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that (1) IVM and DRS provide both unique and complementary data on tissue perfusion of the pancreas, (2) that moderate and severe experimental pancreatitis are accompanied by progressive tissue ischemia, and (3) that significant stasis (decreased perfusion) and decreased oxygen saturation occur whereas generalized vasoconstriction (decreased hemoglobin levels) was not found. In contrast, mild experimental pancreatitis was accompanied by initial hyperperfusion and normal oxygen delivery was maintained.
Authenticating Secret Key-Exchange Between Two Parties

— Key-exchange, in particular Diffie–Hellman key exchange (DHKE), is among the core cryptographic mechanisms for ensuring network security. For key-exchange, both security and privacy are desired. The proposed scheme is used to exchange the secret key by implementing the Shamir secret sharing scheme. The secret can be splitted into shares based on the threshold values, it refers to way for distributing a secret amongst a discussion of sender and receiver and the other parties include in transaction. The secret key will be reconstructed solely through equal number of shares. Individual shares are of no use on their own. Using Shamir Secret sharing, we have been enhance the approach for this present work, that it will reconstruct the secret key through the procedure of dividing into parts that is given into the each specified participants on own unique part, and some of the parts are need that to be reconstruct the secret key only the receiver verified based on their unique identity. Then the receiver receives the key of all the parts and decryption is made to message. In this work, introduce an new approach of sharing message in the way of authentication, it will produce more authentication than other secret sharing methods, because the reconstruction of key is determined and the message authentication is undetermined to hackers or illegal users.
A Spatial Analysis of Voting in the Korean National Assembly

UC-BERKELEY Center on Institutions and Governance Working Paper No. 16 A Spatial Analysis of Voting in the Korean Assembly Hae-Won Jun and Simon Hix Institute of Governmental Studies University of California, Berkeley March 2006 This paper can be downloaded without charge at: Center for Institutions and Governance Working Papers Series: http://igov.berkeley. edu/workingpapers/index.html
Innate and acquired immune system in patients developing interferon-alpha-related autoimmune thyroiditis: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVE In this prospective study, we investigated whether the development of interferon (IFN)-alpha-related autoimmune thyroiditis (IFN-AT) was correlated with the sequential changes of cytokine pattern induced by IFNalpha in the peripheral lymphocytes. PATIENTS AND METHODS We enrolled 18 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive patients who developed IFN-AT, eight patients with euthyroidism [IFN-AT(Eu)] and 10 with thyroid dysfunction [IFN-AT(Dy)]. Twenty HCV-positive patients without IFN-AT acted as control group (Co-HCV+). Intracellular expression of IFNgamma and IL-4 was evaluated by multicolor flow-cytometry analysis in peripheral lymphocytes in vitro stimulated by phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) (25 ng/ml) and ionomycin (1 mug/ml) in presence of monensin (5 microm). RESULTS At the appearance of thyroid disease, both IFN-AT(Eu) and IFN-AT(Dy) patients showed a significant increase of IFNgamma expression in CD3+CD56+ and CD3-CD56+ cells but not in CD4+ and CD8+ cells. At this time point, IFN-AT(Eu) but not IFN-AT(Dy) patients also showed an increase of IL-4 expression in CD3+CD56+ cells and CD4+ cells. Six months later, IFN-AT(Eu) patients maintained high expression of IL-4 in CD4+ and CD3+CD56+ cells without any further increase in IFNgamma expression. By contrast, IFN-AT(Dy) patients showed an increase of IFNgamma expression in CD4+ and CD8+ cells, with a concomitant decrease of IL-4 expression in CD4+ cells. CONCLUSIONS Type 2 immune response is activated early and specifically in patients with IFN-AT who remain euthyroid throughout the follow-up. Predominant in patients developing thyroid dysfunction, by contrast, is the type 1 immune response that seems to occur earlier in innate than acquired immune system.
Essays in sovereign debt and sovereign credit ratings

This thesis consists of two chapters regarding the transmission of information in the sovereign debt market. The first one looks into the signaling role of the choice of debt by the sovereign and the second one focuses on a class of intermediaries in the market of sovereign debt, the credit rating agencies, and examine the information consequences of their solicited and unsolicited ratings. In the first chapter I build a model where creditworthy countries may use fiscal austerity to communicate their ability to repay sovereign debt and show that the signaling channel is active only for high levels of asymmetric information. The model generates a negative association between the amount of public information, provided by the rating agencies, and fiscal tightness. Informed by the model predictions, I perform an empirical investigation based on a panel of 58 OECD and emerging market economies since 1980 and find evidence of this signaling channel. The second chapter aims at contributing to the debate on whether unsolicited ratings are strategically motivated. I present evidence from the sovereign debt market that strategic motivation is not necessarily behind the patterns that we see in the data and propose a model of credit ratings and ancillary services that abstracts from strategic considerations. In my model, borrowers with different unobservable characteristics select themselves into different solicitation groups. In equilibrium, the model can generate either a negative or a positive selection on unsolicited ratings, depending on the share of unsolicited ratings in a given market. The economic mechanism analyzed in this chapter implies a “natural” degree of market selection which is not associated to strategic motivation.
Molecular Pathway for Cancer Metastasis to Bone*

