Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation of factor VIIa values with factor VII gene polymorphism, fasting and postprandial triglyceride levels, and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND Factor VII plays a pivotal role in coagulation. Factor VIIc levels were reported to be a risk factor for fatal coronary heart disease (CHD). Factor VIIc and VIIag levels were noted to be positively associated with plasma triglyceride (TG) levels and influenced by a VII gene polymorphism. The purpose of this study is to determine whether these associations are related to activated factor VII (factor VIIa). METHODS AND RESULTS Fasting and 3.5-hour postprandial samples from 216 cases with subclinical atherosclerosis and 341 matched controls selected from the ARIC cohort were assayed for levels of factors VIIa, VIIc, and VIIag and TG, and factor VII codon 353 gene polymorphism. The level of factor VIIa was higher in Arg/Arg than in Arg/Gln+Gln/Gln genotypes, and the difference was in accord with that of factors VIIag and VIIc. However, the factor VIIa difference was statistically insignificant. Factor VIIa values were not correlated with fasting or 3.5-hour postprandial TG levels, nor were they associated with subclinical atherosclerosis. CONCLUSIONS Factor VIIa levels, like factor VIIag and VIIc levels, are influenced by factor VII gene codon 353 polymorphism. However, unlike factor VIIag or VIIc, factor VIIa is not influenced by TG levels; none of these is associated with subclinical atherosclerosis.
Distributed Variational Inference in Sparse Gaussian Process Regression and Latent Variable Models

Gaussian processes (GPs) are a powerful tool for probabilistic inference over functions. They have been applied to both regression and non-linear dimensionality reduction, and offer desirable properties such as uncertainty estimates, robustness to over-fitting, and principled ways for tuning hyper-parameters. However the scalability of these models to big datasets remains an active topic of research. We introduce a novel re-parametrisation of variational inference for sparse GP regression and latent variable models that allows for an efficient distributed algorithm. This is done by exploiting the decoupling of the data given the inducing points to re-formulate the evidence lower bound in a Map-Reduce setting. We show that the inference scales well with data and computational resources, while preserving a balanced distribution of the load among the nodes. We further demonstrate the utility in scaling Gaussian processes to big data. We show that GP performance improves with increasing amounts of data in regression (on flight data with 2 million records) and latent variable modelling (on MNIST). The results show that GPs perform better than many common models often used for big data.
Fine scale mapping in the sex locus region of the honey bee (Apis mellifera)

Isolating an unknown gene with fine‐scale mapping is possible in a ‘non‐model’ organism. Sex determination in honey bees consists of a single locus (sex locus) with several complementary alleles. Diploid females are heterozygous at the sex locus, whereas haploid males arise from unfertilized eggs and are hemizygous. The construction of specific inbred crosses facilitates fine scale mapping in the sex locus region of the honey bee. The high recombination rate in the honey bee reduces the physical distance between markers compared with model organisms and facilitates a novel gene isolation strategy based on step‐wise creation of new markers within small physical distances. We show that distances less than 25 kb can be efficiently mapped with a mapping population of only 1000 individuals. The procedure described here will accelerate the mapping, analysis and isolation of honey bee genes.
Deregulation of cyclin E in human cells interferes with prereplication complex assembly

Deregulation of cyclin E expression has been associated with a broad spectrum of human malignancies. Analysis of DNA replication in cells constitutively expressing cyclin E at levels similar to those observed in a subset of tumor-derived cell lines indicates that initiation of replication and possibly fork movement are severely impaired. Such cells show a specific defect in loading of initiator proteins Mcm4, Mcm7, and to a lesser degree, Mcm2 onto chromatin during telophase and early G1 when Mcm2–7 are normally recruited to license origins of replication. Because minichromosome maintenance complex proteins are thought to function as a heterohexamer, loading of Mcm2-, Mcm4-, and Mcm7-depleted complexes is likely to underlie the S phase defects observed in cyclin E–deregulated cells, consistent with a role for minichromosome maintenance complex proteins in initiation of replication and fork movement. Cyclin E–mediated impairment of DNA replication provides a potential mechanism for chromosome instability observed as a consequence of cyclin E deregulation.
Simultaneous Identification of 14 Genital Microorganisms in Urine by Use of a Multiplex PCR-Based Reverse Line Blot Assay

