Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survivin study: What is the next wave?

Survivin, a novel member of inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) protein family, is aberrantly expressed in cancer but undetectable in normal, differentiated adult tissues. Current studies suggest that survivin is implicated in both control of apoptosis and regulation of cell division. However, due to some inconsistent observations on survivin subcellular localization, there is debate about survivin's function in regulating apoptosis, cell division, or both. This review will discuss concepts, experimental methods, and interesting results that unify the different notions about survivin localization and function or point out gaps of knowledge about controversial issues. The author also intends to review various aspects of survivin studies, which were not emphasized or sufficiently discussed in previous reviews on survivin, and update recent developments that may reveal new applications of disease‐oriented therapeutics in the coming years. J. Cell. Physiol. 197: 8–29, 2003 © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Classification of Mild Cognitive Impairment Subtypes using Neuropsychological Data

While the research on Alzheimerâs disease (AD) is progressing, timely intervention before an individual becomes demented is often emphasized. Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which is thought of as a prodromal syndrome to AD, may be useful in this context as potential interventions can be applied to individuals at increased risk of developing dementia. The current study attempts to address this problem using a selection of machine learning algorithms to discriminate between cognitively normal individuals and MCI individuals among a cohort of community dwelling individuals aged 70-90 years based on neuropsychological test performance. The overall best algorithm in our experiments was AdaBoost with decision trees while random forests was consistently stable. Ten-fold cross validation was used with ten repetitions to reduce variability and assess generalizing capabilities of the trained models. The results presented are consistently of the same calibre or better than the limited number of similar studies reported in the literature.
THE ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF SALIVA : CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE IN ORAL DISEASES

The use of saliva as a diagnostic fluid is a relatively recent trend. Saliva is a mixed oral fluid derived from major and minor salivary glands. Oral fluid, often called the mirror of the body’s health, is a perfect medium to be explored for health and disease surveillance. Saliva is considered to be the first line of defense against oxidative stress (OS), the main cause for many systemic and oral diseases. Important sources of oral free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) are tobacco smoke, periodontitis and other oral diseases. Saliva is rich in antioxidants: uric acid, albumin, ascorbate and enzymes which constitute the antioxidant potential of saliva. Aim of the study: To test possible correlations between several salivary biomarkers and oral diseases associated with OS. Material and methods: We have determined the salivary antioxidant potential in patients with periodontitis (20), oral lichen planus (OLP) (20) smokers (20) versus controls (20). The following salivary biomarkers were evaluated: uric acid, albumin and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). Salivary biomarkers were performed using analysis kits on automatic analyzer. Analysis kits were provided by Biosystems Diagnostics (Spain) and by Randox (UK). Results: Analysis revealed statistically significant changes of the mentioned parameters in patients’ saliva versus controls. Conclusions: Our results illustrate that OS caused a depletion of antioxidant status in the oral cavity. Uric acid, albumin and TAC are very important and promising salivary biomarkers for monitoring the oral OS.
An A-Factor-Dependent Extracytoplasmic Function Sigma Factor (ςAdsA) That Is Essential for Morphological Development in Streptomyces griseus

ABSTRACT A-factor (2-isocapryloyl-3R-hydroxymethyl-γ-butyrolactone) at an extremely low concentration triggers streptomycin production and aerial mycelium formation in Streptomyces griseus. A-factor induces the expression of an A-factor-dependent transcriptional activator, AdpA, essential for both morphological and physiological differentiation by binding to the A-factor receptor protein ArpA, which has bound and repressed the adpA promoter, and dissociating it from the promoter. Nine DNA fragments that were specifically recognized and bound by histidine-tagged AdpA were isolated by cycles of a gel mobility shift-PCR method. One of them was located in front of a gene encoding an extracytoplasmic function ς factor belonging to a subgroup of the primary ς70 family. The cloned gene was named AdpA-dependent sigma factor gene (adsA), and the gene product was named ςAdsA. Transcription ofadsA depended on A-factor and AdpA, since adsAwas transcribed at a very low and constant level in an A-factor-deficient mutant strain or in an adpA-disrupted strain. Consistent with this, transcription of adsA was greatly enhanced at or near the timing of aerial hyphae formation, as determined by low-resolution S1 nuclease mapping. High-resolution S1 mapping determined the transcriptional start point 82 nucleotides upstream of the translational start codon. DNase I footprinting showed that AdpA bound both strands symmetrically between the transcriptional start point and the translational start codon; AdpA protected the antisense strand from positions +7 to +41 with respect to the transcriptional start point and the sense strand from positions +12 to +46. A weak palindrome was found in the AdpA-binding site. The unusual position bound by AdpA as a transcriptional activator, in relation to the promoter, suggested the presence of a mechanism by which AdpA activates transcription of adsA in some unknown way. Disruption of the chromosomal adsA gene resulted in loss of aerial hyphae formation but not streptomycin or yellow pigment production, indicating that ςAdsA is involved only in morphological development and not in secondary metabolic function. The presence of a single copy in each of the Streptomycesspecies examined by Southern hybridization suggests a common role in morphogenesis in this genus.
Advantages of diffuse radiation for terrestrial ecosystem productivity

