Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CHARACTERIZATION OF DESIGNER BIOCHAR PRODUCED AT DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON A LOAMY SAND

Biochar additions to degraded soils have the potential to improve crop yield and soil quality. We hypothesize that the biochar production process can be tailored to form designer biochars that have specific chemical characteristics matched to selective chemical and/or physical issues of a degraded soil. We produced biochars from peanut hulls, pecan shells, poultry litter, and switchgrass at temperatures ranging from 250oC to 700oC. Biochars were characterized
FoxM 1 Promotes Stemness and Radio-Resistance of Glioblastoma by Regulating the Master Stem Cell Regulator Sox 2

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive and most lethal brain tumor. As current standard therapy consisting of surgery and chemo-irradiation provides limited benefit for GBM patients, novel therapeutic options are urgently required. Forkhead box M1 (FoxM1) transcription factor is an oncogenic regulator that promotes the proliferation, survival, and treatment resistance of various human cancers. The roles of FoxM1 in GBM remain incompletely understood, due in part to pleotropic nature of the FoxM1 pathway. Here, we show the roles of FoxM1 in GBM stem cell maintenance and radioresistance. ShRNA-mediated FoxM1 inhibition significantly impeded clonogenic growth and survival of patient-derived primary GBM cells with marked downregulation of Sox2, a master regulator of stem cell phenotype. Ectopic expression of Sox2 partially rescued FoxM1 inhibition-mediated effects. Conversely, FoxM1 overexpression upregulated Sox2 expression and promoted clonogenic growth of GBM cells. These data, with a direct binding of FoxM1 in the Sox2 promoter region in GBM cells, suggest that FoxM1 regulates stemness of primary GBM cells via Sox2. We also found significant increases in FoxM1 and Sox2 expression in GBM cells after irradiation both in vitro and in vivo orthotopic tumor models. Notably, genetic or a small-molecule FoxM1 inhibitor-mediated FoxM1 targeting significantly sensitized GBM cells to irradiation, accompanying with Sox2 downregulation. Finally, FoxM1 inhibition combined with irradiation in a patient GBM-derived orthotopic model significantly impeded tumor growth and prolonged the survival of tumor bearing mice. Taken together, these results indicate that the FoxM1-Sox2 signaling axis promotes clonogenic growth and radiation resistance of GBM, and suggest that FoxM1 targeting combined with irradiation is a potentially effective therapeutic approach for GBM. PLOSONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone. 0137703 October 7, 2015 1 / 18 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Lee Y, Kim KH, Kim DG, Cho HJ, Kim Y, Rheey J, et al. (2015) FoxM1 Promotes Stemness and Radio-Resistance of Glioblastoma by Regulating the Master Stem Cell Regulator Sox2. PLoS ONE 10 (10): e0137703. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0137703 Editor: Ilya Ulasov, Swedish Neuroscience Institute, UNITED STATES Received: May 17, 2015 Accepted: August 19, 2015 Published: October 7, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Lee et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This research was supported by a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project, through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), which is funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI14C3418). Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Disease activity in psoriatic arthritis (PsA): defining remission and treatment success using the DAPSA score

Background The Disease Activity Index for Psoriatic Arthritis (DAPSA) is a valid and discriminative tool. Definitions of disease activity states and therapeutic response are still missing. We derived such criteria for the DAPSA. Methods We retrieved 30 patient profiles from an observational database including joint counts, patient pain and global activity ratings and C-reactive protein (CRP) and carried out a survey among experts to classify patients into remission (REM), low (LDA), moderate (MDA) or high (HDA) disease activity. Based on the distributions of DAPSA in each of these expert-assigned states we defined the cutpoints between groups. We performed similar analyses evaluating a clinical score (cDAPSA), omitting CRP. To define minor, moderate and major treatment response, we used Cohen's Kappa statistics and analysed agreement of DAPSA percentage change with ACR20/50/70-response in three randomised controlled trials. Results Our survey yielded a response rate of 75% (n=33). Mean DAPSA differed significantly between patients classified as REM, LDA, MDA or HDA (p<0.001). Based on the distributions of DAPSA in these groups, we propose cut-off values of ≤4 for REM, >4 and ≤14 for LDA, >14 and ≤28 for MDA and >28 for HDA. We observed best agreement with ACR20/50/70-response at DAPSA changes of 50/75/85%, reflecting minor, moderate and major improvement. Conclusions The DAPSA constitutes a disease-specific, validated and feasible tool for PsA assessment. In this study, we provide criteria for disease activity states and treatment response. They are based on an international expert survey, and show good performance in clinical trials and observational data.
Stator-Winding Thermal Models for Short-Time Thermal Transients: Definition and Validation

