bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The cancer cell adhesion resistome: mechanisms, targeting and translational approaches
Authors: Dickreuter Ellen , Cordes Nils 
Published: December 2016

AbstractCell adhesion-mediated resistance limits the success of cancer therapies and is a great obstacle to overcome in the clinic. Since the 1990s, where it became clear that adhesion of tumor cells to the extracellular matrix is an important mediator of therapy resistance, a lot of work has been conducted to understand the fundamental underlying mechanisms and two paradigms were deduced: cell adhesion-mediated radioresistance (CAM-RR) and cell adhesion-mediated drug resistance (CAM-DR). Preclinical work has evidently demonstrated that targeting of integrins, adapter proteins and associated kinases comprising the cell adhesion resistome is a promising strategy to sensitize cancer cells to both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Moreover, the cell adhesion resistome fundamentally contributes to adaptation mechanisms induced by radiochemotherapy as well as molecular drugs to secure a balanced homeostasis of cancer cells for survival and growth. Intriguingly, this phenomenon provides a basis for synthetic lethal targeted therapies simultaneously administered to standard radiochemotherapy. In this review, we summarize current knowledge about the cell adhesion resistome and highlight targeting strategies to override CAM-RR and CAM-DR.
Variation in the ACE gene in elite Polish football players
Authors: Cięszczyk Paweł , Leońska-Duniec Agata , Maciejewska-Skrendo Agnieszka , Sawczuk Marek , Leźnicka Katarzyna , Contrò Valentina , Trybek Grzegorz , Lulińska-Kuklik Ewelina 
Published: December 2016

PurposeA common polymorphism in the angiotensin converting enzyme I gene (the <i>ACE</i> I/D variant) represents one of the first characterized and the most widely studied genetic variants in the context of elite athletes status and performance related traits. The aim of the study was to determine the genotype and allele distribution of the allele and genotype of the <i>ACE</i> gene in Polish male football players.MethodsThe total of 106 Polish male professional football players were recruited. They were divided into groups according to the position in the field: forwards, defenders, midfielders, and goalkeepers. For controls, samples were prepared with 115 unrelated volunteers. DNA was extracted from the buccal cells donated by the subjects, and the PCR amplification of the polymorphic region of the <i>ACE</i> gene containing either the insertion (I) or deletion (D) fragment was performed.ResultsThe genotype distribution and allele frequencies among all football players did not differ significantly when compared with sedentary control individuals (<i>p</i> = 0.887, <i>p</i> = 0.999, respectively). Likewise, the analysis of forwards, defenders, midfielders, and goalkeepers revealed no significant differences in either ACE genotype or allele frequencies.ConclusionsWe did not provide evidence for difference of variation of the <i>ACE</i> I/D polymorphism between Polish football players and controls,
as we did not obtain any statistically significantly higher frequency of either of the analysed alleles (I and D) or genotypes (DD, ID, and II) in the studied subgroups. It may be suspected that harbouring of I/D allelic variants of the <i>ACE</i> gene neither decreases nor increases the probability of being a professional football player in Poland.
Dysphagia related quality of life (QoL) following total laryngectomy (TL)
Authors: Georgiou Anastasios M. , Kambanaros Maria 
Published: December 2016

Abstract

Purpose:
This cross-sectional study evaluated the relationship between dysphagia post-total laryngectomy (TL) and quality of life (QoL) of people who reside in Greece. This is the first such report to be undertaken on the topic.

Methods:
Speech and language therapists typically use patient judgement to identify difficulties with swallowing. The Greek adaptations of the M.D. Anderson Dysphagia Inventory (MDADI) and the Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10) were completed by members of the Hellenic Association of Laryngectomees (HAL). More than 400 questionnaires were sent, but only 23 were returned (18 males and 5 females).

Results:
The results revealed that dysphagia has a negative impact on the QoL of people who have undergone TL for treatment of laryngeal cancer.