[1] Clouds and aerosols alter the proportion of diffuse radiation in global solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. It is known that diffuse and direct beam radiation differ in the way they transfer through plant canopies and affect the summation of nonlinear processes like photosynthesis differently than what would occur at the leaf scale. We compared the relative efficiencies of canopy photosynthesis to diffuse and direct photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for a Scots pine forest, an aspen forest, a mixed deciduous forest, a tallgrass prairie and a winter wheat crop. The comparison was based on the seasonal patterns of the parameters that define the canopy photosynthetic responses to diffuse PAR and those that define the responses to direct PAR. These parameters were inferred from half-hourly tower CO2 flux measurements. We found that: (1) diffuse radiation results in higher light use efficiencies by plant canopies; (2) diffuse radiation has much less tendency to cause canopy photosynthetic saturation; (3) the advantages of diffuse radiation over direct radiation increase with radiation level; (4) temperature as well as vapor pressure deficit can cause different responses in diffuse and direct canopy photosynthesis, indicating that their impacts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon assimilation may depend on radiation regimes and thus sky conditions. These findings call for different treatments of diffuse and direct radiation in models of global primary production, and studies of the roles of clouds and aerosols in global carbon cycle.
Metformin as a geroprotector.

Abstract Geroprotectors are drugs that decrease the rate of aging and therefore extend life span. Metformin has been described as a geroprotector, and several studies have shown that metformin can slow down the rate of aging. The mechanisms behind the geroprotective effect of metformin are less established. The goal of this review is to investigate the evidence for the geroprotective effect of metformin and to describe the possible mechanisms behind it.
Time synchronization for M-WiMAX femtocells using IEEE 802.11 based wireless backhaul

In this paper, we propose a new time synchronization method for femtocells connected to the core network through IEEE 802.11 based wireless link. In the proposed method, the time information is transmitted to a femtocell via the wireless backhaul using modified IEEE 802.11 beacon frames, and a least squared based estimation method is used to reduce the timing jitter at the femtocell. Through simulations, it is shown that the femtocells using the proposed algorithm satisfy the time accuracy specification for M-WiMAX.
Nanoparticle self-assembly at the interface of liquid crystal droplets

Significance Controlled assembly of nanoparticles at liquid crystal interfaces could lead to easily manufacturable building blocks for assembly of materials with tunable mechanical, optical, and electronic properties. Past work has examined nanoparticle assembly at planar liquid crystal interfaces. In this work, we show that nanoparticle assembly on curved interfaces is drastically different and arises for conditions under which assembly is too weak to occur on planar interfaces. We also demonstrate that liquid crystal-mediated nanoparticle interactions are strong, are remarkably sensitive to surface anchoring, and lead to hexagonal arrangements that do not arise in bulk systems. All of these elements form the basis for a highly tunable, predictable, and versatile platform for hierarchical materials assembly. Nanoparticles adsorbed at the interface of nematic liquid crystals are known to form ordered structures whose morphology depends on the orientation of the underlying nematic field. The origin of such structures is believed to result from an interplay between the liquid crystal orientation at the particles’ surface, the orientation at the liquid crystal’s air interface, and the bulk elasticity of the underlying liquid crystal. In this work, we consider nanoparticle assembly at the interface of nematic droplets. We present a systematic study of the free energy of nanoparticle-laden droplets in terms of experiments and a Landau–de Gennes formalism. The results of that study indicate that, even for conditions under which particles interact only weakly at flat interfaces, particles aggregate at the poles of bipolar droplets and assemble into robust, quantized arrangements that can be mapped onto hexagonal lattices. The contributions of elasticity and interfacial energy corresponding to different arrangements are used to explain the resulting morphologies, and the predictions of the model are shown to be consistent with experimental observations. The findings presented here suggest that particle-laden liquid crystal droplets could provide a unique and versatile route toward building blocks for hierarchical materials assembly.
Enhancing Pigeon-Hole based Encoding of Boolean Cardinality Constraints

In this paper, we propose to deal with the encoding of cardinality constraints ∑i=1 xi > b into conjunctive normal form. We consider the one proposed recently (Jabbour et al., 2014) based on pigeon-hole problem. Then, we show that even if the number of clauses of the CNF based encoding is in O(b×(n−b)) , the number of literals of resulting formula can be much more higher: O(b(n−b)2). To decrease the complexity in terms of number of literals, we propose a compact representation of some clauses of the encoding. Our approach allows to have a quadratic encoding in terms of literals while maintaining the same complexity in terms of clauses and additional variables. An experimental evaluation is performed to show the competitiveness of the
Pilot Cluster-Randomised Trial of Adjunctive Motivational Interviewing to Reduce Crack Cocaine Use in Clients on Methadone Maintenance

