Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fraxetin alleviates microglia-mediated neuroinflammation after ischemic stroke

Background Neuroinflammation, which is mainly mediated by excessive microglia activation, plays a major role in ischemic stroke. Overactivated microglia secrete numerous inflammatory cytokines, causing excessive inflammatory responses and ultimately exacerbating ischemic brain injury. Hence, compounds that attenuate neuroinflammation could become promising drug candidates for ischemic stroke. Fraxetin has an anti-inflammatory effect in many inflammatory diseases. However, whether it possesses an anti-inflammatory capacity in microglia-mediated neuroinflammation after ischemic brain injury is unknown. Our study aimed to investigate the suppression effect of fraxetin on neuroinflammation in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated microglia and establish whether fraxetin could alleviate ischemic brain injury in a rodent model of ischemic stroke. Methods For the in vitro experiment, primary microglia were obtained from 1-day-old C57/BL6J mice. The cells were activated with LPS and treated with fraxetin at a non-cytotoxic concentration. Real-time PCR, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and immunofluorescence staining were used to evaluate the anti-inflammatory effects of fraxetin. The potential molecular mechanisms were explored and verified through RNA-sequencing analysis, western blotting and real-time PCR. For the in vivo experiment, focal ischemia was induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in 8-week-old male C57/BL6J mice. Fraxetin (5 mg/kg) or an equal volume of saline was injected into mice intraperitoneally after MCAO, and 2% 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining was applied to measure infarct volume. Behavioral tests were conducted to measure neurological deficits in the mice. Real-time PCR, western blotting, and immunofluorescence staining were used to examine the expression of inflammatory cytokines and microglia activation in the ischemic penumbra. Results Fraxetin effectively inhibited the expression of proinflammatory cytokines including inducible nitric oxide synthase, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1 beta, and interleukin-6 in LPS-activated microglia. Fraxetin also suppressed the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling pathway in activated microglia, which contributed to its anti-inflammatory effects. Furthermore, the administration of fraxetin attenuated ischemic brain injury and behavioral deficits after stroke. Finally, fraxetin was found to attenuate the activation of microglia both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions Our results suggest that fraxetin has a suppression effect on microglia-mediated neuroinflammation, and this effect is associated with the PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling pathway. Fraxetin may therefore have potential neuroprotective properties for ischemic stroke.
The hsa_circ_0007396-miR-767-3p-CHD4 axis is involved in the progression and carcinogenesis of gastric cancer

Background Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been linked to numerous human cancers, including gastric cancer (GC), in numerous recent investigations. The expression of circRNA and the mechanisms involved in GC are still unknown. Methods In this work, Gene Expression Omnibus 2R (GEO2R) online tool was first used to screen 6 candidates of differentially expressed circRNAs in 2 datasets, GSE83521 and GSE89143. Then, using Cancer-Specific CircRNA Database (CSCD), the structural loop diagrams of these circRNAs were generated. After combining the Circular RNA Interactome (CRI) and CSCD databases for miRNA co-prediction, a candidate circRNA-miRNA sub-network was successfully created. The expression of these miRNAs was further examined using Cytoscape software, and 2 miRNAs, miR-767-5p and miR-767-3p. Results We used GEO2R to analyze the differential expression of GSE83521 and GSE89143 datasets in GEO database. Through the construction of the structural ring diagram of CSCD database, we found that hsa_circRNA_100571, hsa_circRNA_103102, hsa_circRNA_100754, hsa_circRNA_100737, hsa_circRNA_100269, hsa_circRNA_102476, hsa_circRNA_101287 is the final candidate circRNA in GC. MiR-767-5p and miR-767-3p were found to be important miRNAs in GC. The miRNet database indicated their downstream target genes. In various studies, namely central gene screening, correlation analysis, and protein-protein interaction (PPI), we detected chromodomain helicase DNA binding protein 4 (CHD4) as a key potential candidate of hsa-mir-767-3p. Next, we conducted validation of clinical data. We included the clinical data of 100 patients with GC, and found that patients with low CHD4 expression had significantly higher OS and PFS than those with high CHD4 expression (P<0.001, P=0.005). Cox regression analysis showed that low CHD4 expression was an independent risk factor for tumor progression (P=0.001). At the same time, tumor differentiation and chemotherapy also had a certain impact on the progression of GC (all P<0.05). Therefore, CHD4 may provide a promising therapeutic target for the future treatment of GC. Conclusions We identified an important hsa_circ_0007396-miR-767-3p-CHD4 axis, which is associated with GC proliferation and carcinogenesis, and may represent a promising therapeutic target for the future cure of GC.
Are Oil Price Declines Good for the Economy?

