Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of Gene Expression via Disruption of NF-κB Signaling by a Bacterial Small Molecule

The control of innate immune responses through activation of the nuclear transcription factor NF-κB is essential for the elimination of invading microbial pathogens. We showed that the bacterial N-(3-oxo-dodecanoyl) homoserine lactone (C12) selectively impairs the regulation of NF-κB functions in activated mammalian cells. The consequence is specific repression of stimulus-mediated induction of NF-κB–responsive genes encoding inflammatory cytokines and other immune regulators. These findings uncover a strategy by which C12-producing opportunistic pathogens, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, attenuate the innate immune system to establish and maintain local persistent infection in humans, for example, in cystic fibrosis patients.
Lysine-specific demethylase 1 as a potential therapeutic target

Chromatin is a highly dynamic structure that undergoes a variety of chemical modifications. These modifications mediate alterations of the chromatin architecture, generate binding platforms that are recognized by other proteins, and are important elements of epigenetic gene regulation. An array of antagonizing histone modifying enzymes that catalyze the attachment and removal of a number of chemical groups has been described and their biologic role has been an intense area of research. With the recent discovery of the first histone demethylase, lysine-specific demethylase-1, a dynamic view of histone methylation was born. As a deeper understanding of their involvement in transcriptional regulation is gained, histone demethylases are becoming increasingly interesting targets for drug development.
Probing the anomalous dynamical phase in long-range quantum spin chains through Fisher-zero lines.

Using the framework of infinite matrix product states, the existence of an anomalous dynamical phase for the transverse-field Ising chain with sufficiently long-range interactions was first reported in J. C. Halimeh and V. Zauner-Stauber [Phys. Rev. B 96, 134427 (2017)10.1103/PhysRevB.96. 134427], where it was shown that anomalous cusps arise in the Loschmidt-echo return rate for sufficiently small quenches within the ferromagnetic phase. In this work we further probe the nature of the anomalous phase through calculating the corresponding Fisher-zero lines in the complex time plane. We find that these Fisher-zero lines exhibit a qualitative difference in their behavior, where, unlike in the case of the regular phase, some of them terminate before intersecting the imaginary axis, indicating the existence of smooth peaks in the return rate preceding the cusps. Additionally, we discuss in detail the infinite matrix product state time-evolution method used to calculate Fisher zeros and the Loschmidt-echo return rate using the matrix product state transfer matrix. Our work sheds further light on the nature of the anomalous phase in the long-range transverse-field Ising chain, while the numerical treatment presented can be applied to more general quantum spin chains.
Fenretinide and its relation to cancer.

Retinoids, natural or synthetic substances which have vitamin A activity, have a well-known reputation for their antitumour and differention-inducing activity in vitro and in vivo. More than 1500 retinoids have been tested so far but very few of them have been entered into clinical trials because of their side-effects. All-trans-N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)retinamide (4HPR or fenretinide) is a synthetic retinoid that is reported to have fewer side-effects compared to naturally occurring retinoids such as all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and 9-cis retinoic acid. In addition, fenretinide has been shown to induce cell death (apoptosis) even in ATRA-resistant cell lines. Although the mechanism by which fenretinide acts is not entirely known it is considered to be a promising drug and seems to induce apoptosis via different pathway(s) from classical retinoids. In this review, we discuss possible mechanisms of fenretinide action and summarize results of clinical trials.
Cultural Differences in the Function and Meaning of Apologies

One of the most effective means for re-establishing trust in negotiations and disputes is by making an apology. However, the function and meaning of an apology (and thus its effectiveness for negotiators) may differ across cultures. We hypothesized that people from an individual-agency culture (such as the United States) understand apologies as analytic mechanisms for assigning blame and re-establishing personal credibility. In contrast, apologies in collective-agency cultures (such as Japan) are understood to be general expressions of remorse rather than a means to assign culpability. A survey of Japanese and Americans found that, compared to Americans, Japanese apologized more often and were more likely to apologize for actions in which they were not involved; on the other hand, Americans were more likely than Japanese to equate apologizing with personal blame. A subsequent experimental study showed that these cultural differences in the function and meaning of apologies have implications for trust repair in disputes: apologies for integrity violations led to greater trust repair for Japanese than for Americans, but apologies for competence violations were somewhat more effective for Americans than Japanese. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants.

