nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
mir 329 restricts tumor growth by targeting grb2 in pancreatic cancer
Venue: Oncotarget

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies worldwide. To illustrate the pathogenic mechanism(s) we looked into the expression and function of miR 329 associated with pancreatic cancer development. It was found that miR 329 expression was downregulated in the pancreatic cancer patients who demonstrated significantly shorter overall survival than the patients having upregulated expression. Also, more advanced pT stage cases were observed in the low miR 329 expression group of patients. Interestingly, our studies uncovered that miR 329 overexpression inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells, in contrast the miR 329 inhibitor reversed this phenomenon dramatically. Additionally, overexpression of miR 329 significantly limited tumor growth in the xenograft model. In the mechanistic study, we identified GRB2 as a direct target of miR 329 in pancreatic cancer cells, and expression of GRB2 was inversely correlated with miR 329 expression in pancreatic cancer patients. Furthermore, GRB2 overexpression in cell line and xenograft model dramatically diminished miR 329 mediated anti proliferation and apoptosis induction, indicating that GRB2/pERK pathway was mainly downregulated by miR 329 expression. In general, our study has shed light on miR 329 regulated mechanism and, miR 329/GRB2/pERK is potential to be targeted for pancreatic cancer management.
NADPH Oxidase 1 Activity and ROS Generation Are Regulated by Grb2/Cbl Mediated Proteasomal Degradation of NoxO1 in Colon Cancer Cells.
Venue: Cancer research

The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is required for proper cell signaling, but must be tightly regulated to minimize deleterious oxidizing effects. Activation of the NADPH oxidases (Nox) triggers ROS production and, thus, regulatory mechanisms exist to properly control Nox activity. In this study, we report a novel mechanism in which Nox1 activity is regulated through the proteasomal degradation of Nox organizer 1 (NoxO1) We found that through the interaction between NoxO1 and growth receptor bound protein 2 (Grb2) the Casitas B lineage lymphoma (Cbl) E3 ligase was recruited, leading to decreased NoxO1 stability and a subsequent reduction in ROS generation upon epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulation. Additionally, we show that EGF mediated phosphorylation of NoxO1 induced its release from Grb2 and facilitated its association with Nox activator 1 (NoxA1) to stimulate ROS production. Consistently, overexpression of Grb2 resulted in decreased Nox1 activity, whereas knockdown of Grb2 led to increased Nox1 activity in response to EGF. CRISPR/Cas9 mediated NoxO1 knockout in human colon cancer cells abrogated anchorage independent growth on soft agar and tumor forming ability in athymic nude mice. Moreover, the expression and stability of NoxO1 were significantly increased in human colon cancer tissues compared with normal colon. Taken together, these results support a model whereby Nox1 activity and ROS generation are regulated by Grb2/Cbl mediated proteolysis of NoxO1 in response to EGF, providing new insight into the processes by which excessive ROS production may promote oncogenic signaling to drive colorectal tumorigenesis.
Grb2 depletion under non stimulated conditions inhibits PTEN, promotes Akt induced tumor formation and contributes to poor prognosis in ovarian cancer
Venue: Oncogene

In the absence of extracellular stimulation the adaptor protein growth factor receptor bound protein (Grb2) and the phospholipase Plcg1 compete for the same binding site on fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) Reducing cellular Grb2 results in upregulation of Plcg1 and depletion of the phospholipid PI(4,5)P2. The functional consequences of this event on signaling pathways are unknown. We show that the decrease in PI(4,5)P2 level under non stimulated conditions inhibits PTEN activity leading to the aberrant activation of the oncoprotein Akt. This results in excessive cell proliferation and tumor progression in a xenograft mouse model. As well as defining a novel mechanism of Akt phosphorylation with important therapeutic consequences, we also demonstrate that differential expression levels of FGFR2, Plcg1 and Grb2 correlate with patient survival. Oncogenesis through fluctuation in the expression levels of these proteins negates extracellular stimulation or mutation and defines them as novel prognostic markers in ovarian cancer.
Enhancing emotional performance and customer service through human resources practices: A systems perspective