In this paper, four thermal models for the stator-winding temperature prediction in short-time thermal transient are presented and experimentally validated. The lumped-parameter networks, based on physical representation of the stator components, are composed of multiple RC cells in cascade. In particular, starting from a fourth-order thermal network, the model complexity is progressively reduced to a third-, second-, and then down to a first-order system. The proposed models and their predicted temperature evolutions are discussed in detail and validated by means of a full experimental approach on an industrial 7.5-kW induction motor. Finally, the behaviors of the proposed thermal models are corroborated by some considerations drawn by the analytical solution of the models.
Integration of streaming and elastic traffic: a fixed point approach

We present a fixed point approach to evaluate the quality of service of streaming traffic multiplexed with elastic traffic in multi-service networks. First, we handle elastic traffic and streaming traffic separately, and then we derive a general fixed point formulation integrating both types of traffic in best effort networks. Then, we extend the application of this formulation to multi-service networks where priorities and bandwidth sharing schemes can be applied to different flows. Our approach is mainly oriented towards very large scale networks where traditional simulation techniques are not scalable, and where a large number of flows have to be evaluated in reasonable time. We assess the accuracy of our approach by means of event-driven simulations.
Efficacy, safety, and risk-benefit analysis of adjuvant interferon alfa-2b in melanoma.

A recently completed Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group trial, E1684, has shown that adjuvant therapy with high-dose recombinant interferon alfa-2b (rIFN-alpha 2b) has a significant impact on relapse-free and overall survival in melanoma patients at high risk of recurrence. Adjuvant rIFN-alpha 2b increased the median overall survival to 3.82 years in the treatment group compared with 2.78 years with observation and yielded a 5-year survival rate of 46% versus 37% with observation. This is the first adjuvant therapy to significantly extend survival in this patient population (P = .0023, one-sided). The response to therapy was greatest among those patients with clinical evidence of nodal metastasis. The toxicity associated with this regimen was substantial but tolerable. Approximately 78% of patients treated with rIFN-alpha 2b experienced grade 3 or greater toxicity, and dose modifications were required for 37% and 36% of patients in the induction or maintenance phase, respectively. Quality-of-life-adjusted survival analysis has shown that, despite the toxicity associated with rIFN-alpha 2b therapy, the quality-of-life-adjusted time gained with rIFN-alpha 2b therapy outweighs the reduced quality of life associated with treatment toxicity and relapse. These data support the use of high-dose rIFN-alpha 2b as adjuvant therapy in melanoma patients at high risk of recurrence.
Transcriptional regulation of T helper type 2 differentiation

Considerable progress has been made in recent years towards our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of transcriptional regulation of T helper type 2 (Th2) cell differentiation. Additional transcription factors and chromatin‐modifying factors were identified and shown to promote Th2 cell differentiation and inhibit differentiation into other subsets. Analyses of mice lacking several cis‐regulatory elements have yielded more insight into the regulatory mechanism of Th2 cytokine genes. Gene deletion studies of several chromatin modifiers confirmed their impact on CD4 T‐cell differentiation. In addition, recent genome‐wide analyses of transcription factor binding and chromatin status revealed unexpected roles of these factors in Th2‐cell differentiation. In this review, these recent findings and their implication are summarized.
Metabolic costs of brain size evolution