This pilot trial explored the effectiveness of an adjunctive single session of motivational interviewing (MI) to reduce crack cocaine use in a methadone maintenance treatment population. Twenty-nine participants were cluster randomised by clinician to MI or a crack information control condition as part of treatment as usual. The intervention had a modest impact on one crack cocaine measure but was not statistically significant in this small sample. A large and statistically significant reduction in heroin use amongst those in the MI condition was observed. This pilot study demonstrated that it was feasible to incorporate a psychosocial intervention within a busy outpatient methadone maintenance programme and the findings support the value of undertaking a larger trial.
Measurement of intrinsic fluorescence to probe the conformational flexibility and thermodynamic stability of a single tryptophan protein entrapped in a sol–gel derived glass matrix

In this study techniques based on measurement of intrinsic tryptophan (Trp) fluorescence were used to monitor the stability and conformational flexibility of the single tryptophan protein monellin which was entrapped in sol–gel derived glass monoliths formed from tetraethylorthosilicate. The monoliths were aged either in buffer (wet-aged) or in air (dry-aged). The steady-state fluorescence spectra, steady-state anisotropy and acrylamide quenching behaviour of the single Trp at position 3 were monitored during chemical denaturation with guanidine hydrochloride, and during thermal denaturation. These studies indicated that there were no significant improvements in either chemical or thermal stability when the protein was present in wet-aged monoliths. However, the long-term stability of the protein was improved six-fold when such monoliths were stored at 4 °C. The encapsulation of monellin into dry-aged monoliths caused the thermal unfolding transition to broaden and shift upward by 10 °C, and caused the long-term stability to improve by 12-fold (compared to solution). Chemical stability studies also showed a broader transition for the unfolding of the protein in dry-aged monoliths, and suggested that the protein was present in a distribution of environments, each with a slightly different thermodynamic stability. The steady-state fluorescence responses obtained during denaturation and the accessibility of native and denatured protein to quencher provided clear evidence that the entrapped protein had a smaller range of conformational motions compared to the protein in solution, and that the entrapped protein was not able to unfold completely. The restriction of conformational motion, along with the increased structural order of the internal environment of the monoliths, play a role in the improvements in thermal and long-term stability that were observed.
Utility of the Nanosphere Verigene in the Identification of Bacteremia Isolates From the Burn Intensive Care Unit.

INTRODUCTION The Nanosphere Verigene Blood Culture Nucleic Acid Tests allow pathogen and antimicrobial resistance marker identification within 2.5 hours of a positive blood culture. This study assessed the sensitivity of the Verigene among Burn Intensive Care Unit (BICU) isolates and acceleration to targeted antibiotic therapy. METHODS Bacterial identifications from BICU patients with positive blood cultures over 8 months were compared using 2 different platforms, the Verigene Gram-positive and Gram-negative blood culture tests vs. the bioMerieux Vitek2 automated system. Turnaround times were compared, and Verigene sensitivity for identification and resistance marker detection was calculated. Antimicrobial stewardship was assessed by comparing date/time for empiric and targeted therapy to the Verigene result time. RESULTS Forty-four isolates (29 target and 15 nontarget) from 17 patients were included. The Verigene correctly identified 15 of 17 Gram-negative (sensitivity 88.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI] [87.9, 88.9]) and 8 of 12 Gram-positive target organisms (sensitivity 66.7%; 95% CI [66.3, 67.5]). None of the nontarget isolates were identified. There were no discordant identifications. Resistance marker identification by the Verigene was 100% concordant with confirmatory testing. For 11 isolates with complete laboratory and clinical data, the median time between Verigene and final culture results was 59.3 hours (37.3, 102.2) and from Verigene results to targeted therapy was 62.2 hours (43.6, 66.2). DISCUSSION Reasons for lower sensitivity than previously reported are unclear and, on the basis of this limited retrospective review, further study in the BICU population is needed. The Verigene appears useful for antimicrobial stewardship by accelerating the identification of blood isolates.
Incidence of depression in the Stirling County Study: historical and comparative perspectives

