Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Ketamine and Its Enantiomers on the Morphine- or Dexmedetomidine-induced Antinociception after Intrathecal Administration in Rats

Background The spinal administration of some N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonists results in antinociception and potentiates the effects of opioids and &agr;2-adrenoceptor agonists, but ketamine and its enantiomers have not been examined. The present study investigated the interactions of racemic ketamine, R (−)-ketamine and S (+)-ketamine with morphine and with dexmedetomidine. Methods Intrathecal catheters were implanted into male Wistar rats. Three days later, the acute nociceptive sensitivity was assessed using the tail-flick test. Analgesic latencies were converted to the percentage maximum possible effect. The dose that yielded 50% of the maximum possible effect (ED50) and dose–response and time–course curves were determined for the ketamines (30–300 &mgr;g), morphine (0.1–3.0 &mgr;g), dexmedetomidine (0.3–10.0 &mgr;g), and mixtures of two doses of ketamines (30 or 100 &mgr;g) with different doses of morphine or dexmedetomidine for fixed-dose analysis. Results Neither racemic ketamine nor its enantiomers alone had a significant effect on the tail-flick test, with the exception of the highest dose of racemic ketamine, which caused motor impairment. Morphine and dexmedetomidine each produced dose-dependent antinociception, with ED50 of 1.7 &mgr;g (95% confidence interval: 1.04–2.32) and 4.85 &mgr;g (3.96–5.79), respectively. A low dose (30 &mgr;g) of racemic ketamine or its enantiomers did not influence the ED50 of morphine significantly. Coadministration of 100 &mgr;g racemic ketamine or S (+)-ketamine, but not R (−)-ketamine, significantly enhanced and prolonged the antinociceptive effect of morphine. Both doses of racemic ketamine or its isomers significantly decreased the ED50 value for dexmedetomidine, although the higher dose of racemic or S (+)-ketamine had the highest potency. One-hundred micrograms of racemic ketamine or S (+)-ketamine also prolonged the effects of dexmedetomidine. Conclusions These data indicate that racemic ketamine and S (+)-ketamine, but not R (−)-ketamine, exhibit similar effectiveness in potentiating the antinociceptive effects of both morphine and dexmedetomidine.
Penicillin‐induced epileptiform activity in the hippocampal in vitro preparation

An in vitro preparation has been developed in which epileptogenesis in mammalian central nervous system tissue may be studied. Addition of sodium penicillin to the medium bathing slices of guinea pig hippocampus induced epileptiform activity similar to that seen in hippocampal penicillin foci in vivo. Epileptiform events were recorded as synchronous field potentials and correlated cellular bursts that ocurred spontaneously and could be triggered by orthodromic stimulation. Intracellular recordings revealed that bursts were generated from large depolarization shifts in some neurons, while in others, burst discharges had little underlying baseline depolarization. This finding, and the presence of fast prepotentials in penicillin‐treated preparations, suggested the involvement of dendritic activity in generation of epileptiform discharges.
Stretch and/or oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD) in an in vitro traumatic brain injury (TBI) model induces calcium alteration and inflammatory cascade

The blood-brain barrier (BBB), made up of endothelial cells of capillaries in the brain, maintains the microenvironment of the central nervous system. During ischemia and traumatic brain injury (TBI), cellular disruption leading to mechanical insult results to the BBB being compromised. Oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD) is the most commonly used in vitro model for ischemia. On the other hand, stretch injury is currently being used to model TBI in vitro. In this paper, the two methods are used alone or in combination, to assess their effects on cerebrovascular endothelial cells cEND in the presence or absence of astrocytic factors. Applying severe stretch and/or OGD to cEND cells in our experiments resulted to cell swelling and distortion. Damage to the cells induced release of lactate dehydrogenase enzyme (LDH) and nitric oxide (NO) into the cell culture medium. In addition, mRNA expression of inflammatory markers interleukin (I L)-6, IL-1α, chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 (CCL2) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α also increased. These events could lead to the opening of calcium ion channels resulting to excitotoxicity. This could be demonstrated by increased calcium level in OGD-subjected cEND cells incubated with astrocyte-conditioned medium. Furthermore, reduction of cell membrane integrity decreased tight junction proteins claudin-5 and occludin expression. In addition, permeability of the endothelial cell monolayer increased. Also, since cell damage requires an increased uptake of glucose, expression of glucose transporter glut1 was found to increase at the mRNA level after OGD. Overall, the effects of OGD on cEND cells appear to be more prominent than that of stretch with regards to TJ proteins, NO, glut1 expression, and calcium level. Astrocytes potentiate these effects on calcium level in cEND cells. Combining both methods to model TBI in vitro shows a promising improvement to currently available models.
Responses to nutrient starvation in Pseudomonas putida KT2442: two-dimensional electrophoretic analysis of starvation- and stress-induced proteins