Abstract In the ongoing discussion about brain evolution in vertebrates, the main interest has shifted from theories focusing on energy balance to theories proposing social or ecological benefits of enhanced intellect. With the availability of a wealth of new data on basal metabolic rate (BMR) and brain size and with the aid of reliable techniques of comparative analysis, we are able to show that in fact energetics is an issue in the maintenance of a relatively large brain, and that brain size is positively correlated with the BMR in mammals, controlling for body size effects. We conclude that attempts to explain brain size variation in different taxa must consider the ability to sustain the energy costs alongside cognitive benefits.
Investigation on performance testing and evaluation of PReWebD: a .NET technique for implementing web application

A prototype research web application based on Visual Studio platform is developed with . NET as framework, Internet Information Server (IIS) (Version: 5.1) as web server and Microsoft Standard Query Language (SQL) Server (Version: 2005) as database server to study the performance and evaluation of the . NET technique used for developing the web application. The authors call it the PReWebD. As the performance is one of the most important features of a web application, to evaluate the performance, testing of PReWebD has been carried out using Mercury LoadRunner (Version 8.0) for validation and to study some other attributes like scalability, reliability etc. The performance depends on parameters such as hits/s, response time, throughput, errors/s etc. These parameters for PReWebD are tested with different stress levels. The statistical testing and analysis is done to assure the stability, reliability and quality of the application. Here the authors report in details the architecture, testing procedure, result of performance testing as well as the results of statistical analysis on recorded data of PReWebD.
[Changes in hematologic indicators in female turkeys during fattening].

The results are presented of hematological examinations of turkeys during fattening. A total of 60 clinically healthy turkeys of hybrid combination XK were examined, on days 1, 35, 94 of age both in female and male turkeys and on day 108 of age in male turkeys that were fattened to higher live weight. Tabs. I-IV show the results of hematological examinations including statistical data. The results document numerous variations in the values of hematological indicators with the growing age of fattened turkeys. Particularly some indicators of the red blood component showed a statistically significant increase in their average values (P < or = 0.01) with the growing age of turkey chicks: hemoglobin content increased from 84.47 milligrams to 106.34 milligrams, hematocrit value from 0.32 l/l to 0.36 l/l. No such relations were demonstrated in other indicators of the red blood component under investigation. Their average values in turkeys fluctuated within definite limits: from 1.82 to 2.54 T/l in total erythrocyte counts, from 25.22 to 30.48% in mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, from 39.58 to 46.62 pg in mean corpuscular hemoglobin and from 136.82 to 184.80 fl mean corpuscular volume. There were no significant differences between the males and the females in the particular indicators of the red blood picture. Unlike the red blood picture, the indicators of the white blood picture show much higher variability. In spite of the relatively high variability no relationships between their levels and turkey age or sex were demonstrated for the total leucocyte counts nor for the different types of leucocytes. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Micotoxinas en la Salud Pública

Las micotoxinas constituyen un problema en el ambito mundial por su alta incidencia y niveles de ocurrencia en los alimentos para humanos y animales. Las condiciones de colonizacion de los sustratos por hongos micotoxigenicos asi como su posterior contaminacion con micotoxinas juegan un papel fundamental en las estrategias de vigilancia y control. Entre los principales hongos micotoxigenicos se encuentran los generos Aspergillus spp. , Penicillium spp. y Fusarium spp. Dentro de las familias mas importantes de micotoxinas se encuentran: las aflatoxinas, los tricoticenos, la ocratoxina A, las fumonisinas y la zearalenona. Los diferentes mecanismos de accion toxica de estas micotoxinas constituyen un riesgo para la salud humana y animal constituyendose en una problematica de salud publica. En Colombia la situacion es compleja dada la deficiente investigacion al respecto, los estudios realizados en el pais han demostrado que la contaminacion de alimentos por algunas micotoxinas es significativa y que se deben formular politicas sanitarias para afrontar este limitante. Se discute el riesgo potencial de las micotoxinas para la salud publica, las dificultades en el diagnostico y la legislacion asi como las implicaciones en la seguridad e inocuidad alimentaria.
Kin recognition between medial Golgi enzymes in HeLa cells.