Conclusion:
It appears that not only treatment (i.e. TL) of the primary disease, but also secondary problems as a result of the treatment, such as dysphagia, have a significant impact on the QoL of patients and must be taken into consideration when therapeutic decisions for laryngeal cancer are made. The qualitative measures used here provide a starting point to objectively describe QoL as perceived by TL patients. This is particularly pertinent in Greece where access to delivery and quality of health services has been challenging because of recent fiscal constraints.
“Shikl, what did you do for Yiddish today?” An appreciation of activist scholarship
Authors: Spolsky Bernard 
Published: December 2016

AbstractAcademic biographies seldom go into details about motivation, but in the case of Joshua Fishman, we have his statement that much of his career was directed by the question posed to him by his father, “What did you do for Yiddish today?” Answering this question did not just lead to his personal decision to speak Yiddish with his wife and children, but also to make sure that his grandchildren would be fluent speakers. But as he explains, his pioneering academic work in the sociology of language had a similar purpose: to explore the nature of language maintenance and shift and to build a scientific basis to support language activists who wished, like him, to fight what seems to be the inevitable evolutionary forces leading to the endangerment and loss of minority languages. His scholarly work included many pioneering contributions to the study of Yiddish sociolinguistics, but it expanded to include not just other threatened languages but also to build a solid academic basis for studying what happens when stronger languages meet weaker. Thus he was the creator of the field of the sociology of language and provided support for language minority activists, all the time making sure he was doing something for Yiddish.
Energy Associated Tuning Method for Short-Term Series Forecasting by Complete and Incomplete Datasets
Authors: Rivero Cristian Rodrìguez , Pucheta Juliàn , Laboret Sergio , Sauchelli Vìctor , Patiǹo Daniel 
Published: December 2016

AbstractThis article presents short-term predictions using neural networks tuned by energy associated to series based-predictor filter for complete and incomplete datasets. A benchmark of high roughness time series from Mackay Glass (MG), Logistic (LOG), Henon (HEN) and some univariate series chosen from NN3 Forecasting Competition are used. An average smoothing technique is assumed to complete the data missing in the dataset. The Hurst parameter estimated through wavelets is used to estimate the roughness of the real and forecasted series. The validation and horizon of the time series is presented by the 15 values ahead. The performance of the proposed filter shows that even a short dataset is incomplete, besides a linear smoothing technique employed; the prediction is almost fair by means of SMAPE index. Although the major result shows that the predictor system based on energy associated to series has an optimal performance from several chaotic time series, in particular, this method among other provides a good estimation when the short-term series are taken from one point observations.
Kernel Analysis for Estimating the Connectivity of a Network with Event Sequences
Authors: Tezuka Taro , Claramunt Christophe 
Published: December 2016

AbstractEstimating the connectivity of a network from events observed at each node has many applications. One prominent example is found in neuroscience, where spike trains (sequences of action potentials) are observed at each neuron, but the way in which these neurons are connected is unknown. This paper introduces a novel method for estimating connections between nodes using a similarity measure between sequences of event times. Specifically, a normalized positive definite kernel defined on spike trains was used. The proposed method was evaluated using synthetic and real data, by comparing with methods using transfer entropy and the Victor-Purpura distance. Synthetic data was generated using CERM (Coupled Escape-Rate Model), a model that generates various spike trains. Real data recorded from the visual cortex of an anaesthetized cat was analyzed as well. The results showed that the proposed method provides an effective way of estimating the connectivity of a network when the time sequences of events are the only available information.
A New Mechanism for Data Visualization with Tsk-Type Preprocessed Collaborative Fuzzy Rule Based System
Authors: Prasad Mukesh , Liu Yu-Ting , Li Dong-Lin , Lin Chin-Teng , Shah Rajiv Ratn , Kaiwartya Om Prakash 
Published: December 2016