The responses of Pseudomonas putida KT2442 to various forms of nutrient starvation and stress conditions were examined by two-dimensional polyacrylamide electrophoresis. Carbon deprivation resulted in a temporal expression of two classes of starvation-induced proteins: one class was transiently expressed during the initial phase of starvation, and the second class was expressed throughout the entire starvation period. Proteins of the second class could be further subdivided into proteins induced specifically under conditions of carbon starvation, proteins also induced by conditions of stress created by elevated temperature and osmolarity, and finally proteins that were also induced by conditions of nitrogen as well as phosphate starvation. Addition of glucose to a carbon-starved culture led to initiation of a recovery phase. During this phase, repression of starvation-induced proteins as well as induction of a new class of transiently expressed proteins, referred to as maturation proteins, took place.
Comparing and Evaluating epoll, select, and poll Event Mechanisms

This paper uses a high-performance, eventdriven, HTTP server (the server) to compare the performance of the select, poll, and epoll event mechanisms. We subject the server to a variety of workloads that allow us to expose the relative strengths and weaknesses of each event mechanism. Interestingly, initial results show that the select and poll event mechanisms perform comparably to the epoll event mechanism in the absence of idle connections. Profiling data shows a significant amount of time spent executing a large number of epoll_ctl system calls. As a result, we examine a variety of techniques for reducing epoll_ctl overhead including edge-triggered notification, and introducing a new system call (epoll_ctlv) that aggregates several epoll_ctl calls into a single call. Our experiments indicate that although these techniques are successful at reducing epoll_ctl overhead, they only improve performance slightly.
In vivo efflux of serotonin in the dorsal raphe nucleus of 5‐HT1A receptor knockout mice

In the dorsal raphe nucleus (DR), extracellular serotonin (5‐HT) regulates serotonergic transmission through 5‐HT1A autoreceptors. In this work we used in vivo microdialysis to examine the effects of stressful and pharmacological challenges on DR 5‐HT efflux in 5‐HT1A receptor knockout (5‐HT1A–/–) mice and their wild‐type counterparts (5‐HT1A+/+). Baseline 5‐HT concentrations did not differ between both lines of mice, which is consistent with a lack of tonic control of 5‐HT1A autoreceptors on DR 5‐HT release. (R)‐(+)‐8‐Hydroxy‐2‐(di‐n‐propylamino)tetralin hydrobromide (8‐OH‐DPAT, 0.5 mg/kg) reduced 5‐HT levels to 30% of basal values in 5‐HT1A+/+ mice, but not in 5‐HT1A–/– mice. The selective 5‐HT1B receptor agonist 1,4‐dihydro‐3‐(1,2,3,6‐tetrahydro‐4‐pyridinyl)‐5H‐pyrrolo[3,2‐b]pyridin‐5‐one dihydrochloride (CP 93129, 300 µm) reduced dialysate 5‐HT to the same extent (30–40% of baseline) in the two genotypes, which suggests a lack of compensatory changes in 5‐HT1B receptors in the DR of such mutant mice. Both a saline injection and handling for 3 min increased DR dialysate 5‐HT in mutants, but not in 5‐HT1A+/+ mice. Fluoxetine (5 and 20 mg/kg) elevated 5‐HT in a dose‐dependent manner in both genotypes. However, this effect was markedly more pronounced in the 5‐HT1A–/– mice. The increased responsiveness of the extracellular 5‐HT in the DR of 5‐HT1A receptor knockout mice reflects a lack of the autoinhibitory control exerted by 5‐HT1A autoreceptors.
Fast Explicit Diffusion for Accelerated Features in Nonlinear Scale Spaces