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a sensitive method for the simultaneous identification of 14 urogenital potential pathogens. A multiplex PCR-based reverse line blot (mPCR/RLB) assay was developed to detect 14 urogenital pathogens or putative pathogens, namely Trichomonas vaginalis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Chlamydia trachomatis, Ureaplasma parvum, U. urealyticum, Gardnerella vaginalis, Haemophilus influenzae, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) and HSV2, N. meningitidis, Mycoplasma hominis, M. genitalium, and adenovirus, using two species-specific primer pairs and probes for each. The method was validated using a reference strain or a well-characterized clinical isolate of each target organism and was found to be both sensitive and specific. The limits of detection for the mPCR/RLB assay varied among the 14 target organisms from 4.2 × 10−1 to 7.0 × 10−11 ng/μl of genomic DNA. There were no cross-reactions among any of the probes. This method was used to test 529 first-voided urine specimens from male patients with and without urethritis attending two Sydney sexual health clinics. One or more target species were detected in 193 (36%) subjects. Of 233 positive results, overall 216 (93%) were concordant between mPCR/RLB and a comparator method (culture and/or species-specific PCR), 9 were positive only by mPCR/RLB, and 8 were positive only by the comparator method. The mPCR/RLB method was an accurate, convenient, and inexpensive method for the detection of multiple potential pathogens in first-voided urine specimens from men.
Speculative Trading and Bubbles: Evidence from the Art Market

We argue that extrapolative expectations drive boom–bust cycles in the postwar art market. Price run-ups coincide with increases in demand fundamentals but are followed by predictable busts. Predictable changes account for about half of the variance of five-year price changes. High prices coincide with many attributes of speculative bubbles: trading volume, the share of short-term trades, the share of postwar art, and volatility are all higher during booms. In addition, short-term transactions underperform long-term transactions. Survey evidence further confirms the link between beliefs, prices, and volume dynamics as in models in which extrapolative beliefs fuel speculative bubbles. This paper was accepted by Tyler Shumway, finance.
The Scale of Emotional Arousability: bridging the gap between the neuroticism construct and its measurement

Synopsis This paper outlines and evaluates a newly developed measure of neuroticism, the Scale of Emotional Arousability (SEA). The 15-item scale is economical to use, avoids the consistent pattern of negatively worded items that plagues the neuroticism (N) Scale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and comprises of items that focus specifically on emotional arousability, thereby bringing the measurement of neuroticism in line with Eysenck&s (1967) original conceptualization. The SEA shows every indication of being psychometrically sound and correlates with related constructs in much the same way as the N Scale of the EPI. The SEA is recommended as an alternative to the EPI for research purposes, particularly where there is a need to measure independently such related constructs as neurosis, self-esteem and private self-consciousness.
Connectivity‐based whole brain dual parcellation by group ICA reveals tract structures and decreased connectivity in schizophrenia