The medial Golgi enzymes, N‐acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (NAGT I) and mannosidase II (Mann II), and the trans Golgi enzyme, beta‐1,4‐galactosyltransferase (GalT) were each retained in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by grafting on the cytoplasmic tail of the p33 invariant chain. Transient and stable expression of p33/NAGT I in HeLa cells caused relocation of endogenous Mann II to the ER and transient expression of p33/Mann II had a similar effect on endogenous NAGT I. Neither of these endogenous medial enzymes were affected by transient expression of p33/GalT. These data provide strong evidence for kin recognition between medial Golgi enzymes and suggest a role for them in the organization of the Golgi stack.
A New Technique of Policy Trees for Building a POMDP based Intelligent Tutoring System

Partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) is a useful technique for building intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs). It enables an ITS to choose optimal tutoring actions when uncertainty exists. An obstacle to applying POMDP to ITSs is the great computational complexity in decision making. The technique of policy trees may improve the efficiency. However, the number of policy trees is normally exponential, and the cost for evaluating a tree is also exponential. The technique is still too expensive when applied to a practical problem. In our research, we develop a new technique of policy trees for better efficiency. The technique is aimed at minimizing the number of policy trees to evaluate in making a decision, and reducing the costs for evaluating individual trees. The technique is based on pedagogical orders of the contents in the instructional subject. In this paper, we first provide the background of ITS and POMDP, then describe the architecture of our POMDP based ITS, and then present our technique of policy trees for POMDP solving, and finally discuss some experimental results.
PREDICCIÓN DEL COMPORTAMIENTO LECTOR A PARTIR DE LA AUTOEFICACIA

Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo fue identificar si la autoeficacia en la lectura predice el comportamiento lector en alumnos de primer grado de primaria del estado de Yucatan. Participaron 350 ninos. Se administro el Instrumento de Observacion de los Logros de la Lecto-Escritura Inicial (Escamilla et al., 1996) y la Escala de Autoeficacia en la Lectura (Escal) (Alpuche y Vega, 2011). Los resultados indican que el factor decodificacion predice el analisis actual del texto; los factores decodificacion y escritura predicen el dictado y el factor decodificacion predice el comportamiento lector. De acuerdo con la literatura especializada en el area, se concluye que a partir de las creencias de autoeficacia en la lectura, los alumnos incorporan en su repertorio acciones y estrategias necesarias para desarrollar con efectividad su comportamiento lector.
Development and function of central cell in angiosperm female gametophyte

The central cell characterizes the angiosperm female gametophyte (embryo sac or megagametophyte) in that it directly participates in “double fertilization” to initiate endosperm development, a feature distinguishing angiosperm from all other plant taxa. Polygonum‐type central cell is a binucleate cell that, upon fertilization with one of the two sperm cells, forms triploid endosperm to nourish embryo development. Although the formation and the structure of central cell have well been elucidated, the molecular mechanisms for its specification and development remain largely unknown. The central cell plays a critical role in pollen tube guidance during pollination and in endosperm initiation after fertilization. Recently, a group of mutants affecting specific steps of central cell development and function have been identified, providing some clues in understanding these questions. This review summarizes our current knowledge about central cell development and function, and presents overview about hypotheses for its evolution. genesis 48:466–478, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Mechanisms of endotoxin tolerance with special reference to man.

