Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hippocampal network connections account for differences in memory performance in the middle‐aged rhesus monkey

Recent neurophysiological and functional neuroimaging studies suggest that the memory decline found with normal aging is not solely due to regional disruptions in the hippocampus, but also is brought about by alterations in the functional coupling between the hippocampus and long‐distance neocortical regions. However, the anatomical basis for this functional “dyscoupling” has not been fully revealed. In this study, we applied a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging technique to noninvasively examine the large‐scale anatomical and functional hippocampal network of a group of middle aged rhesus monkeys. Using diffusion spectrum imaging, we have found that monkeys with lower memory performance had weaker structural white matter connections between the hippocampus and neocortical association areas. Resting state functional imaging revealed somewhat of an opposite result. Monkeys with low memory performance displayed elevated coupling strengths in the network between the hippocampus and the neocortical areas. Taken together with recent findings, this contradictory pattern may be the result of either underlying physiological burden or abnormal neuronal decoupling due to the structural alterations, which induce a neuronal compensation mechanism for the structural loss or interference on task related neuronal activation, respectively. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Functional characterization of the nitrogen permease regulator-like-2 candidate tumor suppressor gene in colorectal cancer cell lines

The nitrogen permease regulator-like-2 (NPRL2) gene is a candidate tumor suppressor gene, which has been identified in the 3p21.3 human chromosome region. Decreased expression levels of NPRL2 have been observed in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues, however, the function of NPRL2 in CRC progression remains to be fully elucidated. The present study investigated the biological characteristics of the HCT116 and HT29 CRC cell lines overexpressing exogenous NPRL2. NPRL2 recombinant lentiviral vectors were also constructed and transfected in the present study. Cell growth was determined using a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and a colony formation assay. The cell cycle and rate of apoptosis were assessed using flow cytometric analysis. Transwell assays were used to evaluate cell invasion. The protein expression of phosphorylated (p)-AKT and caspase 3, B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2) and Bcl-2-associated X protein apoptosis-associated genes, were detected using western blotting. The results revealed that NPRL2 overexpression inhibited cell growth, induced cell cycle G1 phase arrest, promoted apoptosis and inhibited invasion in the two human CRC cell lines. Furthermore, the protein expression levels of p-AKT and Bcl2 were significantly reduced in the NPRL2-transfected HCT116 and HT29 cells, compared with the mock-transfected group and control group, while the protein expression of caspase-3 was increased. Therefore, NPRL2 acted as a functional tumor suppressor in the CRC cell lines.
Being Homeless and Becoming Housed: The Interplay of Fateful Moments and Social Support in Neo-liberal Context

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of stories of adults who transitioned from being absolutely homeless to becoming housed. Participants’ stories are particularly salient for what they reveal about this transition in the midst of other challenges including substance use, criminalization, and violence, and within a neo-liberal social policy context. Through strategies of narrative analysis, two interconnected processes of becoming housed are discovered: (a) experiencing fateful moments; and (b) perceiving and creating social supports. The main conclusion is that fateful moments in individuals’ lives intersect with the push and pull of instrumental and expressive supports from family, community, and the state to culminate in an exit from absolute homelessness. The implications of these findings for understanding and responding to homelessness are also discussed.
Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis

Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to multiple factors including rising sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, and disease outbreaks. Over the last 30 years, White Band Disease (WBD) alone has killed up to 95% of the Caribbean`s dominant shallow-water corals—the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis and the elkhorn coral A. palmata. Both corals are now listed on the US Endangered Species Act, and while their recovery has been slow, recent transmission surveys indicate that more than 5% of staghorn corals are disease resistant. Here we compared transcriptome-wide gene expression between resistant and susceptible staghorn corals exposed to WBD using in situ transmission assays. We identified constitutive gene expression differences underlying disease resistance that are independent from the immune response associated with disease exposure. Genes involved in RNA interference-mediated gene silencing, including Argonaute were up-regulated in resistant corals, whereas heat shock proteins (HSPs) were down-regulated. Up-regulation of Argonaute proteins indicates that post-transcriptional gene silencing plays a key, but previously unsuspected role in coral immunity and disease resistance. Constitutive expression of HSPs has been linked to thermal resilience in other Acropora corals, suggesting that the down-regulation of HSPs in disease resistant staghorn corals may confer a dual benefit of thermal resilience.
Structural changes after transmitter release at the frog neuromuscular junction

