Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Interleukin-17 and the Neutrophil in Asthma

Recent clinical evidence shows that acute, severe exacerbations of asthma are associated with recruitment and activation of neutrophils in the airways. There is also experimental evidence from rodents that T-lymphocytes are involved in the recruitment of neutrophils following allergen challenge in sensitised airways. This review addresses the potential role of neutrophils and the cytokine interleukin-17 (IL-17) in severe asthma. IL-17 is produced and released as a free protein from T-lymphocytes of the memory (CD45RO+) subset. Evidence from rats in vivo suggests that IL-17 can recruit and activate neutrophils in the airways; the recruitment is mediated by the rat correlate to the neutrophil chemoattractant interleukin-8 (IL-8) macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2). Endogenous peptidases modulate neutrophil recruitment by acting on NK-1 receptors in rat airways in vivo. Human bronchial epithelial cells in vitro respond to stimulation with IL-17 by increasing the production and release of the human neutrophil chemoattractant IL-8. This release of IL-8 is functionally significant; it causes neutrophil chemotaxis in vitro. Furthermore, this IL-8 release is sensitive to a glucocorticoid and is potentiated by the pro-inflammatory cytokine, tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in vitro. In addition, IL-17 stimulates human bronchial epithelial cells in vitro to release the neutrophil-activating factor IL-6. This effect of IL-17 on IL-6, and IL-8 is in part mediated via mitogen-activated protein kinases. In conclusion, as indicated in rat airways in vivo and in human bronchial epithelial cells in vitro, IL-17 may constitute a link between the activation of certain T-lymphocytes and mobilisation of neutrophils in the airways, via induced release of C-X-C chemokines and tachykinins. Further studies are required to answer the question whether free, soluble IL-17 protein plays this role in the airways of patients with severe asthma.
Effect of Dilazep Dihydrochloride on Serum Cardiac Troponin T Levels in Hemodialysis Patients

Background/Aim: Cardiac troponin T is a highly sensitive marker for the detection of myocardial injury. We studied whether dilazep dihydrochloride affects cardiac troponin T levels in hemodialysis patients. Methods: Our study included 60 hemodialysis patients without symptoms of acute myocardial ischemia. We measured serum cardiac troponin T levels by the Elecsys® troponin T assay and randomized 40 hemodialysis patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) into two treatment groups: a dilazep dihydrochloride group (300 mg/day, n = 20) and a placebo group (n = 20). Treatment was continued for 12 months. Results:There were no significant differences between pre- and postdialysis cardiac troponin T levels before treatment. LVH was noted in 40 patients out of 60 hemodialysis patients (67%). Cardiac troponin T levels were significantly higher in these patients (0.23 ± 0.08 µg/l) than in hemodialysis patients without LVH (0.09 ± 0.03 µg/l). Cardiac troponin T levels were reduced from 0.24 ± 0.08 to 0.12 ± 0.06 µg/l (p < 0.01) in patients treated with dilazep dihydrochloride. There were no change in cardiac troponin T levels in patients receiving placebo (from 0.21 ± 0.08 at baseline to 0.20 ± 0.07 µg/l). Conclusion: Dilazep dihydrochloride may be effective in ameliorating myocardial damage in hemodialysis patients.
Dietary Patterns and 10-year (2002-2012) Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes: Results from the ATTICA Cohort Study.