In this review of the mechanisms underlying pyrogenic tolerance to bacterial endotoxins, two earlier concepts require modification. (1) Granulocytes are the major source of endogenous pyrogen release by endotoxin. (2) Pyrogenic tolerance results simply from accelerated clearance of endotoxin by the reticuloendothelial system (RES), diverting the toxin from the granulocytes. Rather, it now appears that hepatic Kupffer cells are the major source of endogenous pyrogen release by endotoxin, and that pyrogenic tolerance results primarily from refractoriness of these cells to further release of endogenous pyrogen. Accelerated clearance by the RES appears to be an ancillary protective mechanism that brings toxin more rapidly to the refractory cells. Refractoriness to the release of endogenous pyrogen can be achieved both by direct cellular interaction with endotoxin and by antibodies to endotoxin. The direct cellular effect is transient and requires closely spaced injections of endotoxin for maximal maintenance; antibodymediated protection is delayed but more enduring. The diverse, often conflicting observations on pyrogenic tolerance are explicable by the interplay of these protective mechanisms.
Machine Learning Based Prediction and Prevention of Malicious Inventory Occupied Orders

MIOOs are orders created temporarily for the purpose of occupying the inventories of sellers. MIOOs disrupt normal business activities and harm both sellers and consumers. This study aims to determine the best practice and model of the technical solutions that can effectively and systematically limit malicious inventory occupied orders MIOOs, using the methods of analytical mining and case studies. This work contains three contributions. Firstly, this work solves MIOOs problem by using machine learning technology. The result of the study indicates that 93% of MIOOs from the sample data are actually predictable and preventable. Secondly, this work presents a methodology of solving MIOOs problem which can be applied by other companies. The methodology in this paper consists of four major steps, namely doing statistics concerning MIOOs, using logistic regression algorithm to train a mode, optimizing the model, and applying the model. Finally, this work finds unique features of MIOOs, and they can help better understanding the behind logic of MIOO producers.
The Influence of Gender Stereotypes on Eating Habits among Costa Rican Adolescents

Purpose. To identify the influence of gender stereotypes on eating habits among Costa Rican adolescents. Design. Qualitative, descriptive research was used in this study. Setting. Adolescents and parents were recruited from socioeconomically diverse populations in rural and urban areas of San José, Costa Rica. Subjects. Subjects were 92 adolescents (14 to 17 years old) and 48 parents. Methods. Focus group data were transcribed and entered into the qualitative data analysis software Atlas.ti version 5.0. Analyses were grounded on the social cognitive theory. Results. Five themes emerged from the focus group discussions: (1) Costa Rican adolescents associate the consumption of moderate quantities of healthy foods with femininity and male homosexuality. (2) The consumption of hearty portions of nonhealthy foods was associated with masculinity and male heterosexuality. (3) There is an emerging view that it is acceptable for heterosexual male adolescents to take care of their bodies through healthy eating. (4) Body care among female adolescents is an element of femininity and body image. (5) Parents reinforce their daughters' persistent concern with weight control because they perceive it as feminine behavior. Conclusion. Health promoters should be aware of the existing and changing food stereotypes around gender as an avenue for the promotion of healthy eating.
Rhythm of spoken Chinese - linguistic and paralinguistic evidences -

This paper discusses rhythmic characteristi cs of Standard Chinese. The study is based on relevant acoustic-phonetic investigations, including some paralinguistic analyses. The preliminary result leads to the considerations that (1) there is no evidence to regard Chinese as a syllable-timed language; (2) speech rhythm may be more related to regular occurrence and variation of certain prosodic phenomena at particular positions, in stead of isochronal recurrence of any speech unit.
The Performance of Panel Cointegration Methods: Results from a Large Scale Simulation Study

This article presents results concerning the performance of both single equation and system panel cointegration tests and estimators. The study considers the tests developed in Pedroni (1999, 2004), Westerlund (2005), Larsson et al. (2001), and Breitung (2005) and the estimators developed in Phillips and Moon (1999), Pedroni (2000), Kao and Chiang (2000), Mark and Sul (2003), Pedroni (2001), and Breitung (2005). We study the impact of stable autoregressive roots approaching the unit circle, of I(2) components, of short-run cross-sectional correlation and of cross-unit cointegration on the performance of the tests and estimators. The data are simulated from three-dimensional individual specific VAR systems with cointegrating ranks varying from zero to two for fourteen different panel dimensions. The usual specifications of deterministic components are considered.