The sequence of structural changes that occur during synaptic vesicle exocytosis was studied by quick-freezing muscles at different intervals after stimulating their nerves, in the presence of 4-aminopyridine to increase the number of transmitter quanta released by each stimulus. Vesicle openings began to appear at the active zones of the intramuscular nerves within 3-4 ms after a single stimulus. The concentration of these openings peaked at 5-6 ms, and then declined to zero 50-100 ms late. At the later times, vesicle openings tended to be larger. Left behind at the active zones, after the vesicle openings disappeared, were clusters of large intramembrane particles. The larger particles in these clusters were the same size as intramembrane particles in undischarged vesicles, and were slightly larger than the particles which form the rows delineating active zones. Because previous tracer work had shown that new vesicles do not pinch off from the plasma membrane at these early times, we concluded that the particle clusters originate from membranes of discharged vesicles which collapse into the plasmalemma after exocytosis. The rate of vesicle collapse appeared to be variable because different stages occurred simultaneously at most times after stimulation; this asynchrony was taken to indicate that the collapse of each exocytotic vesicle is slowed by previous nearby collapses. The ultimate fate of synaptic vesicle membrane after collapse appeared to be coalescence with the plasma membrane, as the clusters of particles gradually dispersed into surrounding areas during the first second after a stimulus. The membrane retrieval and recycling that reverse this exocytotic sequence have a slower onset, as has been described in previous reports.
Dysregulated Cytokine Production by Dendritic Cells Modulates B Cell Responses in the NZM2410 Mouse Model of Lupus

The breakdown in tolerance of autoreactive B cells in the lupus-prone NZM2410-derived B6.Sle1. Sle2.Sle3 (TC) mice results in the secretion of autoantibodies. TC dendritic cells (DCs) enhance B cell proliferation and antibody secretion in a cytokine-dependent manner. However, the specific cytokine milieu by which TC DCs activate B cells was not known. In this study, we compared TC and C57BL/6 (B6) control for the distribution of DC subsets and for their production of cytokines affecting B cell responses. We show that TC DCs enhanced B cell proliferation through the production of IL-6 and IFN-γ, while antibody secretion was only dependent on IL-6. Pre-disease TC mice showed an expanded PDCA1+ cells prior to disease onset that was localized to the marginal zone and further expanded with age. The presence of PDCA1+ cells in the marginal zone correlated with a Type I Interferon (IFN) signature in marginal zone B cells, and this response was higher in TC than B6 mice. In vivo administration of anti-chromatin immune complexes upregulated IL-6 and IFN-γ production by splenic DCs from TC but not B6 mice. The production of BAFF and APRIL was decreased upon TC DC stimulation both in vitro and in vivo, indicating that these B cell survival factors do not play a role in B cell modulation by TC DCs. Finally, TC B cells were defective at downregulating IL-6 expression in response to anti-inflammatory apoptotic cell exposure. Overall, these results show that the TC autoimmune genetic background induces the production of B cell-modulating inflammatory cytokines by DCs, which are regulated by the microenvironment as well as the interplay between DC.
Postembryonic Neurogenesis in the CNS of the Tobacco Hornworm , Manduca sexta . II . Hormonal Control of lmaginal Nest Cell Degeneration and Differentiation During Metamorphosis

The nervous system of an adult moth is comprised of retained larval neurons that are remodeled during metamorphosis and a set of new adult specific neurons. The new neurons arise from a stereotyped array of stem cells (neuroblasts) that divide during larval life to generate nests of up to 100 arrested postmitotic immature neurons, the imaginal nest (IN) cells. At the onset of metamorphosis, some of the IN cells die while the remainder differentiate into mature functional neurons. Metamorphosis in insects is regulated by 2 classes of hormones, the ecdysteroids and the juvenile hormones. The transition from larva to pupa requires the disappearance of juvenile hormones followed by 2 releases of ecdysteroids: a small “commitment peak” and a larger “prepupal peak. ” Through a series of endocrine manipulations, we demonstrate that the death and differentiation observed among the abdominal IN cells at metamorphosis are both influenced by these hormonal cues. If the abdomen was isolated from the hormonal sources in the anterior half of the larva before the onset of metamorphosis, death and differentiation of the IN cells were prevented. Infusion of ecdysteroids into such abdomens, to mimic the prepupal peak, resulted in the IN cells showing the same fate as seen in control animals during the early phases of metamorphosis. The response of the IN cells to the small commitment peak of ecdysteroids was heterogeneous. Exposure to this small peak of steroids caused some cells to become committed to resume their development, making them resistant to juvenile hormone application. For other cells within the same nest, final differentiation could still be blocked by juvenile hormones even after exposure to the commitment pulse. The proportion of cells within a nest that became committed by the small peak of ecdysteroids was lineage dependent.
Minimum mean squared error equalization using a priori information