AIM To identify dietary patterns among apparently healthy individuals and to determine their long-term effect on diabetes incidence. METHODS During 2001-2002, a random sample of 3,042 men and women (18-89 years old), living in greater Athens, was randomly selected to participate in the study. During 2011-2012, the 10-year follow-up was performed in 2,583 participants (15% drop-out rate). After excluding participants with diabetes at baseline and those for whom no information on diabetes status was available at follow-up, the working sample consisted of 1,485 participants. Dietary habits were assessed by means of a validated semi-quantitative, food frequency questionnaire. Factor analysis was performed to extract dietary patterns from 18 food groups. RESULTS Diabetes diagnosis at follow-up was made in 191 participants, yielding an incidence rate of 12.9%. Six factors (i.e. dietary patterns) were identified that explained 54% of the variation in consumption. After adjusting for major confounders, and stratification by age-group, logistic regression revealed that the most healthful pattern consisted of the consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, bread, rusk, and pasta which reduced the 10-year diabetes risk by 40%, among participants aged 45-55 years. The association reached marginal statistical significance (95% CI: 0.34, 1.07), while no significant association was observed for the other age-groups. When the analysis was additionally adjusted for carbohydrate percentage, statistical significance was lost completely, suggesting a possibly mediating effect of this macronutrient. CONCLUSIONS The results confirm the potentially protective effect of a plant-based dietary pattern in the primary prevention of diabetes, in particular among middle-aged people. Carbohydrate content may be a specific factor in this relationship; other micronutrients found in plant-based food groups may also play a role.
Mitsuaria noduli sp. nov., isolated from the root nodules of Robinia pseudoacacia in a lead-zinc mine.

A novel endophytic bacterium, designated strain HZ7T, was isolated from the root nodules of Robinia pseudoacacia growing in a lead-zinc mine in Mianxian County, Shaanxi Province, China. Cells were Gram-reaction-negative, aerobic, motile, rod-shaped, methyl-red-negative, catalase-positive, positive for chitosan-degrading activity and did not produce H2S. Strain HZ7T grew at 4-45 °C (optimum 25-30 °C), at pH 5-9 (optimum pH 7-8) and with 0-1 % (w/v) NaCl. The quinone type was ubiquinone 8 (UQ-8). The major fatty acids were identified as C16 : 0, C17 : 0 cyclo and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c). The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 68.5 mol% by whole genome sequencing. According to 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, the closest phylogenetic relative was Mitsuaria chitosanitabida 3001T (99.05 % similarity). Genome relatedness was computed using average nucleotide identity and genome-to-genome distance analysis, both of which strongly supported strain HZ7Tas belonging to the genus Mitsuaria as a representative of a novel species. On the basis of phylogenetic analysis, chemotaxonomic data and physiological characteristics, strain HZ7T represents a novel species of the genus Mitsuaria, for which the name Mitsuaria noduli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HZ7T (=JCM 31671T=CCTCC AB 2014353T).
Semantic Program Repair Using a Reference Implementation

Automated program repair has been studied via the use of techniques involving search, semantic analysis and artificial intelligence. Most of these techniques rely on tests as the correctness criteria, which causes the test overfitting problem. Although various approaches such as learning from code corpus have been proposed to address this problem, they are unable to guarantee that the generated patches generalize beyond the given tests. This work studies automated repair of errors using a reference implementation. The reference implementation is symbolically analyzed to automatically infer a specification of the intended behavior. This specification is then used to synthesize a patch that enforces conditional equivalence of the patched and the reference programs. The use of the reference implementation as an implicit correctness criterion alleviates overfitting in test-based repair. Besides, since we generate patches by semantic analysis, the reference program may have a substantially different implementation from the patched program, which distinguishes our approach from existing techniques for regression repair like Relifix. Our experiments in repairing the embedded Linux Busybox with GNU Coreutils as reference (and vice-versa) revealed that the proposed approach scales to real-world programs and enables the generation of more correct patches.
Study of Thermal Conductivity of Porous Silicon Using the Micro-Raman Method

In this work, we are interesting in the measurement of thermal conductivity (on the surface and in-depth) of Porous silicon by the micro-Raman spectroscopy. This direct method (micro-Raman spectroscopy) enabled us to develop a systematic means of investigation of the morphology and the thermal conductivity of Porous silicon oxidized or no. The thermal conductivity is studied according to the parameters of anodization and fraction of silicon oxidized. Thermal transport in the porous silicon layers is limited by its porous nature and the blocking of transport in the silicon skeleton what supports its use in the thermal sensors.
Viral inhibitors of NKG2D ligands for tumor surveillance

