Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MicroRNA-27b regulates the expression of matrix metalloproteinase 13 in human osteoarthritis chondrocytes.

OBJECTIVE Aberrant posttranscriptional regulation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) by microRNA has emerged as an important factor in human diseases. The aim of this study was to determine whether the expression of MMP-13 in human osteoarthritis (OA) chondrocytes is regulated by microRNA. METHODS Chondrocytes were stimulated with interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) in vitro. Total RNA was prepared using TRIzol reagent. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based arrays were used to determine the expression profile of 352 human microRNA. Gene expression was quantified using TaqMan assays, and microRNA targets were identified using bioinformatics. Transfection with reporter construct and microRNA mimic was used to verify suppression of target messenger RNA (mRNA). Gene expression of argonaute and Dicer was determined by reverse transcription-PCR, and expression of protein was determined by immunoblotting. The role of activated MAP kinases (MAPKs) and NF-kappaB was evaluated using specific inhibitors. RESULTS In IL-1beta-stimulated OA chondrocytes, 42 microRNA were down-regulated, 2 microRNA were up-regulated, and the expression of 308 microRNA remained unchanged. In silico analysis identified a sequence in the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) of MMP-13 mRNA complementary to the seed sequence of microRNA-27b (miR-27b). Increased expression of MMP-13 correlated with down-regulation of miR-27b. Overexpression of miR-27b suppressed the activity of a reporter construct containing the 3'-UTR of human MMP-13 mRNA and inhibited the IL-1beta-induced expression of MMP-13 protein in chondrocytes. NF-kappaB and MAPK activation down-regulated the expression of miR-27b. CONCLUSION Our data demonstrated the expression of miR-27b in both normal and OA chondrocytes. Furthermore, IL-1beta-induced activation of signal transduction pathways associated with the expression of MMP-13 down-regulated the expression of miR-27b. Thus, miR-27b may play a role in regulating the expression of MMP-13 in human chondrocytes.
Sex differences and IQ

Of all the controversial issues surrounding IQ tests, few have generated more heat and less light than the question whether different groups in our society differ in average IQ. Those who study, and find evidence of, such differences believe that they are addressing a legitimate scientific issue and one whose implications, however unpalatable they may be, society ignores at its peril. Their critics insist that the question has no intrinsic scientific interest whatsoever, and conclude that those who study it are either naive, deceiving themselves or only too happy to find justification for their own comfortable position within an unjust and unequal society. In the case of sex differences in IQ scores, at least, one could argue that both sides have got it largely wrong. With one exception, there is relatively little social or political implication in such differences as there are. More importantly, however, arguments will be presented against the critics' view that such research is of no intrinsic scientific interest. On the contrary, it has already helped to answer some important scientific questions about the nature of IQ, and has the potential to answer more. Unfortunately, those who engage in such research have usually failed to see this.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute Learning to Export from Neighbors

This paper studies how learning from neighboring firms affects new exporters' performance. We develop a statistical decision model in which a firm updates its prior belief about demand in a foreign market based on several factors, including the number of neighbors currently selling there, the level and heterogeneity of their export sales, and the firm's own prior knowledge about the market. A positive signal about demand inferred from neighbors' export performance raises the firm's probability of entry and initial sales in the market but, conditional on survival, lowers its post-entry growth. These learning effects are stronger when there are more neighbors to learn from or when the firm is less familiar with the market. We find supporting evidence for the main predictions of the model from transaction-level data for all Chinese exporters from 2000 to 2006. Our findings are robust to controlling for firms' supply shocks, countries' demand shocks, and city-country fixed effects. and participants at various seminars and conferences for insightful comments and suggestions. The views in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.
A Parallel Geometric Multigrid Method for Finite Elements on Octree Meshes

