Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnosis of dopa-responsive dystonia and other tetrahydrobiopterin disorders by the study of biopterin metabolism in fibroblasts.

BACKGROUND Dopa-responsive dystonia (DRD) and tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) defects are inherited disorders characterized by monoamine neurotransmitter deficiency with decreased activity of one of the BH4-metabolizing enzymes. The aim of the study was to determine the utility of cultured skin fibroblasts for the diagnosis of these diseases. METHODS Neopterin and biopterin production and GTP cyclohydrolase I (GTPCH) activity were measured in cytokine-stimulated fibroblasts; 6-pyruvoyltetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS), sepiapterin reductase (SR), and dihydropteridine reductase (DHPR) activities were measured in unstimulated fibroblasts. We examined 8 patients with DRD, 3 with autosomal recessive GTPCH deficiency, 7 with PTPS deficiency, 3 with DHPR deficiency, and 49 controls (35 fibroblast and 14 amniocyte samples). RESULTS Fibroblasts from patients with DRD and autosomal recessive GTPCH deficiency showed reduced GTPCH activity (15.4% and 30.7% of normal activity, respectively) compared with controls (P < 0.001). Neopterin production was very low and biopterin production was reduced in both disorders. PTPS- and DHPR-deficient cells showed no enzyme activities; in PTPS deficiency the pattern of pterin production was typical (neopterin, 334-734 pmol/mg; controls, 18-98 pmol/mg; biopterin, 0 pmol/mg; controls, 154-303 pmol/mg). Reference values of all enzyme activities and pterin production were measured in fibroblasts and also in amniocytes for prenatal diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS Cultured skin fibroblasts are a useful tool in the diagnosis of BH4 deficiencies. Intracellular neopterin and biopterin concentrations and GTPCH activity in cytokine-stimulated fibroblasts are particularly helpful in diagnosing patients with DRD.
Residual inhibition functions in relation to tinnitus spectra and auditory threshold shift

Conclusions: Psychoacoustic functions relating the depth and duration of tinnitus suppression (‘residual inhibition’) to the center frequency of band-passed noise masking sounds appear to span the region of hearing loss, as do psychoacoustic measurements of the tinnitus spectrum. The results (1) suggest that cortical map reorganization induced by hearing loss is not the principal source of the tinnitus sensation and (2) provide a necessary baseline for optimizing residual inhibition in individual cases. Objective: To measure residual inhibition functions and tinnitus spectra using sounds spanning the region of hearing loss. Materials and methods: Three subject-driven, computer-based tools were developed and applied to measure psychoacoustic properties of tinnitus and residual inhibition in 32 subjects with chronic tonal, ringing, or hissing tinnitus. Residual inhibition functions were measured with band-passed noise sounds varying in center frequency up to 12.0 kHz. Results: The depth and duration of residual inhibition increased with the center frequency of the band-passed noise stimuli. Near-elimination of tinnitus for up to 45 s was reported by 8/24 (33%) subjects at center frequencies above 3 kHz (these cases distributed across tinnitus types). Tinnitus spectra covered the region of hearing loss with no preponderance of frequencies near the audiometric edge of normal hearing.
Dual online inference for latent Dirichlet allocation

Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) provides an ecient tool to analyze very large text collections. In this paper, we discuss three novel contributions: (1) a proof for the tractability of the MAP estimation of topic mixtures under certain conditions that might t well with practices, even though the problem is known to be intractable in the worse case; (2) a provably fast algorithm (OFW) for inferring topic mixtures; (3) a dual online algorithm (DOLDA) for learning LDA at a large scale. We show that OFW converges to some local optima, but under certain conditions it can converge to global optima. The discussion of OFW is general and hence can be readily employed to accelerate the MAP estimation in a wide class of probabilistic models. From extensive experiments we nd that DOLDA can achieve signicantly better predictive performance and semantic quality, with lower runtime, than stochastic variational inference. Further, DOLDA enables us to easily analyze text streams or millions of documents.
Accelerated Kaczmarz Algorithms using History Information

The Kaczmarz algorithm is a well known iterative method for solving overdetermined linear systems. Its randomized version yields provably exponential convergence in expectation. In this paper, we propose two new methods to speed up the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm by utilizing the past estimates in the iterations. The first one utilize the past estimates to get a preconditioner. The second one combines the stochastic average gradient (SAG) method with the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm. It takes advantage of past gradients to improve the convergence speed. Numerical experiments indicate that the new algorithms can dramatically outperform the standard randomized Kaczmarz algorithm.
TNM Staging of Colorectal Cancer Should be Reconsidered According to Weighting of the T Stage