ABSTRACT Introduction: Natural Killer cells (NK) are key for the innate immune response against tumors and viral infections. Several viral proteins evade host immune response and target the NK cell receptor NKG2D and its ligands. Areas covered: This review aimed to describe the viruses and their proteins that interfere with the NKG2D receptor and their ligands, and how these interactions lead to immune evasion, host protection, and tissue damage from acute and chronic viral infections. Expert opinion: The study of viral proteins has already impacted the field of oncology. A prime example is the HBV vaccine and the development of antiviral drugs for HIV, Hepatitis C, and the family of Herpesviridae viruses. The NKG2D system seems to be a rational therapeutic target. Nevertheless, an effective cytotoxic response by NK cells is mediated by a network of activating and inhibitory receptors, the integration of which determines if the NK cell becomes cytotoxic or permissive. Immunotherapeutic agents that increase the antitumor lytic activity of NK cells through modulating activation and inhibitory signaling of NK cells are being developed. Nevertheless, more research is needed to dissect the integrative mechanism of NK cells function to fully exploit their antitumor and antiviral effector mechanisms.
Preoperative Body Mass Index May Determine the Prognosis of Advanced Gastric Cancer

ABSTRACT Radical gastrectomy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer causes serious nutritional impairment. Our study evaluated the clinical impact of body mass index (BMI) on the long-term outcomes of advanced gastric cancer (stage II and III). We analyzed 211 cases of stage II and III gastric cancer between January 2005 and December 2010 at Chung-Ang University Hospital, Seoul, Korea. Patients were divided into four groups according to BMI: underweight, normal, overweight, and obese. In addition, we divided patients into two groups: BMI-High (BMI ≥ 23 kg/m2) vs. BMI-Low (BMI < 23 kg/m2). We assessed age, sex, tumor location, lymph node (LN) involvement, operation method, initial cancer stage, recurrence, and survival between the two groups. There was significant difference in overall survival (OS) between the underweight group and the other groups (P = 0.005). The survival of the BMI-High group was better than that of the BMI-Low group. The rate of cancer-related death in the BMI-High group was significantly lower than that in the BMI-Low group (cancer-related death: BMI-Low 27% vs. BMI-High 12.6%, P = 0.022). Our findings suggest that preoperative BMI may have an influence on the long-term outcomes of advanced gastric cancer after radical surgery and chemotherapy.
Conventional, Biological and Environmental Factors in Speech Communication: A Modulation Theory

Abstract Speech signals contain various types of information that can be grouped under the headings phonetic, affective, personal and transmittal. Listeners are capable of distinguishing these. Previous theories of speech perception have not considered this fully. They have mainly been concerned with problems relating exclusively to phonetic quality. The theory presented in this paper considers speech signals as the result of allowing conventional gestures to modulate a carrier signal that has the personal characteristics of the speaker, which implies that in general the conventional information can only be retrieved by demodulation.
Aspects of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutes

Unemployment and un-employability are some of most prevailing problems in our society. Entrepreneurship education has been viewed as a solution to the same. The aim of this study is to analyse different aspects of entrepreneurship education. The main aspects that have been studied here are-Entrepreneurship education programs, Teaching and assessment and Entrepreneurship education in non-business disciplines. It is found that the entrepreneurship education programs are gaining recognition in higher education institutes. But the programs need to be different from the conventional educational programs as entrepreneurship involves more of right brain thinking. Teaching of entrepreneurship has to be action oriented with focus on development of behavioural and attitudinal competencies. The learning can be enhanced through group discussions, workshops, presentations, solving cases studies, interacting with real entrepreneurs, developing business plan and implementation at later stages. The assessment techniques need to be different from the conventional system of examination as the learning outcomes are in the form of behavioural competencies and motivation. The study highlights the significance of entrepreneurship education for non-business disciplines. Non-business disciplines are able to give birth to more number of start-ups as they have many product ideas, which they can convert into business ideas if they are equipped with knowledge of entrepreneurship. This study is useful for policymakers and academicians as it provides an insight into different aspects of entrepreneurship education programs for universities and other higher education institutes.
High Density Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Mapping and Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Analysis in a Biparental Spring Triticale Population Localized Major and Minor Effect Fusarium Head Blight Resistance and Associated Traits QTL