BACKGROUND Mother-infant separation postbirth is common in Western culture. Early skin-to-skin contact (SSC) begins ideally at birth and involves placing the naked baby, covered across the back with a warm blanket, prone on the mother's bare chest. According to mammalian neuroscience, the intimate contact inherent in this place (habitat) evokes neurobehaviors ensuring fulfillment of basic biological needs. This time may represent a psychophysiologically 'sensitive period' for programming future behavior. OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of early SSC on breastfeeding, behavior, and physiological adaptation in healthy mother-newborn dyads. SEARCH STRATEGY Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's and Neonatal Group's Trials Registers (August 2006), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library 2006, Issue 2), MEDLINE (1976 to 2006). SELECTION CRITERIA Randomized and quasi-randomized clinical trials comparing early SSC with usual hospital care. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS We independently assessed trial quality and extracted data. Study authors were contacted for additional information. MAIN RESULTS Thirty studies involving 1925 participants (mother-infant dyads), were included. Data from more than two trials were available for only 8-of-64 outcome measures. We found statistically significant and positive effects of early SSC on breastfeeding at one to four months postbirth (10 trials; 552 participants) (odds ratio (OR) 1.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.08 to 3.07), and breastfeeding duration (seven trials; 324 participants) (weighted mean difference (WMD) 42.55, 95% CI -1.69 to 86.79). Trends were found for improved summary scores for maternal affectionate love/touch during observed breastfeeding (four trials; 314 participants) (standardized mean difference (SMD) 0.52, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.98) and maternal attachment behavior (six trials; 396 participants) (SMD 0.52, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.72) with early SSC. SSC infants cried for a shorter length of time (one trial; 44 participants) (WMD -8.01, 95% CI -8.98 to -7.04). Late preterm infants had better cardio-respiratory stability with early SSC (one trial; 35 participants) (WMD 2.88, 95% CI 0.53 to 5.23). No adverse effects were found. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Limitations included methodological quality, variations in intervention implementation, and outcome variability. The intervention may benefit breastfeeding outcomes, early mother-infant attachment, infant crying and cardio-respiratory stability, and has no apparent short or long-term negative effects. Further investigation is recommended. To facilitate meta-analysis, future research should be done using outcome measures consistent with those in the studies included here. Published reports should clearly indicate if the intervention was SSC and include means, standard deviations, exact probability values, and data to measure intervention dose.
Fleeing the Fire: Transformation and Gendered Belonging in Thai HIV/AIDS Support Groups

By the turn of the millennium, HIV had infected nearly one million people in Thailand. A large number of support groups now exist throughout the country. These groups have emerged as the primary forum through which having HIV is negotiated and normalized in Thai society. This is done by allowing members to publicly refashion their sense of self and its appropriate place in the world. However, the moral and social space created by support groups is not without its own structuring principles. The discursive strategies that shape support groups are embedded within local moral economies and frameworks of meaning. Gender and social identity are significant factors that influence the benefits to be gained from belonging. To date, women markedly outnumber men in most groups, and many members regard masculinity as a constraining factor on male participation. Within support groups, unwillingness to join is considered one reason for the perception that men with HIV seem to die sooner than do women with HIV. Clinically true or not, this belief has major ramifications.
The determinants of county growth.

The determinants of population and employment growth were explored from a broader interregional (as opposed to intraregional) perspective. Data for the 1970s, at the county level of disaggregation, were used to analyze the effects of economic, demographic, and climatic variables on population and employment growth in a simultaneous equation framework. The use of data from the more than 3000 US counties provides a considerably larger testing ground than those used in previous research. The point of departure was a conventional, general equilibrium model in which both households and producers are geographically mobile. The study's dependent variables refer to population, total, and manufacturing employment densities. Family income had a powerful effect in stimulating both population and employment density. A 10% increase in family income led to a 7.9% increase in total and a 9.2% increase in manufacturing employment densities. High family income must stand for high demand, and thus, firms are drawn to an area. High family income also drew households to an area. A 10% increase in family income led to a 5.5% increase in population density. High family income must represent "good" neighborhoods for households. High family income was positively correlated with population and employment density, but in other recent studies either a negative and significant relationship or an insignificant relationship were reported. Local taxes consist of the receipts of county government and those of municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts within the county. The elasticities reported in Table 4 suggest that a 10% increase in such taxes resulted in about a 0.072% reduction in county population density during the decade. The Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRBs) and the percent of the labor force that is unionized are 2 potential policy instruments at the state level. The study results suggest that IRBs have not stimulated either manufacturing or total employment, and the coefficients were statistically insignificant in the structural equations. The elasticities imply that a 10% increase in percent union reduces total employment by 0.42% and manufacturing employment by 0.18%. The effect on population was tiny. Further, while not intended, the interstate highway program may have been a significant redistributor of population and employment but has not caused immigration of people and jobs from central cities.
Mobility Assessment of Demented People Using Pose Estimation and Movement Detection - An Experimental Study in the Field of Ambient Assisted Living