S ince mid-June, the spot price of the U.S. benchmark for crude oil, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), has fallen from a bit less than $108 per barrel to a bit less than $50 per barrel—a decline of more than 50 percent. Much of the economic research on the effects of crude oil prices on the macroeconomy has focused on the effects of rising oil prices: Sharp increases generally have a negative effect. In fact, oil price increases have preceded 10 of the past 11 U.S. recessions.1 But do falling oil prices, overall, have positive effects on the macroeconomy? Here the research is less conclusive: Some researchers argue they don’t and some argue they do.2 In general, though, as with rising oil prices, the effects depend on the source of the shock affecting the supply or demand. Falling oil prices have numerous effects—some positive and some negative. On the positive side, lower oil prices tend to lower overall inflation and, to some extent, mea sures of inflation expectations. All else equal, lower inflation and inflation expectations tend to lower nominal interest rates and may spur increased demand for interestsensitive durable goods such as automobiles and housing. Lower oil prices also help to reduce operating expenses of the transportation sector and other industries that are relatively large users of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. There is also evidence that lower oil price volatility is associated with increased capital expenditures by businesses. On the negative side, lower oil prices reduce the extraction and drilling incentive for producers, which has become more important in recent years since the United States has become a large crude oil producer. Reduced drilling activity has an immediate effect on industrial production and, ultimately, on nonresidential fixed investment.3 Although drilling activity remained high for a few months after oil prices peaked and began to decline, the number of rotary rigs drilling for crude oil in the United States has declined by about 23.3 percent since mid-October 2014.4 The table provides a gauge of the economic effects of falling crude oil prices, showing the average peak-to-trough change in oil prices and various measures of economic activity for five non-recession episodes since 1983. The five episodes and their respective peak-to-trough decline in oil prices (in parentheses) are November 1985–July 1986 Are Oil Price Declines Good for the Economy?
Institute of Architecture of Application Systems Dynamic Service Provisioning for the Cloud Institute of Architecture of Application Systems , University of Stuttgart Germany

This paper introduces a method realizing dynamic provisioning of services in a distributed environment. Depending on a particular state of infrastructure the call of a service can lead to a new instance in the infrastructure or to using an existing instance. Hence, the dynamic deployment allows optimized distribution of service instances within a certain infrastructure. The paper introduces a context model for services that are registered in a distributed runtime environment. Furthermore, algorithms are introduced determining the need for instantiation as well as the best location for deployment. Hence, the best location is determined by correlating the context model, the certain state of infrastructure as well as data transfer costs. Web Service, Service Composition, Service Provisioning, Cloud Computing, Elasticity
Outsourcing in a Knowledge Economy

How does the formation of cross-country teams affect the organization of work and the structure of wages? We answer this question through a model of the assignment of heterogeneous agents into hierarchical teams, where less skilled agents specialize in production and more skilled agents specialize in problem solving. We first study the properties of the competitive equilibrium of the model in a closed economy, and show that the model has a unique and efficient solution. We then study the equilibrium of a two-country model, in which agents drawn from the two countries’ ability distributions can join together in teams. We describe how globalization changes the allocation of individuals to tasks and the matching between managers and workers. We also show that globalization leads to the destruction of certain firms and the creation of new ones, and also affects the size of the surviving firms. We next analyze how these changes in organization translate in changes in the levels and structure of earnings of individuals, which in turn determine the patterns of consumption and international trade in the global economy. ∗Harvard University, University of Chicago, and Stanford University, respectively. We thank Tom Hubbard, Marc Melitz, and Kevin M. Murphy for very useful comments.
[Guideline for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Asthma - Guideline of the German Respiratory Society and the German Atemwegsliga in Cooperation with the Paediatric Respiratory Society and the Austrian Society of Pneumology].