In this article, we present a parallel geometric multigrid algorithm for solving variable-coefficient elliptic partial differential equations on the unit box (with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions) using highly nonuniform, octree-based, conforming finite element discretizations. Our octrees are 2:1 balanced, that is, we allow no more than one octree-level difference between octants that share a face, edge, or vertex. We describe a parallel algorithm whose input is an arbitrary 2:1 balanced fine-grid octree and whose output is a set of coarser 2:1 balanced octrees that are used in the multigrid scheme. Also, we derive matrix-free schemes for the discretized finite element operators and the intergrid transfer operations. The overall scheme is second-order accurate for sufficiently smooth right-hand sides and material properties; its complexity for nearly uniform trees is $\mathcal{O}(\frac{N}{n_p}\log\frac{N}{n_p})+\mathcal{O}(n_p\log n_p)$, where $N$ is the number of octree nodes and $n_p$ is the number of processors. Our implementation uses the Message Passing Interface standard. We present numerical experiments for the Laplace and Navier (linear elasticity) operators that demonstrate the scalability of our method. Our largest run was a highly nonuniform, 8-billion-unknown, elasticity calculation using 32,000 processors on the Teragrid system, “Ranger,” at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Our implementation is publically available in the Dendro library, which is built on top of the PETSc library from Argonne National Laboratory.
Human Memory Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte (CTL) Responses to Hantaan Virus Infection: Identification of Virus-Specific and Cross-Reactive CD8+ CTL Epitopes on Nucleocapsid Protein

ABSTRACT Hantaan virus, the prototypic member of the Hantavirusgenus, causes hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in humans. We examined the human memory T-lymphocyte responses of three donors who had previous laboratory-acquired infections with Hantaan virus. We demonstrated virus-specific responses in bulk cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from all donors. Bulk T-cell responses were directed against either Hantaan virus nucleocapsid (N) or G1 protein, and these responses varied between donors. We established both CD4+ and CD8+ N-specific cell lines from two donors and CD4+ G1-specific cell lines from a third donor. All CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) lines recognized one of two epitopes on the nucleocapsid protein: one epitope spanning amino acids 12 to 20 and the other spanning amino acids 421 to 429. The CTL lines specific for amino acids 12 to 20 were restricted by HLA B51, and those specific for amino acids 421 to 429 were restricted by HLA A1. The N-specific CTL lines isolated from these two donors included both Hantaan virus-specific CTLs and hantavirus cross-reactive CTLs. Responses to both epitopes are detectable in short-term bulk cultures of PBMC from one donor, and precursor frequency analysis confirms that CTLs specific for these epitopes are present at relatively high precursor frequencies in the peripheral T-cell pool. These data suggest that infection with Hantaan virus results in the generation of CTL to limited epitopes on the nucleocapsid protein and that infection also results in the generation of cross-reactive T-cell responses to distantly related hantaviruses which cause the distinct hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. This is the first demonstration of human T-lymphocyte responses to Hantaan virus.
Anxiety sensitivity and illicit sedative use among opiate-dependent women and men

Objectives: Research has suggested that individuals with elevated anxiety sensitivity (AS) (the fear of benign bodily sensations associated with anxiety) are more likely to use substances to cope with distress, particularly substances with arousal-dampening effects such as benzodiazepines and other sedatives. Such coping motives may also vary as a function of gender, with women more likely to use substances for coping (self-medicating) purposes. Given these findings, we hypothesized that AS would be associated with illicit sedative use in an opioid-dependent sample and that gender would moderate this relationship, with a greater association among women. Method: Participants were 68 opioid-dependent patients recruited from a methadone maintenance clinic. A logistic regression was used to determine whether AS was associated with presence or absence of a history of illicit sedative use. Results: AS was significantly associated with sedative use and this relationship was moderated by gender; elevated AS was associated with greater sedative use only in women. Conclusion: The presence of elevated AS is related to greater illicit use of sedatives in women but not in men. Women may be more susceptible to seek sedatives as a means of coping with unpleasant, anxious sensations.
F2-Isoprostanes