Although many scholars and practitioners articulate the importance of managing employee emotions in service based organizations, research related to the intricacies surrounding human resource (HR) practices targeted at employee emotional performance has failed to keep up. This is surprising, given the strong links established between employee emotional performance (i.e. expressive behaviors congruent with emotional expectations) and customer service outcomes such as customer satisfaction, intentions to return, and recommendation intentions. In light of this gap, in the current review we adopt a systems perspective of HR and develop an integrated model highlighting how HR practices related to three broad HR domains skill motivation and opportunity enhancing should elevate emotional performance by increasing the motivation and ability of service employees to engage in intrapersonal and/or interpersonal emotion regulation. Departing from a "more is better" approach, we theorize how different combinations of the three HR domains may yield beneficial outcomes depending upon (1) the extent to which rewards are tied to emotional labor and (2) the nature of typical employee customer exchanges. In doing so, we articulate which HR practices are likely mandatory, and which can be viewed as substitutable. Implications for measurement and applications to customer service are discussed.
Physical function after extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in patients pre or post heart transplantation An observational study.
Venue: Heart lung the journal of critical care

To describe physical function, leg complications and health related quality of life (HRQOL) in the three months following extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) pre or post heart transplantation (HTx) BACKGROUND Little is known about functional recovery following ECMO before or after HTx.  A 2 year retrospective study in patients who received ECMO pre or post HTx. Strength, mobility, leg complications and HRQOL were recorded to hospital discharge. Six minute walk distance (6MWD) was assessed at hospital discharge and 3 months.  25 patients were included, with 80% (20/25) survival to hospital discharge. At ICU discharge, strength and mobility were poor but improved by hospital discharge (p 0.001) despite leg complications in 44% (11/25) of patients. The 6MWD improved over time (mean 203 m, 95% confidence interval 140 265) HRQOL scores were lower than Australian norms (p 0.05) CONCLUSION Patients requiring ECMO pre or post HTx had impaired physical function at ICU discharge and leg complications were common.
A simulation study of the impact of the public private partnership strategy on the performance of transport infrastructure
Venue: SpringerPlus

The choice of investment strategy has a great impact on the performance of transport infrastructure. Positive projects such as the "Subway plus Property" model in Hong Kong have created sustainable financial profits for the public transport projects. Owing to a series of public debt and other constraints, public private partnership (PPP) was introduced as an innovative investment model to address this issue and help develop transport infrastructure. Yet, few studies provide a deeper understanding of relationships between PPP strategy and the performance of such transport projects (particularly the whole transport system) This paper defines the research scope as a regional network of freeway. With a popular PPP model, travel demand prediction method, and relevant parameters as input, agents in a simulation framework can simulate the choice of PPP freeway over time. The simulation framework can be used to analyze the relationship between the PPP strategy and performance of the regional freeway network. This study uses the Freeway Network of Yangtze River Delta (FN YRD) in China as the context. The results demonstrate the value of using simulation models of complex transportation systems to help decision makers choose the right PPP projects. Such a tool is viewed as particularly important given the ongoing transformation of functions of the Chinese transportation sector, including franchise rights of transport projects, and freeway charging mechanism.
Time series remote sensing based dynamic monitoring of land use and land cover change
Venue: 2016 4th International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications (EORSA)

Land use and land cover (LULC) change monitoring is still an important remote sensing application and research field, for it is closely related to manage natural resources and environmental planning. This study is aimed to find the land use and land cover changes of Zigui County from 2008 to 2014 by using multi source remotely sensed imagery. Images of three different years (2008, 2011 and 2014) taken from Landsat and other three satellites (GF 1, HJ 1 and SPOT) were used to monitor the land use and land cover changes in this study. Landsat images were used as the main references for analysis while the others were used associative for some enhancement. In order to increase the accuracy of the results, we abandon the single resolution image and use different spatial and spectral resolution images simultaneously in the classification and other processing stage. Three different methods to determine the changes of land use and land cover have been used in this paper: transfer matrix of land use, changes related to the terrain of earth surface and landscape pattern of composition changes. Thematic maps have been prepared showing the land use and land cover classes in individual year as well as the changes during different time interval to identify the spatial changes. Changes related to the terrain have been statistics using classified images and digital elevation model (DEM) Quantitative analysis of each phase of the land use and land cover pattern characteristics using part of the landscape pattern indexes. The result of the study illustrates that: 1) the area of built up and cultivated have the rapid and continuous growth and the area of vegetation descended. And the new construction land mainly by agricultural land conversion, the forest area reduced mainly converted to the agricultural land; 2) vegetation and agricultural land change mainly concentrated in the 500 meters below, have slight change in in 1000 to 1500 meters and no significant changes in other altitude; 3) From patch density(PD) and other landscape metrics analysis result, built up area is increasing not only in amount but also in number of patches, that is, the new built up areas area being established frequently. And the number of buildup area patches is almost four times increased within 6 years.
New Weapons to Fight Old Enemies: Novel Strategies for the (Bio)control of Bacterial Biofilms in the Food Industry
Venue: Front. Microbiol.