Abstract
A novel data knowledge representation with the combination of structure learning ability of preprocessed collaborative fuzzy clustering and fuzzy expert knowledge of Takagi- Sugeno-Kang type model is presented in this paper. The proposed method divides a huge dataset into two or more subsets of dataset. The subsets of dataset interact with each other through a collaborative mechanism in order to find some similar properties within each-other. The proposed method is useful in dealing with big data issues since it divides a huge dataset into subsets of dataset and finds common features among the subsets. The salient feature of the proposed method is that it uses a small subset of dataset and some common features instead of using the entire dataset and all the features. Before interactions among subsets of the dataset, the proposed method applies a mapping technique for granules of data and centroid of clusters. The proposed method uses information of only half or less/more than the half of the data patterns for the training process, and it provides an accurate and robust model, whereas the other existing methods use the entire information of the data patterns. Simulation results show the proposed method performs better than existing methods on some benchmark problems.
Can Learning Vector Quantization be an Alternative to SVM and Deep Learning? - Recent Trends and Advanced Variants of Learning Vector Quantization for Classification Learning
Authors: Villmann Thomas , Bohnsack Andrea , Kaden Marika 
Published: December 2016

AbstractLearning vector quantization (LVQ) is one of the most powerful approaches for prototype based classification of vector data, intuitively introduced by Kohonen. The prototype adaptation scheme relies on its attraction and repulsion during the learning providing an easy geometric interpretability of the learning as well as of the classification decision scheme. Although deep learning architectures and support vector classifiers frequently achieve comparable or even better results, LVQ models are smart alternatives with low complexity and computational costs making them attractive for many industrial applications like intelligent sensor systems or advanced driver assistance systems.Nowadays, the mathematical theory developed for LVQ delivers sufficient justification of the algorithm making it an appealing alternative to other approaches like support vector machines and deep learning techniques.This review article reports current developments and extensions of LVQ starting from the generalized LVQ (GLVQ), which is known as the most powerful cost function based realization of the original LVQ. The cost function minimized in GLVQ is an soft-approximation of the standard classification error allowing gradient descent learning techniques. The GLVQ variants considered in this contribution, cover many aspects like bordersensitive learning, application of non-Euclidean metrics like kernel distances or divergences, relevance learning as well as optimization of advanced statistical classification quality measures beyond the accuracy including sensitivity and specificity or area under the ROC-curve.According to these topics, the paper highlights the basic motivation for these variants and extensions together with the mathematical prerequisites and treatments for integration into the standard GLVQ scheme and compares them to other machine learning approaches. For detailed description and mathematical theory behind all, the reader is referred to the respective original articles.Thus, the intention of the paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the stateof- the-art serving as a starting point to search for an appropriate LVQ variant in case of a given specific classification problem as well as a reference to recently developed variants and improvements of the basic GLVQ scheme.
High-Speed Rotor Analytical Dynamics on Flexible Foundation Subjected to Internal and External Excitation
Authors: Jivkov Venelin S. , Zahariev Evtim V. 
Published: December 2016

Abstract
The paper presents a geometrical approach to dynamics simulation of a rigid and flexible system, compiled of high speed rotating machine with eccentricity and considerable inertia and mass. The machine is mounted on a vertical flexible pillar with considerable height. The stiffness and damping of the column, as well as, of the rotor bearings and the shaft are taken into account. Non-stationary vibrations and transitional processes are analyzed. The major frequency and modal mode of the flexible column are used for analytical reduction of its mass, stiffness and damping properties. The rotor and the foundation are modelled as rigid bodies, while the flexibility of the bearings is estimated by experiments and the requirements of the manufacturer. The transition effects as a result of limited power are analyzed by asymptotic methods of averaging. Analytical expressions for the amplitudes and unstable vibrations throughout resonance are derived by quasi-static approach increasing and decreasing of the exciting frequency. Analytical functions give the possibility to analyze the influence of the design parameter of many structure applications as wind power generators, gas turbines, turbo-generators, and etc. A numerical procedure is applied to verify the effectiveness and precision of the simulation process.
Nonlinear and transitional effects are analyzed and compared to the analytical results. External excitations, as wave propagation and earthquakes, are discussed. Finite elements in relative and absolute coordinates are applied to model the flexible column and the high speed rotating machine. Generalized Newton - Euler dynamics equations are used to derive the precise dynamics equations. Examples of simulation of the system vibrations and nonstationary behaviour are presented.
Wave Scattering by Cracks at Macro- and Nano-Scale in Anisotropic Plane by Boundary Integral Equation Method
Authors: Dineva Petia , Rangelov Tsviatko 
Published: December 2016