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most prevalent and curable cancer among children and adolescents less than 15 years of age in the United States. Essential for cure of childhood ALL is prophylactic treatment of the central nervous system (CNS), with methotrexate (MTX) being the most widely used drug in this treatment. While CNS treatment has contributed to long-term disease-free survival, resulting declines in academic abilities have been reported. There is growing evidence that CNS treatment with MTX increases oxidative stress, a potential mechanism of CNS injury. This article reports changes in oxidative stress, measured by the biomarker F2-isoprostane (F2-IsoP), in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in 47 children with ALL during the first 18 months of treatment. The number of CSF samples ranged from 5 to 14 during postinduction and from 1 to 9 during continuation. Total doses of intrathecal MTX during postinduction were significantly correlated with the mean and highest concentrations of F2-IsoP during postinduction and the mean concentration of F2-IsoP during continuation. F2-IsoP concentrations during postinduction and continuation were higher in children who received more than six doses of intrathecal MTX. New therapies for a highly curable disease such as childhood leukemia have the potential to be individualized in the future, requiring reliable molecular and biochemical markers, such as oxidative stress indicators. Innovative use of biomarkers has the potential to increase our understanding of treatment-related toxicities and associated symptoms and to inform future therapeutic approaches for optimizing cure and quality of life among children with leukemia.
Quantitative assessment of lung cancer associated with genes methylation in the peripheral blood

ABSTRACT Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide due mainly to late diagnosis and poor prognosis. Aberrant promoter methylation is an important mechanism for silencing of tumor suppressor genes during carcinogenesis and a promising tool for the development of molecular biomarkers. Methods: We evaluated the p16, RASSF1A, and FHIT genes promoter methylation status in peripheral blood DNA between 200 lung cancer patients and 200 normal controls by using SYBR green-based quantitative methylation-specific PCR (qMSP). Results: There were statistically significant differences in the methylation status of p16, RASSF1A, and FHIT between the cancer cases and controls (p16: P = .008, RASSF1A: P = .038, FHIT: P = .002). When the subjects were categorized into quartiles based on the genes methylation status, the risk of lung cancer was found to increase as methylation status increased (p16: Ptrend = .002, RASSF1A: Ptrend = .014, FHIT: Ptrend = .001). When the median of methylation status was used as the cutoff between high and low methylation status, individuals with high methylation status were at a significantly higher risk of lung cancer than those with low methylation status (p16: adjusted odds ratio = 1.597, P = .028; RASSF1A: adjusted odds ratio = 1.551, P = .039; FHIT: adjusted odds ratio = 1.763, P = .008). In addition, there were no significant correlations between p16, RASSF1A, or FHIT methylation status and gender (P > .05), age (P > .05), smoking history (P > .05), histological type (P > .05), or clinical stage (P > .05). Conclusions: These results suggest that the high methylation statuses of p16, RASSF1A, or FHIT genes were associated with a significantly increased risk of lung cancer; the risk of lung cancer increased as the methylation status increased. Further investigation of their definitive usefulness in clinical practice is warranted.
A Low-Power Capacitive Charge Pump Based Pipelined ADC

A low-power pipelined ADC topology is presented which uses capacitive charge pumps, source-followers, and digital calibration to eliminate the need for power-hungry opamps to achieve good linearity in a pipelined ADC. The differential charge pump technique achieves >10-bit linearity, and does not require an explicit common-mode-feedback circuit. The ADC was designed to operate at 50 MS/s in a 1.8 V, 0.18 ¿m CMOS process, where measured results show the peak SNDR and SFDR of the ADC to be 58.2 dB (9.4 ENOB), and 66 dB respectively. The ADC consumes 3.9 mW for all active circuitry and 6 mW for all clocking and digital circuits.
Epilepsy in children with trisomy 18