Mapping brain connectivity based on neuroimaging data is a promising new tool for understanding brain structure and function. In this methods paper, we demonstrate that group independent component analysis (GICA) can be used to perform a dual parcellation of the brain based on its connectivity matrix (cmICA). This dual parcellation consists of a set of spatially independent source maps, and a corresponding set of paired dual maps that define the connectivity of each source map to the brain. These dual maps are called the connectivity profiles of the source maps. Traditional analysis of connectivity matrices has been used previously for brain parcellation, but the present method provides additional information on the connectivity of these segmented regions. In this paper, the whole brain structural connectivity matrices were calculated on a 5 mm3 voxel scale from diffusion imaging data based on the probabilistic tractography method. The effect of the choice of the number of components (30 and 100) and their stability were examined. This method generated a set of spatially independent components that are consistent with the canonical brain tracts provided by previous anatomic descriptions, with the high order model yielding finer segmentations. The corpus‐callosum example shows how this method leads to a robust parcellation of a brain structure based on its connectivity properties. We applied cmICA to study structural connectivity differences between a group of schizophrenia subjects and healthy controls. The connectivity profiles at both model orders showed similar regions with reduced connectivity in schizophrenia patients. These regions included forceps major, right inferior fronto‐occipital fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, thalamic radiation, and corticospinal tract. This paper provides a novel unsupervised data‐driven framework that summarizes the information in a large global connectivity matrix and tests for brain connectivity differences. It has the potential for capturing important brain changes related to disease in connectivity‐based disorders. Hum Brain Mapp 36:4681–4701, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Influence of Testosterone Metabolites on Song-Control System Neuroplasticity during Photostimulation in Adult European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

The song-control system is a network of discrete nuclei in the songbird brain that controls the production and learning of birdsong and exhibits some of the best-studied neuroplasticity found in the adult brain. Photoperiodic growth of the song-control system during the breeding season is driven, at least in part, by the gonadal steroid testosterone. When acting on neural tissue, however, testosterone can be metabolized into 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) or 17β-estradiol (E2), which activate different hormonal signaling pathways. By treating adult starlings with both testosterone metabolites and metabolite antagonists, we attempted to isolate the effects of androgen and estrogen treatment on neuroplasticity during photostimulation in male and female European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Photostimulation resulted in a large HVC volume typical of the breeding season in all treatments independent of hormone treatment. E2 had additional effects on HVC growth by reducing neuron density and enhancing early survival of new neurons recruited to HVC in females but did not significantly affect HVC volume. Conversely, DHT reduced the migration of new neurons, assessed by the expression of doublecortin, to HVC. DHT also increased syrinx mass and maintained RA (robust nucleus of the arcopallium) cytoarchitecture in the presence of aromatase inhibitors. In addition, we document the first evidence of sex-specific neuroplastic responses of the song-control system to androgens and estrogens. These findings suggest that the contributions of DHT and E2 signaling in songbird neuroplasticity may be regulated by photoperiod and that future studies should account for species and sex differences in the brain.
Avoiding the Enumeration of Infeasible Elementary Flux Modes by Including Transcriptional Regulatory Rules in the Enumeration Process Saves Computational Costs

Despite the significant progress made in recent years, the computation of the complete set of elementary flux modes of large or even genome-scale metabolic networks is still impossible. We introduce a novel approach to speed up the calculation of elementary flux modes by including transcriptional regulatory information into the analysis of metabolic networks. Taking into account gene regulation dramatically reduces the solution space and allows the presented algorithm to constantly eliminate biologically infeasible modes at an early stage of the computation procedure. Thereby, computational costs, such as runtime, memory usage, and disk space, are extremely reduced. Moreover, we show that the application of transcriptional rules identifies non-trivial system-wide effects on metabolism. Using the presented algorithm pushes the size of metabolic networks that can be studied by elementary flux modes to new and much higher limits without the loss of predictive quality. This makes unbiased, system-wide predictions in large scale metabolic networks possible without resorting to any optimization principle.
Endothelial Dysfunction and Elevation of S-Adenosylhomocysteine in Cystathionine &bgr;-Synthase–Deficient Mice

Hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with increased risk for cardiovascular events, but it is not certain whether it is a mediator of vascular dysfunction or a marker for another risk factor. Homocysteine levels are regulated by folate bioavailability and also by the methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and its metabolite S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH). We tested the hypotheses that endothelial dysfunction occurs in hyperhomocysteinemic mice in the absence of folate deficiency and that levels of SAM and SAH are altered in mice with dysfunction. Heterozygous cystathionine &bgr;-synthase–deficient (CBS+/−) and wild-type (CBS+/+) mice were fed a folate-replete, methionine-enriched diet. Plasma levels of total homocysteine were elevated in CBS+/− mice compared with CBS+/+ mice after 7 weeks (27.1±5.2 versus 8.8±1.1 &mgr;mol/L;P <0.001) and 15 weeks (23.9±3.0 versus 13.0±2.3 &mgr;mol/L;P <0.01). After 15 weeks, but not 7 weeks, relaxation of aortic rings to acetylcholine was selectively impaired by 35% (P <0.05) and thrombomodulin anticoagulant activity was decreased by 20% (P <0.05) in CBS+/− mice. Plasma levels of folate did not differ between groups. Levels of SAH were elevated ≈2-fold in liver and brain of CBS+/− mice, and correlations were observed between plasma total homocysteine and SAH in liver (r =0.54;P <0.001) and brain (r =0.67;P <0.001). These results indicate that endothelial dysfunction occurs in hyperhomocysteinemic mice even in the absence of folate deficiency. Endothelial dysfunction in CBS+/− mice was associated with increased tissue levels of SAH, which suggests that altered SAM-dependent methylation may contribute to vascular dysfunction in hyperhomocysteinemia.
Deficiency in Complement C1q Improves Histological and Functional Locomotor Outcome after Spinal Cord Injury

Although studies have suggested a role for the complement system in the pathophysiology of spinal cord injury (SCI), that role remains poorly defined. Additionally, the relative contribution of individual complement pathways in SCI is unknown. Our initial studies revealed that systemic complement activation was strongly influenced by genetic background and gender. Thus, to investigate the role of the classical complement pathway in contusion-induced SCI, male C1q knock-out (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice on a complement sufficient background (BUB) received a mild-moderate T9 contusion injury with the Infinite Horizon impactor. BUB C1q KO mice exhibited greater locomotor recovery compared with BUB WT mice (p < 0.05). Improved recovery observed in BUB C1q KO mice was also associated with decreased threshold for withdrawal from a mild stimulus using von Frey filament testing. Surprisingly, quantification of microglia/macrophages (F4/80) by FACS analysis showed that BUB C1q KO mice exhibited a significantly greater percentage of macrophages in the spinal cord compared with BUB WT mice 3 d post-injury (p < 0.05). However, this increased macrophage response appeared to be transient as stereological assessment of spinal cord tissue obtained 28 d post-injury revealed no difference in F4/80-positive cells between groups. Stereological assessment of spinal cord tissue showed that BUB C1q KO mice had reduced lesion volume and an increase in tissue sparing compared with BUB WT mice (p < 0.05). Together, these data suggest that initiation of the classical complement pathway via C1q is detrimental to recovery after SCI.
Development and Characterizations of Green Coupling Agent Coated Fly Ash Reinforced Recycled Polypropylene Matrix Composites

Two industrial wastes fly ash and polypropylene was used to develop novel composite materials. The fly ash (FA) particles were coated with stearic acid (SA) and palmitic acid (PA) in 1 wt% concentration. The surface coated fly ash particles were incorporated as filler in recycled polypropylene (RPP) matrix composites by melt mixing in 1:1 weight ratio. The composites were tested for their flexural properties, impact behaviour, dynamic mechanical properties and fracture surface analysis. Increase in flexural strength, modulus and impact strength was observed in the coated FA/RPP composites. 1wt % PA coated FA/RPP composites showed great increase in flexural strength. In 1 wt% SA treated FA/RPP (RFASA1) composites highest shift in glass transition to a higher temperature were found. Fracture surface analysis revealed efficient filler matrix interactions in the SA and PA treated FA/RPP composites. Thus, green, renewable, inexpensive chemicals like stearic and palmitic acid was found to be an effective coupling agent in FA/RPP composites.
Fatigue Damage Evaluation of Plain-Woven Carbon/Epoxy Composites by Using Thermo-Elastic Technique