AbstractElastic wave scattering by cracks at macro- and nano-scale in anisotropic plane under conditions of plane strain is studied in this work. Furthermore, time-harmonic loads due to incident plane longitudinal P- or shear SV- wave are assumed to hold. In a subsequent step, the elastodynamic fundamental solution for general anisotropic continua derived in closed-form via the Radon transform is implemented in a numerical scheme based on the traction boundary integral equation method (BIEM). The surface elasticity effect in the case of nano-crack is taken into consideration via non-classical boundary condition along the crack surface proposed by Gurtin and Murdoch [1]. The numerical results obtained herein reveal substantial differences between anisotropic materials containing a macro- and a nano-crack in terms of their dynamic stress response, where the latter case demonstrates clearly the strong influence of the size-effects. Finally, these types of examples serve to illustrate the present approach and to show its potential for evaluating the stress concentration fields (SCF) inside cracked nanocomposites. The obtained results concern the reliability and safety of the advancing nanomaterials.
Viral shedders in a herd vaccinated against infection with bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) without prior testing for the presence of persistently infected animals
Authors: Polak Mirosław P. , Antos Aleksandra , Rola Jerzy , Żmudziński Jan F. 
Published: December 2016

AbstractIntroduction: Bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), caused by the bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV), is one of the most important diseases of cattle worldwide. The purpose of the study was to determine the BVDV infection status in a dairy herd vaccinated against BVD. Before vaccination started in 2008, there had been no prior identification or the removal of the possible source of infection (persistently infected animals). It was expected that vaccination itself would enable the elimination of viral shedders on a long term basis. Material and Methods: Serological screening for antibodies against BVDV with determination for antibodies titres, BVDV antigen, and the presence of the viral genome with phylogenetic analysis of positive samples in the herd were performed, despite the lack of any clinical problems indicating possible presence of BVDV infection. Results: 19 individuals persistently infected with BVDV were identified among calves and heifers but not in adult cattle. All virus shedders were antibody negative and the genotype of isolated virus was BVDV-1b, indicating a single source of infection. The vaccine used in the herd was composed of BVDV-1a strain. In each of the tested cowsheds, antibody titres against BVDV-1b were higher than against BVDV-1a (median values). Conclusion: Despite a long-lasting vaccination programme and relatively high sequence homology of vaccinal and field strains of BVDV (83.6%), it was not possible to avoid transplacental infections of foetuses and the birth of persistently infected calves from vaccinated heifers although the protection against clinical disease was accomplished.
Shewanella putrefaciens – a new opportunistic pathogen of freshwater fish
Authors: Paździor Ewa 
Published: December 2016

Abstract
In recent years, Shewanella putrefaciens, commonly known as a halophilic bacteria, has been associated with serious health disorders in freshwater fish. Therefore, it has been described as a new aetiological agent of the disease, named shewanellosis. S. putrefaciens is a heterogeneous group of microorganisms, belonging to the Alteromonadaceae family. Based on different criteria, three biovars and biogroups as well as four genomic groups have been distinguished. The first infections of S. putrefaciens in fish were reported in rabbitfish (Siganus rivulatus) and European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.). Outbreaks in farmed fish were reported in Poland for the first time in 2004. The disease causes skin disorders and haemorrhages in internal organs. It should be noted that S. putrefaciens could also be associated with different infections in humans, such as skin and tissue infections, bacteraemia, otitis. Investigations on pathogenic mechanisms of S. putrefaciens infections are very limited. Enzymatic activity, cytotoxin secretion, adhesion ability, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and the presence of siderophores are potential virulence factors of S. putrefaciens. Antimicrobial resistance of S. putrefaciens is different and depends on the isolates. In general, these bacteria are sensitive to antimicrobial drugs commonly used in aquaculture.
Characterisation of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from meat processing plants – a preliminary study
Authors: Kizerwetter-Świda Magdalena , Chrobak-Chmiel Dorota , Rzewuska Magdalena , Pławińska-Czarnak Joanna , Binek Marian 
Published: December 2016