Although the reported incidence of epilepsy associated with trisomy 18 is 25–50%, there have been no detailed descriptions of the characteristics of trisomy 18‐related epilepsy. We investigated the characteristics of epilepsy in children with trisomy 18 who remained alive for over 1 year by sending questionnaires to pediatric neurologists belonging to the Kyoto Multi‐institutional Study Group of Pediatric Neurology. Eleven patients with trisomy 18 were enrolled (age at the study, from 15 to 134 months; median, 43 months), of whom seven (64%) had epilepsy. The age at seizure onset ranged from 1 to 42 months (median: 11 months). Among the seven patients with epilepsy, two had focal epilepsy, four had generalized epilepsy including infantile spasms in three, and the remaining one had an unclassified type. Seizure seminology included complex partial seizures in both the patients with focal epilepsy. At the time of the investigation, three children with generalized epilepsy still had daily seizures, while the remaining four were seizure‐free. In conclusion, the characteristics of epilepsy in patients with trisomy 18 were as follows: over half of the children developed epilepsy during infancy or early childhood; infantile spasms might be one of the common epileptic syndromes; the epilepsy was intractable in half of the children, especially in those with generalized epilepsy. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
MYB36 regulates the transition from proliferation to differentiation in the Arabidopsis root

Significance The process by which cells differentiate is central to multicellular development and cancer. Dramatic gene expression changes mediate this complex process, which involves the termination of proliferation and the acquisition of distinct cell-specific features. We identified a transcription factor, MYB DOMAIN PROTEIN 36 (MYB36), that regulates this developmental transition in the Arabidopsis thaliana root endodermis. Differentiated endodermis forms a protective waxy barrier called the Casparian strip. We found that MYB36 activates genes involved in Casparian strip formation and represses genes involved in proliferation. Our results suggest that MYB36 is a critical regulator of developmental timing in the root endodermis. Stem cells are defined by their ability to self-renew and produce daughter cells that proliferate and mature. These maturing cells transition from a proliferative state to a terminal state through the process of differentiation. In the Arabidopsis thaliana root the transcription factors SCARECROW and SHORTROOT regulate specification of the bipotent stem cell that gives rise to cortical and endodermal progenitors. Subsequent progenitor proliferation and differentiation generate mature endodermis, marked by the Casparian strip, a cell-wall modification that prevents ion diffusion into and out of the vasculature. We identified a transcription factor, MYB DOMAIN PROTEIN 36 (MYB36), that regulates the transition from proliferation to differentiation in the endodermis. We show that SCARECROW directly activates MYB36 expression, and that MYB36 likely acts in a feed-forward loop to regulate essential Casparian strip formation genes. We show that myb36 mutants have delayed and defective barrier formation as well as extra divisions in the meristem. Our results demonstrate that MYB36 is a critical positive regulator of differentiation and negative regulator of cell proliferation.
The Equalitarian Dogma

Up to World War I, it is probable that American scientists who gave the matter any thought at all believed the Negro race to be natively less gifted than the white. Thus, the Negro was generally considered to be less intelligent and more indolent than the white, and to be somewhat lacking in the fundamental traits of honesty and reliability. This judgment was concurred in by most white Americans. Social scientists today do not often accept these onetime common-sense judgments. Instead, they hold that racial differences are skin deep: that whereas the black African differs from the white European in the breadth and depth of his civilization, there are no genetic or native factors to account for these differences; that all races are potentially equal in ability and differ only in their opportunity to achieve. Usually the social scientist will include motivation as a cause of racial differences, together with discrimination and prejudice. This view that, except for environmental differences, all races are potentially equal has been called the equalitarian dogma.1 It has spread through many of our colleges and universities and is widely accepted by sincere humanitarians, social reformers, crusaders, sentimentalists, and (ostensibly) politicians. Many ministers of religion, convinced that the concept of the "equality ofman" is in keeping with the ideals of Christian brotherhood and democracy, have joined the social scientists. Last, but by no means least, the Communists vigorously defend the equalitarian dogma. Only the man in the street, uninstructed in social anthropology, remains puzzled and reluctant.
Doing it for themselves.