Triticale (xTriticosecale Wittmack) is an important feed crop which suffers severe yield, grade and end-use quality losses due to Fusarium head blight (FHB). Development of resistant triticale cultivars is hindered by lack of effective genetic resistance sources. To dissect FHB resistance, a doubled haploid spring triticale population produced from the cross TMP16315/AC Ultima using a microspore culture method, was phenotyped for FHB incidence, severity, visual rating index (VRI), deoxynivalenol (DON) and some associated traits (ergot, grain protein content, test weight, yield, plant height and lodging) followed by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. A high-density map consisting of 5274 SNPs, mapped on all 21 chromosomes with a map density of 0.48 cM/SNP, was constructed. Together, 17 major quantitative trait loci were identified for FHB on chromosomes 1A, 2B, 3A, 4A, 4R, 5A, 5R and 6B; two of incidence loci (on 2B and 5R) also co-located with loci for severity and VRI, and two other loci of VRI (on 1A and 4R) with DON accumulation. Major and minor loci were also identified for all other traits in addition to many epistasis loci. This study provides new insight into the genetic basis of FHB resistance and their association with other traits in triticale.
Interface research and flight control based on FlightGear

The best advantages of FlightGear, an open source software of 3-D flight's simulation, are free and have secondary-development ability. However, its open source code is maintained by many programs coming from different countries and regions, resulting in various style of code. In addition, There is no an impeccable manual guide for code development, as a result of lack of funds. Therefore, this paper focuses on clarifying interfaces of FlightGear as well as how to use native-fdm, native-ctrls interface of it to communicate with external programs. This research helps developers of controlling subjects concentrate on algorithms or other special modules of airplane model instead of spending extra time coding visual or rendering modules.
Modifiable Risk Factors and Prevention of Dementia: What Is the Latest Evidence?

Source of Review This Evidence to Practice review provides a summary and commentary on 2 recent commissioned reports on strategies for preventing and treating dementia. The first report,1 commissioned by the National Institute of Aging came from the National Academy of Medicine, which was tasked to comment on the state of knowledge for preventing or slowing cognitive decline and dementia. This report was informed by a systematic review conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The second report2 was commissioned by the Lancet to provide guidance on dementia prevention, intervention, and care. Recommendations were based on an expert committee that reviewed “best available evidence” on prevention and care of dementia. These 2 reports based their recommendations on different methods for assessing evidence, and they came to very different conclusions. This Evidence to Practice review outlines the main findings of each report and attempts to reconcile the different recommendations for clinicians and, ultimately, for policy.
Importance of non-uniform prosody modification for speech recognition in emotion conditions

A mismatch in training and operating environments causes a performance degradation in speech recognition systems (ASR). One major reason for this mismatch is due to the presence of expressive (emotive) speech in operational environments. Emotions in speech majorly inflict the changes in the prosody parameters of pitch, duration and energy. This work is aimed at improving the performance of speech recognition systems in the presence of emotive speech. This work focuses on improving the speech recognition performance without disturbing the existing ASR system. The prosody modification of pitch, duration and energy is achieved by tuning the modification factors values for the relative differences between the neutral and emotional data sets. The neutral version of emotive speech is generated using uniform and non-uniform prosody modification methods for speech recognition. During the study, IITKGP-SESC corpus is used for building the ASR system. The speech recognition system for the emotions (anger, happy and compassion) is evaluated. An improvement in the performance of ASR is observed when the prosody modified emotive utterance is used for speech recognition in place of original emotive utterance. An average improvement around 5% in accuracy is observed due to the use of non-uniform prosody modification methods.
Diabetes Canada 2017