The present guideline is a new version and an update of the guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of asthma, which replaces the previous version for german speaking countries from the year 2006. The wealth of new data on the pathophysiology and the phenotypes of asthma, and the expanded spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic options necessitated a new version and an update. This guideline presents the current, evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of asthma, for children and adolescents as well as for adults with asthma. 850 Buhl R et al. S2k-Leitlinie zur Diagnostik. Pneumologie 2017; 71: 849–919 Leitlinie D ie se s D ok um en t w ur de z um p er sö nl ic he n G eb ra uc h he ru nt er ge la de n. V er vi el fä lti gu ng n ur m it Z us tim m un g de s V er la ge s. ▶ Inhaltsverzeichnis
Underuse of risk assessment and overuse of CTPA in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism Authors : Michael Perera MBBS Advanced Trainee in General and Acute Medicine

248 Text: 2370 Text words: pulmonary thromboembolism; computed tomography pulmonary angiography; prediction rule; D-dimer assay; risk; overuse This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/imj.13524 Scott Ian (Orcid ID: 0000-0002-7596-0837) Underuse of risk assessment and overuse of CTPA in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism IMJ-0956-2016.R2 Abstract Introduction Evidence suggests potential overuse of computerised tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) in the absence of consistent use of pre-test clinical prediction rules and D-dimer assays.
Nitrogen deposition to lakes in national parks of the western Great Lakes region: Isotopic signatures, watershed retention, and algal shifts

Atmospheric deposition is a primary source of reactive nitrogen (Nr) to undisturbed watersheds of the Great Lakes region of the U.S., raising concerns over whether enhanced delivery over recent decades has affected lake ecosystems. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) has been measuring Nr deposition in this region for over 35 years. Here we explore the relationships among NADP‐measured Nr deposition, nitrogen stable isotopes (δ15N) in lake sediments, and the response of algal communities in 28 lakes situated in national parks of the western Great Lakes region of the U.S. We find that 36% of the lakes preserve a sediment δ15N record that is statistically correlated with some form of Nr deposition (total dissolved inorganic N, nitrate, or ammonium). Furthermore, measured long‐term (since 1982) nitrogen biogeochemistry and inferred critical nitrogen loads suggest that watershed nitrogen retention and climate strongly affect whether sediment δ15N is related to Nr deposition in lake sediment records. Measurements of algal change over the last ~ 150 years suggest that Nr deposition, in‐lake nutrient cycling, and watershed inputs are important factors affecting diatom community composition, in addition to direct climatic effects on lake physical limnology. The findings suggest that bulk sediment δ15N does reflect Nr deposition in some instances. In addition, this study highlights the interactive effects of Nr deposition and climate variability.
LONGITUDINAL DATA ANALYSIS

The term “microsimulation” has been linked to a range of tools and techniques that are finding growing use in empirical social science applications. This paper considers one such area, namely the potential for microsimulation to serve the needs of the data analyst, in contrast to the more common use of microsimulation by the model user. Furthermore, the focus is on longitudinal rather than cross-sectional data analysis. The paper identifies several types of longitudinal data modeling approaches in which microsimulation is particularly relevant, suggesting algorithms with which to conduct such microsimulations. Microsimulation can be used to extend the range of inferences that can be drawn from the estimated parameters of a model, can help to solve certain types of defective-data problems, and can fill gaps in available data. A relatively underdeveloped area is that of quantifying the uncertainty inherent in summary statistics based on data produced by a microsimulation program. I argued that due to strong parallels between the multiple imputation methodology and the structure and procedural aspects of many microsimulation exercises, the multiple imputation methodology provides a natural framework with which to develop estimates of the variances, and therefore the confidence intervals, that accompany estimates based on simulated data.
Peer Effects, Social Multipliers and Migrants at School: An International Comparison