It's not often costs can be cut and p e r f o r m a n c e i m p r o v e d at the same time. But that's exactly what Northern Petrochemical Co. did with the weed control program at its 1,500acre plant site, which borders the Illinois River near Morris, 111. 44 About 75 acres of the total acres is bare ground subject to weed growth," says maintenance supervisor Perry Paulson. "Some of that is open area, and some is around buildings and storage facilities. We have broadleaf weeds, grasses and vines. They're unsightly as well as a fire hazard. " Northern Pe t rochemica l , which began operating at the Morris location in 1968 and has been expanding ever since, has tried a number of weed control programs. In recent years, its maintenance staff used hand-operated mechanical weed trimmers around buildings and storage areas, while the firm hired a commercial applicator to spray the open acreage. Neither was satisfactory, say company officials. M a i n t e n a n c e m a n a g e r B e r n i e Sandner explains that the company spent $5,000 for weed trimmers, and
Contribution of Residual Renal Function on Peritoneal Solute Transport in Dialysis Patients

Background: Increased peritoneal solute transport rate (PSTR) is primarily a consequence of continuous exposure to bioincompatible glucose-based peritoneal dialysis (PD) solutions. However, relationships between increasing PSTR and dialysate glucose load remain unclear. As some PD patients with preserved residual renal function do not show increased PSTR despite long-term PD, we examined whether loss of residual renal function is associated with increased PSTR on long-term PD. Methods: We evaluated 35 patients who started PD between 1997 and 2002 and received continuous PD treatment for >6 years. Data included baseline clinical data, residual renal function, urea and creatinine clearance, dialysate glucose load, ultrafiltration, and the use of icodextrin and renin-angiotensin system inhibitors. Peritoneal equilibration test results and data were collected annually for 6 years. Results: Both the glomerular filtration rate and urine volume at 6 years on PD showed significant negative correlations with the dialysate-to-plasma creatinine ratio (D/P Cr) at 6 years (r = –0.716 and r = –0.717, respectively). Multivariate analysis showed only urine volume at 6 years on PD as an independent covariate of the D/P Cr at 6 years on PD. Conclusions: Loss of residual renal function is directly associated with increased PSTR in patients on long-term PD.
Inquiry Based Science Supported by Technology: Achievement among Urban Middle School Students.

Inquiry is an essential component of science. NRC (1996) argues that inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science. Teachers focus inquiry predominantly on real phenomena, in classrooms, outdoors, or in laboratory settings, where students are given investigations or guided toward fashioning investigations that are demanding but within their capabilities. Technology can play a central role in implementing those standards. The new computational and communications technologies afford students an opportunity to engage in serious inquiry.
Cortical alpha oscillations as a tool for auditory selective inhibition

Listening to speech is often demanding because of signal degradations and the presence of distracting sounds (i.e., “noise”). The question how the brain achieves the task of extracting only relevant information from the mixture of sounds reaching the ear (i.e., “cocktail party problem”) is still open. In analogy to recent findings in vision, we propose cortical alpha (~10 Hz) oscillations measurable using M/EEG as a pivotal mechanism to selectively inhibit the processing of noise to improve auditory selective attention to task-relevant signals. We review initial evidence of enhanced alpha activity in selective listening tasks, suggesting a significant role of alpha-modulated noise suppression in speech. We discuss the importance of dissociating between noise interference in the auditory periphery (i.e., energetic masking) and noise interference with more central cognitive aspects of speech processing (i.e., informational masking). Finally, we point out the adverse effects of age-related hearing loss and/or cognitive decline on auditory selective inhibition. With this perspective article, we set the stage for future studies on the inhibitory role of alpha oscillations for speech processing in challenging listening situations.