The molecular mechanism leading to the cancer metastasis to bone is poorly understood but yet determines prognosis and therapy. Here, we define a new molecular pathway that may account for the extraordinarily high osteotropism of prostate cancer. By using SPARC (secreted protein, acidic and rich in cysteine)-deficient mice and recombinant SPARC, we demonstrated that SPARC selectively supports the migration of highly metastatic relative to less metastatic prostate cancer cell lines to bone. Increased migration to SPARC can be traced to the activation of integrins αVβ3 and αVβ5 on tumor cells. Such activation is induced by an autocrine vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/VEGF receptor (VEGFR)-2 loop on the tumor cells, which also supports the growth and proliferation of prostate cancer cells. A consequence of SPARC recognition by αVβ5 is enhanced VEGF production. Thus, prostate cancer cells expressing VEGF/VEGFR-2 will activate αVβ3 and αVβ5 on their surface and use these integrins to migrate toward SPARC in bone. Within the bone environment, SPARC engagement of these integrins will stimulate growth of the tumor and further production of VEGF to support neoangiogenesis, thereby favoring the development of the metastatic tumor. Supporting this model, activated integrins were found to colocalize with VEGFR-2 in tissue samples of metastatic prostate tumors from patients.
INFLUENCE OF SELECTED DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ON THE ADOPTION AND USE OF ELECTRONIC BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIES BY SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED RETAILERS

The importance of e-business technologies cannot be over emphasised as it is regarded as an essential tool in enhancing the performance as well as the levels of competitiveness of businesses. This study seeks to investigate the relationship between selected employee demographic variables and the perceived factors that influence the adoption and use of e-business technologies, among the small and medium-sized retail enterprises. A survey was conducted among employees working in the small and medium-sized retail enterprises operating in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. This study utilised analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the influence of several demographic variables on the e-business technology adoption and use in the context of retailers. This study provides some insights into the perceptions of employees working in the small and medium-sized retail enterprises about the factors that influence e-business technology adoption and use, as well as the cultures of the businesses in which they are employed. In addition, this study adds to the body of knowledge by indicating the extent to which they perceive the ease of use and relative advantage of e-business technologies
Short Utterance Variance Modelling and Utterance Partitioning for PLDA Speaker Verification

This paper analyses the short utterance probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA) speaker verification with utterance partitioning and short utterance variance (SUV) modelling approaches. Experimental studies have found that instead of using single long-utterance as enrolment data, if long enrolled utterance is partitioned into multiple short utterances and average of short utterance i-vectors is used as enrolled data, that improves the Gaussian PLDA (GPLDA) speaker verification. This is because short utterance i-vectors have speaker, session and utterance variations, and utterance-partitioning approach compensates the utterance variation. Subsequently, SUV-PLDA is also studied with utterance partitioning approach, and utterance partitioning-based SUV-GPLDA system shows relative improvement of 9% and 16% in EER for NIST 2008 and NIST 2010 truncated 10sec-10sec evaluation condition as utterance partitioning approach compensates the utterance variation and SUV modelling approach compensates the mismatch between full-length development data and short-length evaluation data.
Hydrodynamic Phenomena in Suspensions of Swimming Microorganisms

Vast numbers of microorganisms are suspended in temperate aqueous environments. Oceans and rivers, puddles and droplets, the fluid interiors of animals, all host an array of splendidly varied creatures. Although their presence is usually not casua1\y obvious, they constitute the major part of the world's biomass. Their population dynamics-replication and decay, accumulation and dispersal-modulates and regulates their own life, the life of the larger creatures that feed on them, and even the climate (Charlson et al 1987). Microorganisms interact with each other and with the world, at length scales that vary upward from the size of an individual, say 10-4 cm, to the dimensions of the entire body of fluid in which they live. Fluid mechanics, in concert with the organisms' behavior, governs the dynamics of many of these interactions. However, we are concerned here with relatively localized, small-scale phenomena. We consider only single­ celled microorganisms which are motile, i . e. self-propelled, and so small that inertial effects can be ignored in describing their locomotion. Examples to be discussed include species of algae, bacteria, and protozoa, not to mention spermatozoa. The trajectories along which individual cells swim are determined by thc
Electrophysiologic evidence of increased distractibility after dorsolateral prefrontal lesions