The European population will steadily be growing older in the following decades. At the same time, the risk of getting dementia increases with higher age. Both these factors are apt to cause serious problems for the society, especially with regard to the caring sector, which also suffers from the lack of qualified personnel. As technical support systems can be of assistance to medical staff and patients, a mobility assessment system for demented people is presented in this paper. The grade of mobility is measured by means of the personâs pose and movements in a monitored area. For this purpose, pose estimation and movement detection algorithms have been developed. These process 3-D data, which are provided by an optical stereo sensor installed in a living environment. In order to train and test a discriminative classifier a variety of labelled training and test data was recorded. Moreover, we designed a discriminative and universal feature vector for pose estimation. The experiments demonstrated that the algorithms work robustly. In connection with a human machine interface, the system facilitates a mobilisation as well as a more valid assessment of the patientâs medical condition than it is presently the case.
Advanced attack tree based intrusion detection

Computer network systems are constantly under attack or have to deal with attack attempts. The first step in any network’s ability to fight against intrusive attacks is to be able to detect intrusions when they are occurring. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are therefore vital in any kind of network, just as antivirus is a vital part of a computer system. With the increasing computer network intrusion sophistication and complexity, most of the victim systems are compromised by sophisticated multi-step attacks. In order to provide advanced intrusion detection capability against the multi-step attacks, it makes sense to adopt a rigorous and generalising view to tackling intrusion attacks. One direction towards achieving this goal is via modelling and consequently, modelling based detection. An IDS is required that has good quality of detection capability, not only to be able to detect higher-level attacks and describe the state of ongoing multi-step attacks, but also to be able to determine the achievement of high-level attack detection even if any of the modelled low-level attacks are missed by the detector, because no alert being generated may represent that the corresponding low-level attack is either not being conducted by the adversary or being conducted by the adversary but evades the detection. This thesis presents an attack tree based intrusion detection to detect multistep attacks. An advanced attack tree modelling technique, Attack Detection Tree, is proposed to model the multi-step attacks and facilitate intrusion detection. In addition, the notion of Quality of Detectability is proposed to describe the ongoing states of both intrusion and intrusion detection. Moreover, a detection uncertainty assessment mechanism is proposed to apply the measured evidence to deal with the uncertainty issues during the assessment process to determine the achievement of high-level attacks even if any modelled low-level incidents may be missing.
The role of ionic liquids in hydrogen storage.

Ionic liquid (IL) based H2 storage for H2 generation from NH3BH3 derivatives is shown. These systems promote H2 generation at low temperature, with good reaction rates and high total H2 yields. The effects of ILs and the H2 yield in correlation with the basicity, the cations of the ILs, and the role of carbenes are discussed. Furthermore, mechanistic findings on the dehydrogenation are described. IL material blends are competitive with conventional H2 storage materials with experimental efficiencies of at least 6.5 wt % H2.
Preliminary Findings: 25(OH)D Levels and PTH Are Indicators of Rapid Bone Accrual in Pubertal Children

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of serum levels of 25(OH)D and PTH on the accumulation of whole body bone mass in a cohort of children. Methods: This was a longitudinal study (1.98 ± 0.07 y) of sixty-nine children (89% Caucasian, 44% male) enrolled in a calcium supplementation trial. Bone area, bone mineral content (BMC) and density (BMD) of the whole body and radius were assessed using a QDR 2000 (Hologic, Inc) dual energy x-ray absorptiometer. Serum PTH and 25(OH)D were measured using radioimmunoassays. Results: Vitamin D stores were inversely related gain in bone area (p < 0.002), BMC (p < 0.002) BMD (p < 0.027), as well as to PTH levels (p < 0.0001). Compared to those with adequate vitamin D stores (>34 ng/ml), those who had consistently low vitamin D stores (18 ng/ml) had a 8% larger gain in bone area (p < 0.05); 11% in BMC (p < 0.05) and no differences in gain in BMD; after adjusting for baseline bone measurements, race, gender, season measured, Tanner stage, and calcium intake. Conclusions: High normal PTH with low-normal 25(OH)D stores and moderate to high calcium intake may be beneficial to accruing larger bone size and BMC during puberty.
A Note on a Study of Cases

is the constant of the pumping lemma, the pumped substring cannot be longer than k, and therefore the only other place we might be able to pump would be in the middle as and the middle cs, But this would result in violating the condit ion that l may not be greater than i. Thus, z cannot be pumped without violating the pumping lemma, and hence (7) is not context free. Since context f ree languages are closed under intersect ion with regular sets, it follows that (6) is not contex t f ree either. Since context f ree languages are also closed under substitution, this means that (5) is also not contextf ree . Finally, since (5) is the intersection of English, with the regular set (4), it follows that Englishj is not contextfree. Q.E.D.
A Prognostic Study of MDA, SOD and Catalase in Breast Cancer Patients