Biofilms are microbial communities characterized by their adhesion to solid surfaces and the production of a matrix of exopolymeric substances, consisting of polysaccharides, proteins, DNA and lipids, which surround the microorganisms lending structural integrity and a unique biochemical profile to the biofilm. Biofilm formation enhances the ability of the producer/s to persist in a given environment. Pathogenic and spoilage bacterial species capable of forming biofilms are a significant problem for the healthcare and food industries, as their biofilm forming ability protects them from common cleaning processes and allows them to remain in the environment post sanitation. In the food industry, persistent bacteria colonize the inside of mixing tanks, vats and tubing, compromising food safety and quality. Strategies to overcome bacterial persistence through inhibition of biofilm formation or removal of mature biofilms are therefore necessary. Current biofilm control strategies employed in the food industry (cleaning and disinfection, material selection and surface preconditioning, plasma treatment, ultrasonication, etc. although effective to a certain point, fall short of biofilm control. Efforts have been explored, mainly with a view to their application in pharmaceutical and healthcare settings, which focus on targeting molecular determinants regulating biofilm formation. Their application to the food industry would greatly aid efforts to eradicate undesirable bacteria from food processing environments and, ultimately, from food products. These approaches, in contrast to bactericidal approaches, exert less selective pressure which in turn would reduce the likelihood of resistance development. A particularly interesting strategy targets quorum sensing systems, which regulate gene expression in response to fluctuations in cell population density governing essential cellular processes including biofilm formation. This review article discusses the problems associated with bacterial biofilms in the food industry and summarizes the recent strategies explored to inhibit biofilm formation, with special focus on those targeting quorum sensing.
Editorial: Biofilms from a Food Microbiology Perspective: Structures, Functions, and Control Strategies
Venue: Front. Microbiol.

Materials and equipment in food processing industries are colonized by surface associated microbial communities called biofilms. In these biostructures microorganisms are embedded in a complex organic matrix composed essentially of polysaccharides, nucleic acids, and proteins. This organic shield contributes to the mechanical biofilm cohesion and triggers tolerance to environmental stresses such as dehydration or nutrient deprivation. Notably, cells within a biofilm are more tolerant to sanitation processes and the action of antimicrobial agents than their free living (or planktonic) counterparts. Such properties make conventional cleaning and disinfection protocols normally not effective in eradicating these biocontaminants. Biofilms are thus a continuous source of persistent microorganisms, including spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms, leading to repeated contamination of processed food with important economic and safety impact. Alternatively, in some particular settings, biofilm formation by resident or technological microorganisms can be desirable, due to possible enhancement of food fermentations or as a means of bioprotection against the settlement of pathogenic microorganisms. In the last decades substantial research efforts have been devoted to unraveling mechanisms of biofilm formation, deciphering biofilm architecture, and understanding microbial interactions within those ecosystems. However, biofilms present a high level of complexity and many aspects remain yet to be fully understood. A lot of attention has been also paid to the development of novel strategies for preventing or controlling biofilm formation in industrial settings. Further research needs to be focused on the identification of new biocides effective against biofilm associated microorganisms, the development of control strategies based on the inhibition of cell to cell communication, and the potential use of bacteriocins, bacteriocin producing bacteria, phage, and natural antimicrobials as anti biofilm agents, among others. This research topic aims to provide an avenue for dissemination of recent advances within the " biofilms " field, from novel knowledge on mechanisms of biofilm formation and biofilm architecture to novel strategies for biofilm control in food industrial settings. The research topic comprises three review articles, one perspective and 11 original research articles. Most of the contributions cover the most recent investigations on aspects related to the structures, architecture, and strategies for the control of biofilms formed by pathogenic or spoilage microorganisms on food processing surfaces, while two contributions are focused on the evaluation of biofilm formation by resident, technologically important or desirable microorganisms.
An Ensemble Approach to Financial Entity Matching for the FEIII 2016 Challenge
Venue: DSMM@SIGMOD

Financial entities are often referred to with ambiguous descriptions and identifiers. To tackle this issue, the Financial Entity Identification and Information Integration1 (FEIII) Challenge requires participants to automatically reconcile financial entities among three datasets: the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council2 (FFIEC) the Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI) and the Security and Exchange Commission3 (SEC) Our approach is based on the combination of different Naive Bayes classifiers through an ensemble approach. The evaluation on the Gold Standard developed by the challenge organizers shows F1 scores that are above the average of the other participants for the two proposed tasks.
Financial Entity Record Linkage with Random Forests
Venue: DSMM@SIGMOD