This article analyses the school performance of migrants and peer group effects in different national schooling environments. Using data from the international OECD PISA test, we consider social interaction within and between groups of natives and migrants. Results based on social multipliers suggest that both native-to-native and migrant-to-migrant peer effects are higher in ability-differencing school systems than in comprehensive schools. Thus, non-comprehensive school systems seem to magnify the prevailing educational inequality between students with a low parental socio-economic migration background and children from more privileged families.
Translation of national environmental management programs by the State of Western Australia, the Commonwealth government, and Perth Region NRM, a citizen group

ion as a technique is discussed and used. Abstraction in the sense of for example, the abstract of an academic paper being like the smaller of the larger nest of Russian dolls is common enough. Using multiples of them in a series, Whitehead’s ‘Method of Extensive abstraction’ (1920/1964, p. 65) is something he regards as consistent with common sense Kvale and Brinkman as phenomenologists and psychologists emphasise interpretation and meaning. I wanted as little interpretation as possible to avoid, to repeat, ‘meaning without object’ (Latour, 2005, p. 205) but some interpretation is acknowledged as inevitable. In the practice disciplines of health sciences, Sandelowski (2000, 2010) proposed qualitative description as a low inference, naturalistic method. This was encouraging as description was mentioned and it is surprisingly hard to find out how to go about one (see Latour, 2005, Bateson, 1979/1988) although Latour advocates action-filled description as a research result (2005). Even on something as obvious as description there was no clear path. Another orientating piece of research is Latour’s translation/transformation of the Boa Vista forest (1999a). Figure 2 (Chapter 5, p. 141) shows a Whiteheadian extensive abstraction, from on-ground to internationally published academic paper. Latour had philosophical aims in showing this abstraction from word to world but mine were to show the translation of a policy, NHT2/NAP, from first consideration by COAG to application. My intention was to find out how much policy was an incremental translation/transformation rather than something like a routine in which decision makers make ‘all the major decisions [. ] in advance’ (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 97): these authors don’t subscribe to this view of routines. In Latour’s 3 Henceforth ‘quite simply mapping’, ‘cartography’ and ‘navigating’ will refer to Ingold’s typology.
Robust Regression

An introduction to robustness in statistics, with emphasis on its relevance to regression analysis. The weaknesses of the least squares estimator are highlighted, and the idea of error in data re ned. Properties such as breakdown, e ciency and equivariance are discussed and, through consideration of M, S and MM-estimators in relation to these properties, the progressive nature of robust estimator development is demonstrated. Finally, some (often overlooked) limitations of favoured `high breakdown, high e ciency' estimators are considered, and based on results obtained from simulations, guidance is given and cautions proposed regarding the application of such techniques. This piece of work is a result of my own work except where it forms an assessment based on group project work. In the case of a group project, the work has been prepared in collaboration with other members of the group. Material from the work of others not involved in the project has been acknowledged and quotations and paraphrases suitably indicated.
Insekter och spindeldjur från Romelsön