Patients with left prefrontal lesions and control subjects showed enhanced event-related potentials (ERPs) to attended tone sequences presented in a dichotic attention task. ERP enhancements were comparable at short and long interstimulus intervals (ISIs), and did not depend upon whether attended stimuli were preceded by other attended stimuli or by distracting stimuli in the opposite ear. In contrast, patients with right prefrontal lesions showed absent ERP attention effects to contralateral (left ear) tones at all ISIs, and reduced attention effects to ipsilateral tones at long ISIs and when these were preceded by distracting sounds. The results are consistent with an asymmetric organization of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and indicate that increased distractibility may contribute to the attention disorders that follow prefrontal lesions.
Socio-economic deprivation and outcome in patients with coronary artery disease

In their paper, “Socioeconomic status and early outcome from coronary artery bypass grafting” (see article on page 793) , Gibson and his colleagues from Aberdeen have clearly shown that socio-economic deprivation is associated with poorer outcomes from coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). 1 In a study of patients who underwent CABG from April 2000 to March 2004, they showed that patients in the quartile with the highest deprivation scores had a significantly higher chance of dying following CABG than those from the least deprived areas, and that this is independent of other conventionally assessed risk factors (odds ratio 2.56 adjusted for EuroSCORE; CI 1.03 to 6.34; p = 0.04). In addition, patients in the least affluent quartile were twice as likely to suffer a major, non-fatal complication. Should we be surprised by these findings? No, we should not, but we should be concerned. There are many potential reasons for this difference, ranging from higher smoking rates and poorer nutritional status to worse housing conditions, all of which play a part in a patient’s ability to recover from major surgery. There is a wealth of evidence that deprivation is associated with an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and its complications. The Health Survey for England, 20032 showed this positive association between deprivation and increased prevalence of coronary artery disease, and several studies have shown that the most deprived patients have the poorest outcomes. A study from Bristol3 published in this journal in 2003 showed not only that patients from the most deprived areas suffered more complications from CABG but that their long-term survival was also worse (though interestingly, in this study, their operative mortality was …
AC susceptibilities of conducting cylinders and their applications in electromagnetic measurements

We present accurate calculations and tabulations of the volume and midplane-averaged complex ac susceptibilities of nonmagnetic conducting cylinders with aspect ratio ranging from 0.1 to 10 as functions of a dimensionless frequency. We discuss their features in terms of eddy-current demagnetizing effect. We explain their applications in high-sensitivity, low-temperature, and high-field ac susceptometers and contactless conductivity measurements.
Relaxosome function and conjugation regulation in F‐like plasmids – a structural biology perspective

The tra operon of the prototypical F plasmid and its relatives enables transfer of a copy of the plasmid to other bacterial cells via the process of conjugation. Tra proteins assemble to form the transferosome, the transmembrane pore through which the DNA is transferred, and the relaxosome, a complex of DNA‐binding proteins at the origin of DNA transfer. F‐like plasmid conjugation is characterized by a high degree of plasmid specificity in the interactions of tra components, and is tightly regulated at the transcriptional, translational and post‐translational levels. Over the past decade, X‐ray crystallography of conjugative components has yielded insights into both specificity and regulatory mechanisms. Conjugation is repressed by FinO, an RNA chaperone which increases the lifetime of the small RNA, FinP. Recent work has resulted in a detailed model of FinO/FinP interactions and the discovery of a family of FinO‐like RNA chaperones. Relaxosome components include TraI, a relaxase/helicase, and TraM, which mediates signalling between the transferosome and relaxosome for transfer initiation. The structures of TraI and TraM bound to oriT DNA reveal the basis of specific recognition of DNA for their cognate plasmid. Specificity also exists in TraI and TraM interactions with the transferosome protein TraD.
Influence of European Quail Breeders Age on Egg Quality, Incubation, Fertility and Progeny Performance