We propose a novel and fast multiscale feature detection and description approach that exploits the benefits of nonlinear scale spaces. Previous attempts to detect and describe features in nonlinear scale spaces such as KAZE [1] and BFSIFT [6] are highly time consuming due to the computational burden of creating the nonlinear scale space. In this paper we propose to use recent numerical schemes called Fast Explicit Diffusion (FED) [3, 4] embedded in a pyramidal framework to dramatically speed-up feature detection in nonlinear scale spaces. In addition, we introduce a Modified-Local Difference Binary (M-LDB) descriptor that is highly efficient, exploits gradient information from the nonlinear scale space, is scale and rotation invariant and has low storage requirements. Our features are called Accelerated-KAZE (A-KAZE) due to the dramatic speed-up introduced by FED schemes embedded in a pyramidal framework.
Telomere length in human white blood cells remains constant with age and is shorter in breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND Telomeres, which are TTAGGG repeats at the end of the eukaryotic chromosome, are essential for complete DNA replication. Telomere length has been reported to decrease in peripheral WBC, unlike the telomerase activity found in these cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether telomere length in WBC is indeed age dependent and could serve as a genetic marker in breast or ovarian cancer. METHODS Five age groups: 20-29; 30-39; 4049; 50-59 and > or = 60 years were examined. The cancer patients were 18 women with ovarian cancer and 18 women with breast cancer. Southern blot analysis of the DNA from peripheral white blood cells (WBC) was performed using 32P-labeled (TTAGGG)3 probe. Blots were scanned in a phosphoimager and analyzed by computer-assisted image analysis. RESULTS No statistically significant correlation was observed between telomere length and age in either healthy females or cancer patients. However, significantly shorter median telomere length was found in WBC obtained from breast cancer patients as compared to healthy individuals and ovarian cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS It is concluded that telomere length in WBC is not age dependent, but is significantly shorter in breast cancer patients.
What we know- and what we don't: Single and multiple perpetrator rape in South Africa

This article offers an analysis of 1 886 rape dockets opened at 70 police stations in Gauteng Province in 2003. Multiple perpetrator rape (‘gang rape’) constituted 16% of all cases. Most of these incidents started when the victim was outdoors, either alone or accompanied, and occurred in the open or in a public space. In contrast, single perpetrator rape mostly occurs in a home. A key finding was that fewer than 40% of victims of either single or multiple perpetrator rape indicated that they had verbally or physically resisted the attacker. Yet in most cases perpetrators were not armed. Further, an analysis of J88 forms showed many victims had no injuries other than genital or anal injury. Injuries to other parts of the body were only found in 27% of single and 35% of multiple perpetrator rape victims. Although most victims reported to the police within 72 hours of the rape, the arrest rate was low, particularly for multiple perpetrator rapes (39%). The study showed that there are very important differences between single perpetrator and multiple perpetrator rape. It also points to a mismatch between perpetrators’ accounts and police case reports, suggesting differences in under-reporting between these two types of rapes. Improvement of DNA testing and rape case arrests of multiple perpetrator rapes are matters of urgency, and reasons for differences in low arrest rates should be the next step in the examination of multiple rape cases.
Improving Children's Speech Recognition Through Out-of-Domain Data Augmentation

Children’s speech poses challenges to speech recognition due to strong age-dependent anatomical variations and a lack of large, publicly-available corpora. In this paper we explore data augmentation for children’s speech recognition using stochastic feature mapping (SFM) to transform out-of-domain adult data for both GMM-based and DNN-based acoustic models. We performed experiments on the English PF-STAR corpus, augmenting using WSJCAM0 and ABI. Our experimental results indicate that a DNN acoustic model for childrens speech can make use of adult data, and that out-of-domain SFM is more accurate than in-domain SFM.
Effects of MK-801 on the micturition reflex in the rat--possible sites of action.