A number of important advances have been made in the area of joint equalization and decoding of data transmitted over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. Turbo equalization is an iterative approach to this problem, in which a maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) equalizer and a MAP decoder exchange soft information in the form of prior probabilities over the transmitted symbols. A number of reduced-complexity methods for turbo equalization have been introduced in which MAP equalization is replaced with suboptimal, low-complexity approaches. We explore a number of low-complexity soft-input/soft-output (SISO) equalization algorithms based on the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion. This includes the extension of existing approaches to general signal constellations and the derivation of a novel approach requiring less complexity than the MMSE-optimal solution. All approaches are qualitatively analyzed by observing the mean-square error averaged over a sequence of equalized data. We show that for the turbo equalization application, the MMSE-based SISO equalizers perform well compared with a MAP equalizer while providing a tremendous complexity reduction.
Molecular Cloning of Genes Differentially Regulated by Tnf-a in Bovine Aortic Endothelial Cells, Fibroblasts and Smooth Muscle Cells

Ž. Objective: Tumor necrosis factor-a TNF-a is a pleiotropic cytokine binding to and thereby stimulating vascular cells. TNF-a mediated intermediate stimulation of vascular cells is believed to play a pivotal role in the development of arteriosclerosis. While extensive information has recently become available on gene induction by TNF-a, less is known about gene suppression by TNF-a in vascular cells. Endothelial cells are the first cell layer within the vessel wall interacting with circulating, cytokine releasing cells. Therefore, they were selected as target for these study. Methods: A differential screening approach has been used to isolate cDNAs Ž. whose abundance was suppressed by incubating bovine aortic endothelial cells BAEC for 6 h with 1 nM TNF-a. The gene expression of 6 isolated cDNAs after TNF-a was investigated by dot blots and nuclear run-on analysis in BAEC. The investigated genes were partially or completely sequenced. Differential expression after TNF-a stimulation of BAEC, bovine fibroblasts and vascular smooth Ž. muscle cells SMC was studied by Northern blots. RNA transcripts of the clone C7 in aortic aneurysms were examined by in situ hybridization. Results: 49 independent cDNAs were isolated by the differential screening approach and 6 clones were further analyzed. These genes were downregulated in a time and dose dependent manner in BAEC. Sequence analysis revealed that 3 cDNAs encoded Ž. Ž. Ž. previously unidentified genes C1, C5, C7 , while 3 encoded known genes: connective tissue growth factor CTGF; A1 , fibronectin A8 Ž. and the mitochondrial genome B1. A1 and B1 were suppressed in BAEC, fibroblasts and SMC, whereas A8, C1, C5 and C7 were not uniformly downregulated in the investigated cells. C7 RNA transcripts were exclusively induced in the endothelium of an uninflamed aortic aneurysm. The transcripts were undetectable in an inflamed aortic aneurysm and control vessels. Conclusions: Gene suppression is a prominent feature of the intermediate effect of TNF-a on endothelial cells. Differences in the expression of the tested genes in endothelial cells, fibroblasts and vascular smooth muscle cells open possibilities for the study of cellular interactions in the vascular wall in disease situations with high local TNF-a concentrations. q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Resolution Enhancement of Images Using DTCWT and NLM

Resolution enhancement (RE), a process of improving the quality of an image. Resolution enhancement is basically obtained by regaining high frequency contents of image. Without which the output will be a blurred image. In this paper a new approach in wavelet domain using dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) and nonlocal means (NLM) filter for RE of the images is implemented. An input image is decomposed by DT-CWT to obtain high-frequency sub bands. The high-frequency sub bands and the low-resolution (LR) input image will be interpolated using the bicubic interpolation in proposed work. The high frequency sub bands are passed through an NLM filter to reduce the artifacts generated by DT-CWT. The filtered high-frequency sub bands and the LR part of input image are added using inverse DTCWT for obtaining resolution-enhanced image. DT-CWT provides superior resolution and greater performance ratio because of its nearly shift invariant and directional selective properties. The results are compared in terms of PSNR, MSE for existing techniques. IndexTerms—DT-CWT, Bicubic interpolation, RE, NLM, PSNR I. INTRODUCTION
BIOSYNTHESIS OF COLLAGEN AND NON-COLLAGEN PROTEIN DURING DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHICK CORNEA

The relationship between the rates of increase of corneal protein fractions and incorporation of labeled precursors has been examined during embryonic and early posthatching development of the chick corneal stroma. Non-collagen protein increased gradually from 9 through 20 days of incubation. Collagen accumulated approximately logarithmically through the 19th day, the most rapid rate occurring between 13 and 20 days of incubation. The rates at which labeled amino acids are incorporated into collagen in vivo and in vitro undergo marked changes during the last week of embryonic development, corresponding closely to the rate of collagen accumulation in vivo; whereas incorporation into non-collagen protein changes much less markedly. Changes in the rate of incorporation of precursors into collagen are not due to changes in the rate of conversion of collagen from the soluble to insoluble form, or to changes in the endogenous amino acid pool size. Chick embryo corneal stroma collagen turns over very slowly, if at all. Non-collagen protein turns over more rapidly. An increase in cell number, as indicated by DNA content, does not account for the increased rate of collagen synthesis between the 9th and 16th day of incubation. It is concluded that the observed changes in collagen synthesis reflect changing activities in the individual cornea fibroblasts. These activities are comparable in the intact tissue in vivo and in isolated corneas in vitro.
Drop, Fail, Pass, Continue: Persistence in CS1 and Beyond in Traditional and Inverted Delivery

