74 research outputs found

    Road Freight Transport Forecasting: A Fuzzy Monte-Carlo Simulation-Based Model Selection Approach

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    As important as the classical approaches such as Akaikeꞌs AIC information and Bayesian BIC criterion in model-selection mechanism are, they have limitations. As an alternative, a novel modeling design encompasses a two-stage approach that integrates Fuzzy logic and Monte Carlo simulations (MCSs). In the first stage, an entire family of ARIMA model candidates with the corresponding information-based, residual-based, and statistical criteria is identified. In the second stage, the Mamdani fuzzy model (MFM) is used to uncover interrelationships hidden among previously obtained modelsꞌ criteria. To access the best forecasting model, the MCSs are also used for different settings of weights loaded on the fuzzy rules. The obtained model is developed to predict the road freight transport in Slovenia in the context of choosing the most appropriate electronic toll system. Results show that the mechanism works well when searching for the best model that provides a well-fit to the real data

    Dihydromyricetin Attenuates Streptozotocin-induced Liver Injury and Inflammation in Rats via Regulation of NF-κB and AMPK Signaling Pathway

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    open access articleDihydromyricetin (DHM) dramatically improved the quality of life for Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats and significantly increased the activity of antioxidant enzymes in the liver. Moreover, DHM successfully ameliorated diabetes-induced liver damage by suppression of apoptosis in the liver, as indicated by the decreased levels of Bax and cleaved caspase-3. In diabetic rats, the levels of tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β in the liver were significantly increased. However, the administration of DHM (100–400 mg/kg/day) for 6 weeks restored the cytokine levels to their normal values in a dose-dependent manner in diabetic rats by the regulation of nuclear factor-kappa B signaling pathway. In addition, DHM significantly induced 5' AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) phosphorylation and decreased MyD88, TLR4, p38, GSK-3β protein expression levels in the liver of diabetic rats. In conclusion, DHM could improve STZ-induced liver impairment by preventing oxidative stress, apoptosis, and inflammation

    Lipid, blood pressure and kidney update 2013

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    World Congress Integrative Medicine & Health 2017: Part one

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    31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

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    Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

    ATLAS Run 1 searches for direct pair production of third-generation squarks at the Large Hadron Collider

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    Search for single production of vector-like quarks decaying into Wb in pp collisions at s=8\sqrt{s} = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

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    Measurement of the charge asymmetry in top-quark pair production in the lepton-plus-jets final state in pp collision data at s=8TeV\sqrt{s}=8\,\mathrm TeV{} with the ATLAS detector

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