The i.v. administration of MK-801 (dizocilpine), a noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, depresses reflex bladder contractions in the rat, suggesting that glutamatergic transmission may have an important role in the micturition reflex pathway. The site of action of MK-801 was analyzed in the present experiments by studying the effects of the drug in the following urethane-anesthetized preparations: 1) intact rats, 2) decerebrate rats, 3) chronic spinal rats with transection at the T6-T8 segment and 4) intact rats in which the drug was administered via an intrathecal (i.t.) catheter at the L6-S1 spinal cord segments. Reflex bladder activity was monitored by measuring intravesical pressure under isovolumetric conditions and during a cystometrogram where the bladder outlet was open and voiding occurred. MK-801 (0.001-3 mg/kg i.v.) administered to the intact rats produced a dose-dependent suppression of the amplitude of reflex bladder contractions recorded during a cystometrogram. The ED50 and dose to produce maximal inhibition were 0.36 mg/kg and 3 mg/kg i.v. , respectively. Doses of 0.3 to 1 mg/kg i.v. doubled the volume threshold for inducing micturition and decreased by 80% the voided volume in the intact rats. In decerebrate rats, reflex bladder contractions were also inhibited by MK-801 (ED50 = 0.055 mg/kg i.v.); however, in chronic spinal animals, even large doses of MK-801 (3-30 mg/kg i.v.) did not inhibit reflex bladder activity. MK-801 (6-78 micrograms) administered i.t. in the intact rats produced a dose-dependent suppression of the amplitude of reflex bladder contractions (ED50 = 13 micrograms). These results suggest that the inhibition of micturition reflex by MK-801 is mediated at least in part by an action on the lumbosacral spinal cord and is dependent on an intact pathway between the brain and spinal cord.
Nasal Smear Eosinophils and Allergic Rhinitis

Our aim was to find out the association between nasal smear eosinophil count and allergic rhinitis (AR) and to determine a cutoff value that is significant for a diagnosis of AR. We also wanted to determine whether this count is related to the predominant symptoms, duration, or type and severity of AR, or to the presence of coexisting asthma. We selected 100 patients with a clinical diagnosis of allergic rhinitis across all age groups and an equal number of age- and sex-matched controls for the study. Their nasal smear eosinophil counts were recorded in terms of the number of eosinophils per high-power field (HPF). All patients were then clinically assessed for asthma and underwent spirometry. The data were recorded and appropriate statistical analysis done. The difference in the mean eosinophil counts of patients with AR and controls was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.000). A nasal smear eosinophil count of >0.3 per HPF had a 100% specificity and a 100% positive predictive value for AR. Asthma was associated with allergic rhinitis in 40% of patients; an association was not found between nasal smear eosinophil count and the symptoms, duration, type, and severity of allergic rhinitis or coexistent asthma. We conclude that an eosinophil count of >0.3 per HPF in nasal smears is a highly specific criterion for the diagnosis of AR. However, nasal smear eosinophil counts are poor indicators of the degree, duration, or type of upper or associated lower airway inflammation due to allergy.
Epstein-Barr virus RNA. V. Viral RNA in a restringently infected, growth-transformed cell line

A continuous lymphoblastoid cell line, IB-4, was established by infection and growth transformation of normal neonatal B lymphocytes with the B95-8 isolate of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The IB-4 cells contained the intranuclear antigen, EBNA, but not early antigen, EA. The fragments produced by the digestion of intracellular episomal viral DNA (density, 1.700 to 1.720 g/cm3) with EcoRI restriction endonuclease were identical in size to the A, B, C, E, F, G, and H fragments of virion DNA. As expected from the previous observation that episomal intracellular DNA is circular, the fragment containing the rightward terminal sequences of EBV DNA in IB-4 cells was larger than the corresponding fragment of linear viral DNA, probably as a consequence of covalent linkage to the leftward terminal fragment. Also, two fragments, EcoRI-I and -J, which were adjacent to each other in the virion DNA, were absent from the intracellular DNA. The labeled EcoRI-J of viral DNA hybridized instead to a new fragment equal in size to EcoRI-I and -J combined. Analysis of viral RNA in IB-4 cells showed that RNAs encoded by more than 30% of the viral DNA comprised approximately 0.06% of the nuclear RNA, whereas RNAs encoded by 20% and 10% of the viral DNA comprised approximately 0.06% and 0.003% of the polyadenylated and polyribosomal RNAs, respectively. Viral mRNA (polyribosomal RNA) was encoded by DNA which mapped at 0.05 x 10(8) to 0.36 x 10(8) daltons and to a lesser extent by DNAs which mapped at 0.62 x 10(8) to 0.67 x 10(8), 0.70 x 10(8) to 0.73 x 10(8), and 1.13 x 10(8) to 1.15 x 10(8) daltons in the B95-8 genome. The most agundant nuclear viral RNAs were encoded primarily by DNA which mapped at the same loci; but RNAs encoded by many other fragments of viral DNA could also be detected among nuclear RNAs. Viral mRNA(s) (polyribosomal) was encoded by about 40% of the internal reiteration and by 25% of the BamHI-H fragments which mapped from 0.32 x 10(8) to 0.36 x 10(8) daltons, nuclear RNAs were encoded by at least 57% of the internal reiteration and 40% of BamHI-H. These data indicate that there is selective accumulation of some viral RNAs within the nucleus of IB-4 cells and that there is selective post-transcriptional processing of these RNAs. Finer mapping of the DNA which encodes mRNA (polyribosomal) in IB-4 cells indicated that some of this DNA is deleted in the DNA of the P3 HR-1 virus, the only isolate of EBV which cannot initiate growth transformation. These data, therefore, support the hypothesis that expression of this region of EBV genome is important for growth transformation or for the maintenance of restrigent infection.
The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community