: Breast cancer is one of the most commonest cancer after the cervical cancer in Indian women. The balance between oxidant and antioxidant has been suggested as an important factor for initiation and progression of breast cancer. The aim of the study is to determine erythrocyte superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) activities as antioxidant enzymes and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in women having breast cancer and compared it with age matched healthy control women. Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Catalase, malondialdehyde (MDA) were assayed in 300 subject, in which 150 Breast Cancer patients and 150 healthy control. BMI was also measured in each of the patients and control groups. In this study, we found the SOD and CAT activities in breast cancer patients were significantly lower than control groups. Activities of malondialdehyde (MDA) was greater in patients compared with the control group which may reflect increased oxidative stress in the patient of breast cancer. The results of this study have shown a higher reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and decreased SOD and CAT activities, which support the oxidative stress hypothesis in carcinogenesis. This study was considered these enzymes as biomarker for early detection of recurrent the disease.
Purine Catabolism as a Source of Superoxide in Macrophages

The underlying thesis of this paper is that purine catabolism has a role in the production of superoxide by macrophages. These cells are the first line of defense against infection primarily in the lung; elsewhere they probably function as the backup for plymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). These two types of phagocytes differ with regard to their stem cell of origin and in their ability to divide. Recent evidence indicates PMN leukocytes do not make superoxide via purine catabolism. Macrophages are not only phagocytes, but also function as secretagogues to modulate both humoral and cellular immunity. Evidence is beginning to accumulate that control of these secretagogue functions may be related to control of phagocytic efficacy. Thus the regulation of metabolic flux through purine catabolism by adenosine deaminase (ADA) may have broader influence on the immune system than implied by the data presented herein. It is therefore suggested that the macrophage may be able, at least in part, to participate in the mediation of the effects of ADA deficiency on immunodeficiency. The metabolic source of the cytocidal superoxide free radical secreted by phagocytic leukocytes remains to be definitively established. The respiratory burst that accompanies phagocytosis includes increased oxygen uptake and activation of the hexose monophosphate shunt pathway, and the production of peroxide and superoxide. ’ Oxidation of NADPH has been favored as the source of the superoxide. The finding that the K,,, of the oxidase is lowered by one order of magnitude in phagocytizing cells as compared to resting cells is part of the considerable evidence for this view. Although it has been questioned whether NADPH oxidase levels are sufficient to cover the whole cell phenomenon,’ there do not appear to be extensive evaluations of alternate sources of the superoxide. Our interest in the enzymology of purine metabolism focused in 1980 on purine catabolism as a source of the superoxide in the phagocytic process. We selected the macrophage as the phagocyte for study because of the ease with which these cells can be elicited and obtained in relatively pure form in murine model systems. Furthermore, the isolation of these cells does not require centrifugation through density gradients, usually Ficoll-Hypaque, which has been reported to elevate the cyclic AMP content of the cell. ’ As it now turns out, this choice was fortuitous because had we selected the PMN leukocyte, our results would have been very different. ”‘ There are several observations recorded in the literature that suggest involvement of purine metabolism with phagocytosis: macrophages secrete large amounts of uric acid into the medium during phagocytosis’; infection is accompanied by increased xanthine oxidase activity*; elicited macrophages have higher ADA activity than the resting cells’; monocyte maturation into macrophageso and normal chemotaxis’ both require ADA activity. The rationale for the experimental design was to examine ADA activity as related to chemotactic and phagocytic stimulation of macrophages. It was decided to look at
Productivity and efficiency analysis of horticultural co-operatives

Development of the horticultural sector in the Mediterranean agricultural areas of Spain is closely linked to the activity of co-operative organisations for the production and marketing of produce. These entities are especially important in finding answers to current demand requirements in the food market, bearing in mind the small family-scale nature of many of the farm enterprises in this sector. The present paper explores the ability of horticultural co-operatives in adapting to the new challenges in this sector from a productivity analysis viewpoint. Total factor productivity and efficiency are considered indicative measurements of the response of these organisations to the current market environment. In this study, Malmquist productivity indices are estimated using non-parametric techniques and taking as reference panel data of Andalusian horticultural co-operatives for the period 1995-2004. For a more in-depth analysis, productivity indices are broken down into technological change and efficiency change indicators, also considering the impact of other variables of co-operatives. The indicators obtained showed a relevant increase in efficiency for the period under study and a positive relationship between the results and quality investment. On the whole this research work adds to studies in the adaptation process of co-operatives in the current competitive scenario, offering insight into the improvement in total productivity and its correlation with several management variables in the fruit and vegetables sector.