Ann M. Carracher, Payal H. Marathe, and Kelly L. Close are of Close Concerns (http://www.closeconcerns.com), a healthcare information company focused exclusively on diabetes and obesity care. Close Concerns publishes Closer Look, a periodical that brings together news and insights in these areas. Each month, the Journal of Diabetes includes this News feature, in which Carracher, Marathe, and Close review the latest developments relevant to researchers and clinicians.
The anti-oxidant and pro-oxidant dichotomy of Bcl-2

Abstract Across a wide spectrum of cellular redox status, there emerges a dichotomy of responses in terms of cell survival/proliferation and cell death. Of note, there is emerging evidence that the anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-2, in addition to its conventional activity of titrating the pro-apoptotic effects of proteins such as Bax and Bak at the mitochondria, also impacts cell fate decisions via modulating cellular redox metabolism. In this regard, both pro- and anti-oxidant effects of Bcl-2 overexpression have been described under different conditions and cellular contexts. In this short review, we attempt to analyze existing observations and present a probable explanation for the seemingly conflicting redox regulating activity of Bcl-2 from the standpoint of its pro-survival function. The consequential effect(s) of the dual redox functions of Bcl-2 are also discussed, particularly from the viewpoint of developing novel therapeutic strategies against cancers rendered refractory due to the aberrant expression of Bcl-2.
Evidence for GnRH Regulation by Leptin: Leptin Administration Prevents Reduced Pulsatile LH Secretion during Fasting

Administration of leptin during undernutrition improves reproductive function, but whether this occurs at the level of the brain, pituitary, or gonads is not yet clear. The present study tested the hypothesis that one important mechanism is the control of pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) secretion. Our approach was to determine if leptin could prevent the marked suppression of pulsatile luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion which occurs during fasting. Leptin (3 µg/g i.p.; three times/48 h) or vehicle was administered during a 48-hour fast in adult ovariectomized and estrogen-treated ovariectomized rats (n = 5–7/group). LH was measured in blood samples collected every 6 min for 2 h before and after fasting. In vehicle-treated animals, plasma insulin and leptin levels decreased after fasting. As expected, the LH pulse frequency also decreased markedly. When circulating leptin remained artificially elevated during fasting, the suppression of LH pulse frequency did not occur. Leptin treatment maintained a high LH pulse frequency in the presence or absence of estrogen. The finding that leptin modulates LH pulse frequency indicates that this fat-derived hormone conveys information about nutrition to mechanisms which regulate pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone secretion. Because this occurs in the absence of estrogen, the mechanism does not necessarily involve modulation of negative feedback.
Prospective memory in idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder with or without mild cognitive impairment: A preliminary study

Abstract Objective: The ability to execute delayed intentions, known as prospective memory (PM), is crucial to everyday living. PM failures are reported in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Parkinson’s disease, however, no study to date has investigated PM functioning in individuals at high risk of developing these conditions, precisely those diagnosed with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD). We aimed to assess PM in iRBD according to patients’ cognitive status and to determine the underlying nature of their difficulties. Method: Fifty-eight participants, including 20 healthy controls (HC) and 38 polysomnographic-confirmed iRBD patients with (iRBD-MCI = 13) or without (iRBD-nMCI = 25) MCI participated in this study. Following a neuropsychological assessment, PM was evaluated using a self-administered questionnaire (PRMQ), a simple clinical measure (envelope test), and a laboratory cue salience task. Results: No significant group differences were noted on the PRMQ and envelope test. On the PM laboratory task, non-parametric analyses revealed better detection accuracy in HC than both iRBD groups for all high and low salient cues. While iRBD-nMCI and iRBD-MCI patients performed similarly on the high salient condition, the latter showed significant difficulty in detecting low salient cues. Multiple regression analyses revealed executive dysfunction as the best predictor to significantly account for differences in the low salient condition in iRBD. Conclusion: PM difficulties in iRBD are most important in patients with MCI (vs without MCI) and may be attributed to a gradual alteration in executive mechanisms. PM impairment could act as a promising indicator of early cognitive dysfunction in iRBD.