In this paper, damage progression process of plain-woven carbon/epoxy composites was investigated under cyclic loading. Damage state, damage degree and its location were observed in the flat-wise direction of the specimen by using thermo-elastic stress analysis (TSA). The results of TSA showed that transverse cracks initiated and accumulated in the wefts at early fatigue stage. The each location, where the damage occurred, had different damage degree at any fatigue cycles. In order to obtain accurate damage information, thermo-elastic damage analysis (TDA) was conducted. A quantitative evaluation of damage accumulation level in plain-woven carbon/epoxy composites was proposed based on the concept of damage parameters (such as damage level, damage area ratio and damage value) given by TDA results.
An Authenticated Self-Healing Key Distribution Scheme Based on Bilinear Pairings

Self-healing key distribution mechanism can be utilized for distributing session keys over an unreliable network. A self-healing key distribution scheme using bilinear pairings is proposed in this paper. As far as we know, it is the first pairing-based authenticated self-healing key distribution scheme. The scheme achieves a number of excellent properties. Firstly, the users can check the integrity and correctness of the ciphertext before carrying out more complex key recovery operations thus fruitless work can be avoided. Secondly, the scheme is collusion-free for any coalition of non-authorized users. Thirdly, the private key has nothing to do with the number of revoked users and can be reused as long as it is not disclosed. Finally, the storage overhead for each user is a constant.
Staging of Dietary Patterns among African American Women

This article describes the development of a behavioral staging algorithm for use in the Eat Well, Live Well Nutrition Program, a peer-delivered community-based program for African American women (N = 301). The authors examined whether increased frequency in performing low-fat eating behaviors and lower percentage calories from fat intake resulted as a participant moved through five stages of readiness to change each of five low-fat dietary patterns. Frequency of performing low-fat dietary behaviors was significantly different (p < .05) between four stages for the pattern of avoid fried foods, three stages for modify meats, and two stages for the patterns of substitution, avoid fat as seasoning, replacement. Percentage calories from fat were significantly different (p < .05) between four stages for the pattern of replacement, three stages for avoid fried foods and modify meats, and two stages for substitution and avoid fat as seasoning. Implications of these findings for the tailoring of community-based dietary programs are presented.
Enhanced transdermal permeability of piroxicam through novel nanoemulgel formulation

Background: Piroxicam is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug belongs to BCS class II drugs having poor solubility and is associated with a number of undesirable side-effects on the stomach and kidneys in addition to gastric mucosal damage. Aim: The present work was to develop and characterize nanoemulgel formulation as transdermal delivery system for poorly water soluble drug, in order to overcome the troubles associated with its oral delivery and to circumvent the need of chemical penetration enhancers, which are responsible for causing skin irritation in transdermal drug delivery. Materials and Methods: Different nanoemulsion components (oil, surfactant and co-surfactant) were selected on the basis of solubility and emulsification ability. Pseudoternary phase diagrams were constructed using aqueous titration method to figure out the concentration range of components. Carbopol 934 was added as gel matrix to convert nanoemulsion into nanoemulgel. Drug loaded nanoemulsions and nanoemulgels were characterized for particle size, transmission electron microscopy, viscosity, conductivity, spreadability, rheological behavior, permeation studies using Wistar rat skin and stability studies. Transdermal permeation of piroxicam from nanoemulgels was determined by using Franz Diffusion cell. Results: The optimized nanoemulgel (BG6) contained 10% oleic acid as oil, 35% tween 80 and ethanol as surfactant co-surfactant mixture, 55% water, 0.5% drug and 0.5% w/w carbopol. The ex vivo permeation profile of optimized formulation was compared with nanoemulsion and marketed formulation (Feldene®). Nanoemulgel showed higher (P < 0.05) cumulative amount of drug permeated and flux and significantly less drug retained along with less lag time than marketed formulation. Conclusion: The results indicate that nanoemulgel formulation can be used as a feasible alternative to conventional formulations of piroxicam with advanced permeation characteristics for transdermal application.