Abstract
Introduction: Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) belonging to the clonal complex 398 (CC398) emerged recently in livestock as a new type of MRSA, which may cause zoonotic infections. This study presents data on the characterisation of S. aureus isolated from the meat processing plants. Material and Methods: S. aureus was isolated from 90 samples collected in the raw meat warehouse, from devices and surfaces of meat processing plants, and from finished meat products. The isolates were subjected to molecular analysis in order to investigate the presence of enterotoxin genes, the mecA gene, and to verify whether they belong to the clonal complex 398. The genetic relatedness of the isolates was determined using pulsed-field electrophoresis. Likewise, antimicrobial susceptibility was tested. Results: From 21 S. aureus strains isolated, five belonged to the CC398, two of which were recognised as MRSA and three as methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA). The most prevalent enterotoxin genes were seg and sei. Two MRSA CC398 isolates, three MSSA CC398, and one MSSA were classified as multidrug-resistant. Conclusion: The first isolation of MSSA CC398 from beef in Poland indicates contamination of beef by strains belonging to this clonal complex. The occurrence of multidrug-resistant enterotoxigenic S. aureus isolates in the finished meat products constitutes a potential risk for the consumers.
Mechanisms of tumour escape from immune surveillance
Authors: Lisiecka Urszula , Kostro Krzysztof 
Published: December 2016

AbstractThe progressive growth and spread of tumour cells in the form of metastases requires an interaction of healthy host cells, such as endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and other cells of mesenchymal origin with immune cells taking part in innate and adaptive responses within the tumour lesion and entire body. The host cells interact with tumour cells to create a dynamic tumour microenvironment, in which healthy cells can both positively and negatively influence the growth and spread of the tumour. The balance of cellular homeostasis and the effect of substances they secrete on the tumour microenvironment determine whether the tumour has a tendency to grow or disappear, and whether the cells remain within the lesion or are capable of metastasis to other regions of the body. Intercellular interactions also determine the tumour’s susceptibility to radiation or other types of cancer treatment. They may also be a rational explanation for differences in treatment outcomes, in which some metastases regress and others progress in response to the same treatment method.
Variations of selected trace element contents in two layers of red deer antlers
Authors: Giżejewska Aleksandra , Nawrocka Agnieszka , Szkoda Józef , Żmudzki Jan , Jaroszewski Jerzy , Giżejewski Zygmunt 
Published: December 2016

Abstract
Introduction: Hard antlers of deer are unique bioindicators of environmental metal pollutions, but sampling methods presented in the literature are inconsistent. Due to the specific growth pattern of antlers and their histological structure, sampling methods described in the literature were reviewed, the suitability of using mixed samples of both antler layers as element bioindicators was assessed, and the codified method of antler sampling used for bioindication was described. Material and Methods: Lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, copper, zinc, and iron in trabecular and cortical parts of hard antlers of red deer (Cervus elaphus) were determined using different methods of atomic absorption spectrometry (depending on the element). Results: Mean mercury content in trabecular bone (0.010 ±0.018 mg/kg) was 5 times higher than in cortical bone (0.002 ±0.003 mg/kg). Mean iron concentration was approximately 15 times higher in trabecular (239.83 ±130.15 mg/kg) than in cortical bone (16.17 ±16.44 mg/kg). Concentrations of other analysed elements did not differ statistically between antler layers. Conclusion: In mixed antler samples, concentrations of mercury and iron depend on the particular antler layer contents. This therefore warrants caution when comparing results across studies and specification of the sampling methodology of antlers is highly recommended.