made the case effectively. Discrimination has existed in the United States since the first school for the deaf was established in the early 19th century and existed in France for generations before that. However, Lane forfeits credibility by sensationalizing the situation and, even more grievous, by betraying his ideals through arrogant, paternalistic, and condescending behavior toward deaf people in general and deaf Africans in particular. His actions, as described in the book, betray a chilling mask of benevolence. Lane takes complex issues, such as assessment of cognitive and socialemotional adjustment of deaf people, educational placement, relationships between ASL and English, and the efficacy or danger of cochlear implants with young children, and in each case reduces the issue into superficial either/or, good/bad dichotomies. He does the same with individuals and even periods of time. For example, according to Lane, the period around the middle of the 19th century was almost a golden age for deaf Americans, and the present time is bad. Such generalizations are simply false. There were many positive aspects of life for deaf Americans in the 19th century, but there were also many terrible problems. There are many problems of discrimination and lack of access for present day deaf Americans, but there are also many positive aspects. By refusing to acknowledge this, Lane calls into question his sweeping, often undocumented, claims. The basic premise of this book is
Release of human cytomegalovirus from latency by a KAP1/TRIM28 phosphorylation switch

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a highly prevalent pathogen that induces life-long infections notably through the establishment of latency in hematopoietic stem cells (HSC). Bouts of reactivation are normally controlled by the immune system, but can be fatal in immuno-compromised individuals such as organ transplant recipients. Here, we reveal that HCMV latency in human CD34+ HSC reflects the recruitment on the viral genome of KAP1, a master co-repressor, together with HP1 and the SETDB1 histone methyltransferase, which results in transcriptional silencing. During lytic infection, KAP1 is still associated with the viral genome, but its heterochromatin-inducing activity is suppressed by mTOR-mediated phosphorylation. Correspondingly, HCMV can be forced out of latency by KAP1 knockdown or pharmacological induction of KAP1 phosphorylation, and this process can be potentiated by activating NFkB with TNF-α. These results suggest new approaches both to curtail CMV infection and to purge the virus from organ transplants. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.06068. 001
Increased expression of Id1 and Id3 promotes tumorigenicity by enhancing angiogenesis and suppressing apoptosis in small cell lung cancer

Constant deregulation of Id1 and Id3 has been implicated in a wide range of carcinomas. However, underlying molecular evidence for the joint role of Id1 and Id3 in the tumorigenicity of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is sparse. Investigating the biological significance of elevated expression in SCLC cells, we found that Id1 and Id3 co-suppression resulted in significant reduction of proliferation rate, invasiveness and anchorage-independent growth. Suppressing both Id1 and Id3 expression also greatly reduced the average size of tumors produced by transfectant cells when inoculated subcutaneously into nude mice. Further investigation revealed that suppressed expression of Id1 and Id3 was accompanied by decreased angiogenesis and increased apoptosis. Therefore, the SCLC tumorigenicity suppression effect of double knockdown of Id1 and Id3 may be regulated through pathways of apoptosis and angiogenesis.