Record linkage refers to the task of finding same entity across different databases. We propose a machine learning based record linkage algorithm for financial entity databases. Record linkage on financial databases are essential for information integration on certain financial entity, since those databases do not have common unified identifier. Our algorithm works in two steps to determine if a pair of record is same entity or not. First we check with proposed rules if the record pair can be exactly matched after cleaning the entity name and address. Second, inspired by earlier work on author name disambiguation, we train a binary Random Forest classifier to decide the linkage. To reduce and scale the computation, this process is done only for candidate pairs within a proposed heuristic. Initial evaluation for precision, recall and F1 measures on two different linking tasks in the Financial Entity Identification and Information Integration (FEIII) Challenge show promising results.
What Are We Learning from the FDA Mandated Cardiovascular Outcome Studies for New Pharmacological Antidiabetic Agents?
Venue: Current Diabetes Reports

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is common in patients with diabetes. For these patients, clinicians should seek diabetes treatment that is beneficial rather than harmful in relation to CVD. Until recently, there have been many treatments for hyperglycemia, whose impact on CVD has been controversial. The aims of this review are to evaluate the effectiveness of antihyperglycemic medications on risk factors for CVD and to examine the impact of these drugs on CVD in cardiovascular (CV) outcome trials. In this article, we summarize current knowledge about the impacts of these drugs on various risk factors as well as CV outcomes. We identify the recent emergence of trials with antihyperglycemic agents showing newly discovered CV benefits as well as past trials with antihyperglycemic agents not showing much benefit on CV events. Rather than focusing on treatment strategies, we review the effects of individual drug classes on CV outcomes. We also briefly review goal driven glycemia reduction and its impact on CVD. We conclude that antihyperglycemic agents are associated with improvement in CV risk factors in patients with diabetes and insulin resistance; in fact, a few drugs reduced CV events in randomized CV outcome trials. Therefore, the use of these drugs is appropriate for reducing glucose and decreasing CV event risk in a select subpopulation.
Nigerian English in International Business Communication: Issues, Challenges and Prospects

Effective communication is a crucial factor in business success in the global village that the world has come to be. In Nigeria, the overwhelming proportion of business with the outside world is conducted using the English. The need for Nigerian business people to use the language effectively will obviously contribute to success rates in their various interactions with business people from across the globe. However, as English becomes more domesticated in Nigeria, and as local varieties become more entrenched and less stigmatized, many Nigerians including those involved in international business may no longer be adequately conscious of the fact that the peculiar Nigerian ways they speak may pose fundamental communication challenges to non Nigerian business partners who may not be quite familiar with "Nigerian English" This paper explores these challenges by systematically aggregating findings from diverse practical observations of international business communication situations involving educated Nigerian. Based on some observed challenges, the paper advances some pedagogical innovations from the field of intercultural communication; to prepare Nigerian L2 English learners for enhanced oral communication performance in the international business world without having disparaging attitudes towards local varieties of English.
A first theoretical realization of honeycomb topological magnon insulator.
Venue: Journal of physics. Condensed matter an Institute of Physics journal

It has been recently shown that in the Heisenberg (anti)ferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice, the magnons (spin wave quasipacticles) realize a massless two dimensional (2D) Dirac like Hamiltonian. It was shown that the Dirac magnon Hamiltonian preserves time reversal symmetry defined with the sublattice pseudo spins and the Dirac points are robust against magnon magnon interactions. The Dirac points also occur at nonzero energy. In this paper, we propose a simple realization of nontrivial topology (magnon edge states) in this system. We show that the Dirac points are gapped when the inversion symmetry of the lattice is broken by introducing a next nearest neighbour Dzyaloshinskii Moriya (DM) interaction. Thus, the system realizes magnon edge states similar to the Haldane model for quantum anomalous Hall effect in electronic systems. However, in contrast to electronic spin current where dissipation can be very large due to Ohmic heating, noninteracting topological magnons can propagate for a long time without dissipation as magnons are uncharged particles. We observe the same magnon edge states for the XY model on the honeycomb lattice. Remarkably, in this case the model maps to interacting hardcore bosons on the honeycomb lattice. Quantum magnetic systems with nontrivial magnon edge states are called topological magnon insulators. They have been studied theoretically on the kagome lattice and recently observed experimentally on the kagome magnet Cu(1 3, bdc) with three magnon bulk bands. Our results for the honeycomb lattice suggests an experimental procedure to search for honeycomb topological magnon insulators within a class of 2D quantum magnets and ultracold atoms trapped in honeycomb optical lattices. In 3D lattices, Dirac and Weyl points were recently studied theoretically, however, the criteria that give rise to them were not well understood. We argue that the low energy Hamiltonian near the Weyl points should break time reversal symmetry of the pseudo spins. Thus, recovering the same criteria in electronic systems.