AbstractThe gradient monotonicity of existing tumor, node, metastases staging systems for colorectal cancer is unsatisfactory. Our proposed T-plus staging system strengthens weighting of the T stage. In this study, applicability of the T-plus staging system was verified with data of a Chinese colorectal cancer center.Records of 2080 nonmetastatic, advanced cancer patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery from 1985 to 2011 were reviewed for T, N stage pathology and follow-up information. Using overall and disease-specific survival data, the 7th edition tumor, node, metastases staging system and the T-plus staging system were compared for stage homogeneity and discrimination and gradient monotonicity.For gradient monotonicity, the T-plus staging system was superior for both colon and rectal cancer. With Kaplan–Meier survival curves, the T-plus staging system discriminated among different stages, and the corresponding survival was inversely associated with the stage. However, for the 7th edition tumor, node, metastases staging system, stage IIIa had a better prognosis than stage II for rectal cancer and stage I for colon cancer. For homogeneity within the same stage and discrimination between different stages, the 2 staging systems were similar for colorectal cancer, but the T-plus system was clearly better for colon cancer.The T-plus staging system provides good gradient monotonicity. For future colorectal cancer staging systems, we propose replacement of lymph node status as the criterion to discriminate colorectal cancer stage II and stage III with greater weighting of the T stage.
Mulberry Fruit Extract Protects against Memory Impairment and Hippocampal Damage in Animal Model of Vascular Dementia

Nowadays, the preventive strategy of vascular dementia, one of the challenge problems of elderly, has received attention due to the limitation of therapeutic efficacy. In this study, we aimed to determine the protective effect and possible mechanism of action of mulberry fruit extract on memory impairment and brain damage in animal model of vascular dementia. Male Wistar rats, weighing 300–350 g, were orally given mulberry extract at doses of 2, 10 and 50 mg/kg at a period of 7 days before and 21 days after the occlusion of right middle cerebral artery (Rt.MCAO). It was found that rats subjected to mulberry fruits plus Rt.MCAO showed the enhanced memory, the increased densities of neuron, cholinergic neuron, Bcl-2-immunopositive neuron together with the decreased oxidative stress in hippocampus. Taken all data together, the cognitive enhancing effect of mulberry fruit extract observed in this study might be partly associated with the increased cholinergic function and its neuroprotective effect in turn occurs partly via the decreased oxidative stress and apoptosis. Therefore, mulberry fruit is the potential natural cognitive enhancer and neuroprotectant. However, further researches are essential to elucidate the possible active ingredient.
Market segmentation on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange II

Given the reclassification of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) sector indices that occurred in March 2000, this paper updates the factor analytic procedure conducted by van Rensburg and Slaney (1997). It is found that the new Financial-Industrial (CI21) and Resources (CI11) indices may be used as observable proxies for the first two principal components extracted from the covariance matrix of JSE returns. Consequently, it is suggested that these indices replace the Industrial and All-Gold index in future applications of the two factor arbitrage pricing theory (APT) model. Prior research is extended by considering the implications of the dichotomy in the return generating processes underlying JSE financial-industrial and resource stocks for the estimation of security betas. It is mathematically demonstrated that this dichotomy implies that the cross-sectional correlation matrix of the market model? s residual errors is not diagonal. As a result, conventionally conducted market model regressions are characterised by the problem of omitted variable bias and downwardly biased t statistics. A remedial procedure is proposed, which may serve as a general correction for omitted variable bias in ordinary least squares regression analysis when using panel data. Finally, it is pointed out that the All-Share Index, conventionally employed as the market proxy in South African beta estimation, is not mean-variance efficient given the opportunity for offshore investment. This implies that the capital asset pricing model, as conventionally specified by South African academics does not hold on the JSE.
The Rise of the Chinese Consumer: Theory and Evidence

Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgements. Section 1: THEORY. 1. Top-Down Projections of Consumption Growth in China. 2. Drivers of and Constraints to China's Long-Run Economic Growth. 3. Near-Term Risks to Consumption Arising from China's Efforts to Combat Overheating. 4. China's Demographic Trends and Their Implications for Household Consumption. 5. Social and Cultural Influences on Consumption. 6. China's Growth Potential for Key Product Categories. Section 2: EVIDENCE. 7. Introducing the Proprietary China Consumer Survey. 8. General: Lifestyle, Income and Leverage. 9. Autos. 10. Beverages. 11. Electronic Goods. 12. Food Producers. 13. Food Retail. 14. Food Services. 15. Household and Personal Care. 16. Luxury Goods. 17. Telecom Equipment. 18. Tobacco. 19. Transport and Travel. Appendix A: PPP Convergence Model. Appendix B: Global Consumption Function. Appendix C: Methodology of Product Category Projection. Bibliography. Index.
Boundary layer formation in the transition from the Porous Media Equation to a Hele-Shaw flow