Background. The Stirling County Study provides a 40-year perspective on the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders in an adult population in Atlantic Canada. Across samples selected in 1952, 1970 and 1992 current prevalence of depression was stable. This paper concerns time trends in annual incidence as assessed through cohorts selected from the first two samples. Methods. Consistent interview data were analysed by a computerized diagnostic algorithm. The cohorts consisted of subjects at risk for a first depression: Cohort-1 (N = 575) was followed 1952–1970; Cohort-2 (N = 639) was followed 1970–1992. Life-table methods were used to calculate incidence rates and proportional hazards procedures were used for statistical assessment. Results. Average annual incidence of depression was 4·5 per 1000 for Cohort-1 and 3·7 for Cohort- 2. Differences by gender, age and time were not statistically significant. The stability of incidence and the similarity of distribution by gender and age in these two cohorts corresponds to findings about the two early samples. In contrast, current prevalence in the recent sample was distributed differently and showed an increase among women under 45 years. Conclusions. The stability of the incidence of depression emphasizes the distinctive characteristics of current prevalence in the recent sample and suggests that the dominance of women in rates of depression may have occurred among those born after the Second World War. The results offer partial support for the interpretation of an increase in depression based on retrospective data in other recent studies but they indicate that the increase is specific to women.
Construction and application of a zebrafish array comparative genomic hybridization platform

The zebrafish is emerging as a prominent model system for studying the genetics of human development and disease. Genetic alterations that underlie each mutant model can exist in the form of single base changes, balanced chromosomal rearrangements, or genetic imbalances. To detect genetic imbalances in an unbiased genome‐wide fashion, array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) can be used. We have developed a 5‐Mb resolution array CGH platform specifically for the zebrafish. This platform contains 286 bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones, enriched for orthologous sequences of human oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Each BAC clone has been end‐sequenced and cytogenetically assigned to a specific location within the zebrafish genome, allowing for ease of integration of array CGH data with the current version of the genome assembly. This platform has been applied to three zebrafish cancer models. Significant genomic imbalances were detected in each model, identifying different regions that may potentially play a role in tumorigenesis. Hence, this platform should be a useful resource for genetic dissection of additional zebrafish developmental and disease models as well as a benchmark for future array CGH platform development. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Analgesic effect of auricular acupuncture for cancer pain: a randomized, blinded, controlled trial.

PURPOSE During the last 30 years, auricular acupuncture has been used as complementary treatment of cancer pain when analgesic drugs do not suffice. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of auricular acupuncture in decreasing pain intensity in cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Ninety patients were randomly divided in three groups; one group received two courses of auricular acupuncture at points where an electrodermal signal had been detected, and two placebo groups received auricular acupuncture at points with no electrodermal signal (placebo points) and one with auricular seeds fixed at placebo points. Patients had to be in pain, attaining a visual analog score (VAS) of 30 mm or more after having received analgesic treatment adapted to both intensity and type of pain, for at least 1 month of therapy. Treatment efficacy was based on the absolute decrease in pain intensity measured 2 months after randomization using the VAS. RESULTS The main outcome was pain assessed at 2 months, with the assessment at 1 month carried over to 2 months for the eight patients who interrupted treatment after 1 month. For three patients, no data were available because they withdrew from the study during the first month. Pain intensity decreased by 36% at 2 months from baseline in the group receiving acupuncture; there was little change for patients receiving placebo (2%). The difference between groups was statistically significant (P <.0001). CONCLUSION The observed reduction in pain intensity measured on the VAS represents a clear benefit from auricular acupuncture for these cancer patients who are in pain, despite stable analgesic treatment.
Stablity of reset control systems with variable reset: Application to PI+CI compensation

Reset compensation has been used to overcome limitations of LTI compensation. However, since a reset compensator may destabilize a stable base LTI system, stability needs to be guaranteed for a proper application of reset control. The goal of this work is the study of the stability of a nonlinear/hybrid compensator previously developed by some of the authors, referred to as the PI+CI compensator. It is a type of reset compensator with a special structure, in particular a variable reset of the compensator state is performed. In previous work about reset control systems, most of the relevant stability results are restricted to reset compensator with fixed reset, that is compensator states to be reset are always set to zero. In this work, some more general hybrid systems stability work will be adapted to approach stability of reset systems with variable reset, specially focused to the PI+CI compensator. To this end, stability constrained conditions using Lyapunov techniques will be given as several linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Furthermore, the S-procedure technique will be applied on these constrained LMIs to demonstrate the exponential stability of a PI+CI-based reset control system.
Telecom Policy Innovation: the Role of Free Spectrum and Telecommunication Development in Rural Ghana

Every nation wants to achieve Universal Access of telecommunication services due to its importance to the economy and national life. Unfortunately in sub-Saharan Africa, telecommunication services are either scarce or non-existent in rural areas. However, previous telecommunication policies have enabled the provision of various network technologies in Africa. What type of policy is needed to push these telecommunication services into rural areas? This paper discusses the importance of issuing a using Free Spectrum policy to as an incentive to small telecom network operators in Africa. Ghana is used as a test case.