The influence of age (85, 140, and 270 days) of European quails breeders on the egg quality and hatching, fertility and progeny performance was evaluated. The experimental design was completely randomized in a 3x3 factorial arrangement (females' age x males' age), with ten replicates and six birds per experimental unit (four females and two males). Egg production and quality were determined during 3 periods of 14 days and incubation parameters were evaluated in eggs obtained in five consecutive days. The live performance of the progenies was analyzed until 35 days. There was no effect of male age or any interaction between the age of males and females for the evaluated variable. The female's age influenced egg production, egg weight and chick weight, with better results obtained for 140-d-old breeders. The age of females reduced the hatchability, increased the late mortality in incubated eggs, and had no effect on fertility, total embryo mortality or eggshell structure, when analyzed by electron microscopy. The number of sperm trapped in the outer perivitelline layer (sptz/mm²) was determined in 10 fertile eggs per experimental unit. Young females fertilized by young males (80 days) had reduced sptz/mm². Progeny live performance was not affected by breeder's age. Breeders with 270 days retain fertility; however, their egg production, weight and hatchability of fertilized eggs is reduced. In conclusion, European quail breeders with 140 days of age have better egg quality, hatching and breeding results.
Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Type 1 p30IIRegulates Gene Transcription by Binding CREB Binding Protein/p300

ABSTRACT The highly conserved coadapters CREB binding protein (CBP) and p300 form complexes with CREB as well as other DNA binding transcription factors to modulate chromatin remodeling and thus transcription. Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) transcription is controlled, in part, by the CREB/ATF family of transcription factors which bind promoter sequences and function as complexes with the viral oncogenic protein Tax. We have reported that the nuclear localizing protein p30II of HTLV-1 functions as a transcription factor, differentially modulates CREB-responsive promoters, and is critical for maintenance of proviral loads in rabbits. In this study, we tested whether p30IIdirectly interacts with CBP/p300 to modulate gene transcription. Gal4(BD)-p30II-mediated transactivation was enhanced following exogenous expression of p300 and was competitively repressed by the p300 binding protein, adenovirus E1A, and E1ACR2 (mutated for retinoblastoma binding but retaining p300 binding). In contrast, E1ACR1 (mutated for p300 binding) failed to alter Gal4(BD)-p30II-mediated transactivation. In addition, Gal4(BD)-p30II-mediated transactivation was competitively inhibited by the cotransfection of CMV-p30II-HA and CMV-Tax but could be rescued by exogenous p300. Importantly, we demonstrate that p30II colocalizes with p300 in cell nuclei and directly binds to CBP/p300 in cells. Deletion mutants of CBP/p300 were used to localize the site critical for binding p30II to a highly conserved KIX region. DNA binding assays confirmed the interference of p30II with the assembly of CREB-Tax-p300/CBP multiprotein complexes on 21-bp repeat oligonucleotides in vitro. Collectively, our results demonstrate that CBP/p300 is a cellular protein target for HTLV-1 p30II and mediates its transcriptional effects in vivo.
cooccurNet: an R package for co‐occurrence network construction and analysis

Motivation: Previously, we developed a computational model to identify genomic co‐occurrence networks that was applied to capture the coevolution patterns within genomes of influenza viruses. To facilitate easy public use of this model, an R package ‘cooccurNet’ is presented here. Results: ‘cooccurNet’ includes functionalities of construction and analysis of residues (e.g. nucleotides, amino acids and SNPs) co‐occurrence network. In addition, a new method for measuring residues coevolution, defined as residue co‐occurrence score (RCOS), is proposed and implemented in ‘cooccurNet’ based on the co‐occurrence network. Availability and Implementation: ‘cooccurNet’ is publicly available on CRAN repositories under the GPL‐3 Open Source License (http://cran.r‐project.org/package=cooccurNet) Contact: taijiao@ibms.pumc. edu.cn or pys2013@hnu.edu.cn Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
COMMENTS ON “DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAILTY INDEX FOR PATIENTS WITH CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE”

potential confounding factors were carefully taken into account in the study design. As stated in the article, exclusion criteria included current consumption of bone or mineral active agents, which included HRT, and medical conditions or disorders that influenced bone mineral metabolism. The latter included evidence of renal insufficiency (creatinine more than twice the normal value), and therefore women with serum creatinine greater than 180mmol/L were not enrolled in the study. There were only three subjects with estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFRs) below 30 mL/min per 1.73 m of body surface area at baseline. Further analysis adjusting for baseline renal function (eGFR) did not significantly affect the outcomes. In participants with baseline values in the lowest tertile, vitamin D and calcium supplementation improved mean (standard error) muscle strength and Timed Up and Go (TUAG): hip extensor strength 22.8% (9.6%) (P 5.02), hip adductor strength 13.5% (6.8%) (P 5.05), and TUAG 17.1% (7.6%) (P 5.03). We agree that carefully designed clinical trials can minimize the influence of confounding factors on study outcomes and consider that our study meets these high standards.