Inledning Norrlands Entomologiska Förening genomförde 2003 års inventeringsläger midsommarhelgen 20-22 juni på Romelsön, som ligger i norra Västerbottens kustland, strax norr om Skellefteå utanför Byske (Fig. 1). Ett stort uppbåd entomologer sammanstrålade på Romelsön under helgen och totalt var 18 personer inblandade varav 11 aktivt inventerande. Lägret bar dessutom i högsta grad en internationell prägel och sammantaget var 5 nationer mer eller mindre inblandade: Sverige, Frankrike, Tyskland, Polen och Australien. Vi betvivlar att en liknande insats gjorts i NEFs drygt 20-åriga historia! Antalet aktiva entomologer bidrog naturligtvis till att resultatet från inventeringen täcker en ovanligt stor taxonomisk bredd av landoch vattenlevande leddjur.
8 Neural Mechanisms Underlying Brimonidine ’ s Protection of Retinal Ganglion Cells in Experimental Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the output neurons of the retina. Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) has long been recognized as a major risk factor for human glaucoma (Kass et al., 1980; Quigley et al., 1994; Tsai & Kanner, 2005). Indeed, in animal models of glaucoma, ranging from rodents (Johnson & Tomarev, 2010) to primates (Gaasterland & Kupfer, 1974; Hare et al., 2004), elevated IOP produced either biophysically (Gaasterland & Kupfer, 1974; WoldeMussie et al., 2001) or genetically (Anderson et al., 2001; Ju et al., 2009) can lead to RGC degeneration similar to that found in human glaucoma (Quigley, 2005). A common and effective treatment for glaucoma is the use of IOP lowering topical drugs that act at a variety of cellular targets, such as the α2 and β adrenergic receptors (Tsai & Kanner, 2005). However, in many patients, the disease continues to progress despite successful IOP reduction with topical drugs (Heijl et al., 2002; Vasudevan et al., 2011). Brimonidine, a selective α2 receptor agonist, is the active ingredient in one class of topical IOP lowering drugs, such as Alphagan® and Alphagn-P®. Brimonidine has been shown to protect RGCs in experimental glaucoma (WoldeMussie et al., 2001; Dong et al., 2008), retinal ischemia (Donello et al., 2001; Lai et al., 2002), optic nerve injury (Yoles et a., 1999), and retinal excitotoxicity (Dong et al., 2008). In experimental glaucoma, brimonidine’s neuroprotective effect appears to be independent of its IOP lowering action (Dong et al., 2008; Hernandez et al., 2008). More recently, in a randomized, double-masked, multicenter clinical trial, brimonidine has been shown to be more effective in slowing disease progression (visual field loss), compared with timolol (a β blocker), despite the fact that the mean treated IOP was similar in both treatment groups at all time points (Krupin 2011). These clinical data suggest that brimonidine may have a direct RGC protective effect that is independent of its IOP lowering action in human low-pressure glaucoma, similar to that found in experimental glaucoma (Dong et al., 2008; Hernandez et al., 2008). In this chapter, we will summarize the results of our recent studies on the mechanisms that underlie brimonidine’s protection of RGCs in experimental glaucoma and retinal excitotoxicity. We will first describe the properties of RGCs and the ex vivo and in vivo models used in our studies on the mechanisms of RGC injury and protection. Then we will
Telephone and Hearing Impaired - New Approaches for Increasing the Telephone Speech Quality for Hearing Impaired Users

The future age structure of industrialized countries will shift towards elderly, and an average elderly telephone subscriber will face a mild high frequency hearing loss. Hearing impaired telephone users will be one of the major groups of possible subscribers for telephone connection or telephone service vendors. To offer them benefits against existing solutions does not require much effort or special new technologies, but precise knowledge of the needs of this group. Some of these needs are presented in this article and they are based on interviews and lessons learned from tests described in CVHI 2006 contribution (Krebber et al. 2006). Moreover, new approaches, recommendations and the needs of certain standards are discussed in this paper.
Notes on Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

and where Eg is the energy of the pulse shape gT (t). The pulse shape and the carrier frequency fc is chosen such that the power spectral density of the transmitted signal will fit the frequency response of the channel. As implied by the IQ-modulator block diagram, the signals ψI(t) and ψQ(t) spans a two-dimensional signal space. In fact, it can be shown that signals are approximately orthonormal if the carrier frequency fc is much larger than the bandwidth of gT (t). The approximation is very good for many practical choices of fc and gT (t), and we will from now consider ψI(t) and ψQ(t) to be exactly orthonormal and to make up the standard basis for the IQ signal space. The reader should here be cautioned that some texts use −ψQ(t) as one of the basis functions. Hence, we need to be a bit careful when using material on IQ modulation from different sources.