Much attention has been paid to the failure rate in CS1 and attrition between CS1 and CS2. In our study of 1236 CS1 students, we examine subgroups of students, to find out how characteristics such as prior experience and reason for taking the course influence who drops, fails, or passes, and who continues on to CS2. We also examine whether student characteristics influence outcomes differently in traditional vs. inverted offerings of the course. We find that more students in the inverted offering failed the midterm test, but those who failed were much more likely to either drop the course or recover and ultimately pass the course. While we find no difference between the offerings in the overall drop-fail-pass rates or in the percentage and types of students who go on to take CS2, there is a significant, widely felt, boost in exam grades in the inverted offering.
NPU-Based Image Compositing in a Distributed Visualization System

This paper describes the first use of a network processing unit (NPU) to perform hardware-based image composition in a distributed rendering system. The image composition step is a notorious bottleneck in a clustered rendering system. Furthermore, image compositing algorithms do not necessarily scale as data size and number of nodes increase. Previous researchers have addressed the composition problem via software and/or custom-built hardware. We used the heterogeneous multicore computation architecture of the Intel IXP28XX NPU, a fully programmable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology, to perform the image composition step. With this design, we have attained a nearly four-times performance increase over traditional software-based compositing methods, achieving sustained compositing rates of 22-28 fps on a 1.021times1. 024 image. This system is fully scalable with a negligible penalty in frame rate, is entirely COTS, and is flexible with regard to operating system, rendering software, graphics cards, and node architecture. The NPU-based compositor has the additional advantage of being a modular compositing component that is eminently suitable for integration into existing distributed software visualization packages.
Endogenous neural precursors influence grafted neural stem cells and contribute to neuroprotection in the parkinsonian rat

Neuroprotective and neurorescue effects after neural stem/precursor cell (NPC) transplantation have been reported, but the mechanisms underlying such phenomena are not well understood. Our recent findings in a rat Parkinson’s disease (PD) model indicate that transplantation of NPCs before a 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA) insult can result in nigrostriatal protection which is associated with endogenous NPC proliferation, migration and neurogenesis. Here, we sought to determine whether the observed endogenous NPC response (i) contributes to transplanted NPC‐mediated neuroprotection; and/or (ii) affects graft phenotype and function. Host Fischer 344 rats were administered the antimitotic agent cytosine‐β‐d‐arabinofuranoside (Ara‐C) to eliminate actively proliferating endogenous neural precursors before being transplanted with NPCs and treated with 6‐OHDA to induce nigrostriatal degeneration. Behavioral and histological analyses demonstrate that the neuroprotective response observed in NPC transplanted animals which had not received Ara‐C was significantly attenuated in animals which did receive pre‐transplant Ara‐C. Also, while grafts in Ara‐C‐treated animals showed no decrease in cell number, they exhibited significantly reduced expression of the neural stem cell regulators nestin and sonic hedgehog. In addition, inhibition of the endogenous NPC response resulted in an exaggerated host glial reaction. Overall, the study establishes for the first time that endogenous NPCs contribute to transplanted NPC‐mediated therapeutic effects by affecting both grafted and mature host cells in unique ways. Thus, both endogenous and transplanted NPCs are important in creating an environment suitable for neural protection and rescue, and harnessing their synergistic interaction may lead to the optimization of cell‐based therapies for PD.
Analysis of Rat Event Related Potentials in Frontal and Parietal Lobes as a Possible Neural Correlate of Attention in Passive Oddball and Active Go/No-Go Paradigms

2 Acknowledgements Thank you very much to: Mike Wiest for being my wonderful advisor on this project and helping me learn and grow throughout this process; Pat Carey and Val LePage for helping to maintain the health of our rats in the Animal Facility; My thesis committee members Bevil Conway, Sharon Gobes, and Connie Bauman for helping me make my project the best that it could be; The Dean's Office and the Neuroscience Program for allowing me to have the opportunity to do this research.
Enaction as a conceptual framework for developmental cognitive robotics

This paper provides an accessible introduction to the cognitive systems paradigm of enaction and shows how it forms a practical framework for robotic systems that can develop cognitive abilities. The principal idea of enaction is that a cognitive system develops it own understanding of the world around it through its interactions with the environment. Thus, enaction entails that the cognitive system operates autonomously and that it generates its own models of how the world works. A discussion of the five key elements of enaction - autonomy, embodiment, emergence, experience, and sense-making - leads to a core set of functional, organizational, and developmental requirements which are then used in the design of a cognitive architecture for the iCub humanoid robot.