Let um(x, t) be the solution to the Porous Media Equation, ut = ∆u, in a domain Ω ⊂ R, with initial data um(x, 0) = f(x) and boundary data um(x, t) = g(x). Let vm ≡ um. We prove the convergence as m goes to infinity of the pair (um, vm) to a pair (u∞, v∞) which is a weak solution of the Hele-Shaw problem with boundary data v∞ = g and initial data u∞(x, 0) = f̃(x), where f̃(x) is the projection of the initial data f(x) into a ‘mesa’. We also prove the convergence of the positivity sets of the functions um to the positivity set of u∞. For large but finite m a boundary layer connecting the initial data f(x) and its projection f̃(x) appears. We analyze the convergence of solutions and positivity sets in this boundary layer by introducing a suitable time scale. All our results hold true also for the Cauchy problem (Ω = R, no boundary data).
Micro/Nanostructures and Mechanical Properties of Trabecular Bone in Ovariectomized Rats

Bone mechanical properties encompass both geometric and material factors, while the effects of estrogen deficiency on the material and structural characteristics of bone at micro- to nanoscales are still obscure. We performed a series of combined methodological experiments, including nanoindentation assessment of intrinsic material properties, atomic force microscopy (AFM) characterization of trabecular (Tb) nanostructure, and Tb microarchitecture and 2D BMD. At 15 weeks after surgery, we found significantly less Tb bone mineral density (BMD) at organ (−27%) and at tissue level (−12%), Tb bone volume fraction (−29%), Tb thickness (−14%), and Tb number (−17%) in ovariectomy (OVX) rats than in sham operated (SHAM) rats, while the structure model index (+91%) and Tb separation (+19%) became significantly greater. AFM images showed lower roughness Tb surfaces with loosely packed large nodular structures and less compacted interfibrillar space in OVX than in SHAM. However, no statistically significant changes were in the Tb intrinsic material properties—nanoindentation hardness, elastic modulus, and plastic deformation—nanoindentation depths, and residual areas. Therefore, estrogen deprivation results in a dramatic deterioration in Tb micro/nanoarchitectures, 3D volumetric BMD at both organ and tissue levels, and 2D BMD, but not in the nanomechanical properties of the trabeculae per se.
Serum MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers of AMD

Background Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a major cause of blindness worldwide. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) in serum have emerged as novel candidate biomarkers for many diseases. The aim of the present study was to identify a serum microRNA (miRNA) expression profile specific for dry and wet forms of AMD. Material/Methods Serum miRNA expression was first screened using TaqMan® Human MicroRNA Array A (Applied Biosystems). An extensive, self-validated, individual, quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) study was then performed on a cohort of 300 AMD patients (150 wet form and 150 dry form) and 200 controls. The Mann-Whitney U test and nonparametric Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were used for statistical analysis. Results miRNA expression analysis revealed increased expression of miR661 and miR3121 in serum of patients with dry AMD and miR4258, miR889, and Let7 in patients with wet form. Expression of analyzed miRNA was not observed or remained at low level in controls. Conclusions Differences in miRNA serum profile exist between patients with wet and dry form of AMD, which indicates miRNAs as potential biomarkers of AMD. Further studies should be performed to confirm its significance in clinical practice.
Interleukin-6 is required for a protective immune response to systemic Escherichia coli infection

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a multipotential cytokine detected in the serum of patients or experimental animals undergoing bacterial sepsis. To date, the role of IL-6 in gram-negative sepsis models has been controversial. We have used IL-6-deficient mice to investigate the role of IL-6 during virulent Escherichia coli infection and in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced mortality. In this report we describe an increased susceptibility of IL-6-deficient mice to E. coli infection in terms of mortality and accumulation of viable bacteria in tissues, indicating a protective role for IL-6 during the immune response against E. coli. In contrast, mortality rates of IL-6-deficient mice and control animals undergoing LPS-induced shock did not differ, indicating that IL-6 was inconsequential for survival in this model. Furthermore, we have shown that neutrophils were crucial for resistance to E. coli in normal mice. IL-6-deficient mice were unable to efficiently induce neutrophilia in the bloodstream immediately following challenge with E. coli, in contrast to a characteristic neutrophilia induced in control animals. Prophylactic treatment of the mutant animals with recombinant IL-6 protein reverted both the deficit of neutrophilia and the accumulation of bacteria in tissues. These data clarify the role of IL-6 as protective in virulent E. coli infection and suggest that the protective effect may be at least partially mediated through neutrophils.
Regulation of GacA in Pseudomonas chlororaphis Strains Shows a Niche Specificity

The GacS/GacA two-component system plays a central role in the regulation of a broad range of biological functions in many bacteria. In the biocontrol organism Pseudomonas chlororaphis, the Gac system has been shown to positively control quorum sensing, biofilm formation, and phenazine production, but has an overall negative impact on motility. These studies have been performed with strains originated from the rhizosphere predominantly. To investigate the level of conservation between the GacA regulation of biocontrol-related traits in P. chlororaphis isolates from different habitats, the studies presented here focused on the endophytic isolate G5 of P. chlororaphis subsp. aurantiaca. A gacA mutant deficient in the production of N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) and phenazine was isolated through transposon mutagenesis. Further phenotypic characterization revealed that in strain G5, similar to other P. chlororaphis strains, a gacA mutation caused inability to produce biocontrol factors such as phenazine, HCN and proteases responsible for antifungal activity, but overproduced siderophores. LC-MS/MS analysis revealed that AHL production was also practically abolished in this mutant. However, the wild type exhibited an extremely diverse AHL pattern which has never been identified in P. chlororaphis. In contrast to other isolates of this organism, GacA in strain G5 was shown to negatively regulate biofilm formation and oxidative stress response whilst positively regulating cell motility and biosynthesis of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). To gain a better understanding of the overall impact of GacA in G5, a comparative proteomic analysis was performed revealing that, in addition to some of the traits like phenazine mentioned above, GacA also negatively regulated lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and trehalose biosynthesis whilst having a positive impact on energy metabolism, an effect not previously described in P. chlororaphis. Consequently, GacA regulation shows a differential strain dependency which is likely to be in line with their niche of origin.
The effects of two equal-volume training protocols upon strength, body composition and salivary hormones in male rugby union players

This study examined the effects of two equal-volume resistance-training protocols upon strength, body composition and salivary hormones in male rugby union players. Using a crossover design, 24 male rugby players completed a 4-week full-body (FB) and split-body (SB) training protocol of equal volume during the competitive season. One repetition maximum (1RM) strength, body composition via skinfold measurements and salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) concentrations were assessed pre and post training. The FB and SB protocols improved upper (7.3% and 7.4%) and lower body 1RM strength (7.4% and 5.4%), whilst reducing body fat (-0.9% and -0.4%) and fat mass (-5.7% and -2.1%), respectively (all p ≤ 0.021). The SB protocol elevated T (21%) and C (50%) concentrations with a higher T/C ratio (28%) after FB training (all p ≤ 0.039). The strength changes were similar, but the body composition and hormonal results differed by protocol. Slope testing on the individual responses identified positive associations (p ≤ 0.05) between T and C concentrations and absolute 1RM strength in stronger (squat 1RM = 150.5 kg), but not weaker (squat 1RM = 117.4 kg), men. A short window of training involving FB or SB protocols can improve strength and body composition in rugby players. The similar strength gains highlight training volume as a key adaptive stimulus, although the programme structure (i.e. FB or SB) did influence the body composition and hormonal outcomes. It also appears that 1RM strength is associated with individual hormonal changes and baseline strength.
The potential growth impact of structural reforms in the EU. A benchmarking exercise

This paper presents a quantitative model-based assessment of the potential impact of structural reforms in the EU Member States. By comparing structural indicators of labour and product markets, a gap is defined for each indicator relative to the 3 best performers. Scenarios are then simulated in which half the gap vis-a-vis best performance is closed, to avoid setting unrealistic and/or unattainable targets. The simulations show large potential gains in output and employment, raising EU GDP by 3 % after five years and 6% after ten years. While competitiveness gains are smaller under simultaneous reforms, higher demand effects help to support growth in trading partners.
Gravity Model Applications and Macroeconomic Perspectives

This dissertation was prepared by Jasmin Groschl and is a collection of five self-contained empirical essays. They aim at contributing to the understanding of non-standard determinants of trade and migration: historical and cultural characteristics in the United States (Chapter 1), policy-induced regulations in agricultural and food products (Chapter 2), and natural disasters (Chapter 3); and how international integration of countries shapes economic growth and helps to contain the costs of natural disasters: trade openness and income per capita (Chapter 4), and natural disasters, international integration, and economic growth (Chapter 5).
Drivers of Candidates' Social Media Popularity in the 2014 European Parliamentary Elections in Greece

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the main antecedents of candidates' popularity on social media. Herein, social media popularity was measured based on the number of Facebook page likes, Twitter followers, and YouTube video views. Our analysis focuses on candidates from Greece who run for the 2014 European Parliamentary elections. Results suggest Greek candidates' popularity on Facebook is driven by the party affiliation and the incumbency status of the candidates, with incumbents and candidates from the winning party attracting more Facebook supporters.