Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of a bicistronic retroviral vector composed of the swine vesicular disease virus internal ribosome entry site

We cloned the 5' nontranslated region (NTR) from the genome of swine vesicular disease virus (SVDV), a member of the family Picornaviridae, and used it to construct a bicistronic retroviral vector. The vector is characterized by coexpression of two genes from a single transcript. We found that inclusion of the 5' NTR of SVDV did not negate the viral vector titer. Protein analysis indicated that the 5' NTR could efficiently direct internal initiation, thus allowing the downstream gene to be translated. Translation of the internally initiated porcine growth hormone gene was about 30-fold less than that when the porcine growth hormone gene was at the upstream position in NIH 3T3 cells but was about equivalent to that in HeLa cells, implying that some cellular factors that stimulated internal initiation of the SVDV 5' NTR are present in HeLa cells. However, in G418-selected clones, the Neor-encoding gene was expressed with equivalent efficiency either at a downstream position or at an upstream position in either NIH 3T3 or HeLa cells. Compared with the conventional double-gene vector or the U3-based vector, the bicistronic vector coexpressed two genes much more efficiently, owing to elimination of promoter interference. Furthermore, this type of vector infected and expressed the target genes efficiently in two primary cell lines, rat embryo and human skin fibroblast cells, which we tested. These experimental data suggest a better design for the retroviral vector and provide evidence that internal initiation of the SVDV 5' NTR was stimulated cell specifically.
THE EFFECT OF OVULATION-INDUCING FACTOR (OIF) IN BOVINE SEMINAL PLASMA ON OVARIAN FUNCTION IN CATTLE

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iv DEDICATION . v TABLE OF CONTENTS . vi LIST OF TABLES . ix list of figures . xi List of abbreviations . xiii 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Reproductive physiology in cattle . 3 1.2 Reproductive physiology of camelids . 4 1.3 Ovulation . 5 1.3. 1 Ovulation in cattle . 6 1.3. 2 Ovulation in camelids . 6 1.4 Actions of the preovulatory LH surge on fully grown follicles . 7 1.5 Role of nerve growth factor and its receptor in ovulation . 9 1.6 Role of NGF and its receptor in luteinization and luteal function . 10 1.7 Ovulation-inducing factor (OIF) . 11 1.7. 1 Ovulation-inducing factor in camelids . 12
Marital quality over the life course

Much prior research in social psychology indicates that in many domains of social life, individuals' well-being improves in the latter half of the life course. The reason for this pattern is not well understood, however. We argue that objective changes in family composition and in social and economic conditions in middle and later life may explain the later-life increase in well-being. To test this argument we focus on one domain, marital well-being, and examine the curvilinear relationship between marital duration and marital quality, with emphasis on the latter half of the marital life course. Our results show that reduced work and parental responsibilities in later life explain much of the later-life increase in marital satisfaction but do not account for the decrease in thoughts of divorce. Longitudinal research is needed to confirm our results, which are necessarily confined to cross-sectional data.
Feedbacks, Critical Transitions and Social Change in Forager-Resource Systems An Integrated Modeling and Ethnoarchaeological Analysis

My dissertation contributes to a body of knowledge useful for understanding the evolution of subsistence economies based on agriculture from those based on hunting and gathering, as well as the development of formal rules and norms of territorial ownership in huntergatherer societies. My research specifically combines simple formal and conceptual models with the empirical analysis of large ethnographic and environmental data sets to study feedback processes in coupled forager-resource systems. I use the formal and conceptual models of forager-resource systems as tools that aid in the development of two alternative arguments that may explain the adoption of food production and formal territorial ownership among hunter-gatherers. I call these arguments the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis and the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Based on the logic of these arguments, I develop expectations for patterns of food production and formal territorial ownership documented in the ethnographic record of hunter-gatherer societies and evaluate these expectations with large ethnographic and environmental data sets. My analysis suggests that the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis is more consistent with the data than the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Overall, my approach combines the intellectual frameworks of evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking. The result is a theory of subsistence change that integrates elements of three classic models of economic development with deep intellectual roots in human ecology: The Malthusian, Boserupian and Weberian models. A final take home message of my study is that evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking are complementary frameworks for archaeologists who study the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
A comparison of Bonfils intubation fiberscopy and fiberoptic bronchoscopy in difficult airways assisted with direct laryngoscopy

Background To evaluate the usefulness of Bonfils intubation fiberscope assisted by direct laryngoscopy (BIF-DL) and flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope assisted by direct laryngoscopy (FOB-DL) using video recording in cases of unanticipated difficult intubation with respect to the time required to visualize the vocal cords and place the endotracheal tube. We compared two fiberscopes in patients with authentic difficult airways. Methods In this randomized, controlled clinical trial, 40 patients (grade 3 according to grades of difficulty in laryngoscopy), scheduled for surgery under general anesthesia were randomly allocated to BIF-DL group or FOB-DL group. Number of attempts, time required for visualization of the vocal cord (T1) and placement of the endotracheal tube (T2) from insertion of instrument during the last successful attempt, and duration of scope manipulation during all attempts (Ttotal) were recorded. If intubation failed with one method, the other method was tried; these cases were then excluded. The incidence of sore throat and hoarseness was assessed. Results T1, T2, and Ttotal were significantly shorter in BIF-DL group (T1: 21.9 ± 8.2 sec vs. 80.4 ± 29.9 sec, P < 0.001, Ttotal: 77.9 ± 41.2 sec vs. 145.5 ± 83.9 sec, P = 0.003). In two cases, it was impossible to intubate with BIF-DL, but the procedure was subsequently successful using fibreoptic bronchoscope. Conclusions Intubation of difficult airways can be performed more rapidly with BIF-DL, but sometimes it may not be possible to intubate with the scope.
Cdk4 Regulates Recruitment of Quiescent β-Cells and Ductal Epithelial Progenitors to Reconstitute β-Cell Mass

Insulin-producing pancreatic islet β cells (β-cells) are destroyed, severely depleted or functionally impaired in diabetes. Therefore, replacing functional β-cell mass would advance clinical diabetes management. We have previously demonstrated the importance of Cdk4 in regulating β-cell mass. Cdk4-deficient mice display β-cell hypoplasia and develop diabetes, whereas β-cell hyperplasia is observed in mice expressing an active Cdk4R24C kinase. While β-cell replication appears to be the primary mechanism responsible for β-cell mass increase, considerable evidence also supports a contribution from the pancreatic ductal epithelium in generation of new β-cells. Further, while it is believed that majority of β-cells are in a state of ‘dormancy’, it is unclear if and to what extent the quiescent cells can be coaxed to participate in the β-cell regenerative response. Here, we address these queries using a model of partial pancreatectomy (PX) in Cdk4 mutant mice. To investigate the kinetics of the regeneration process precisely, we performed DNA analog-based lineage-tracing studies followed by mathematical modeling. Within a week after PX, we observed considerable proliferation of islet β-cells and ductal epithelial cells. Interestingly, the mathematical model showed that recruitment of quiescent cells into the active cell cycle promotes β-cell mass reconstitution in the Cdk4R24C pancreas. Moreover, within 24–48 hours post-PX, ductal epithelial cells expressing the transcription factor Pdx-1 dramatically increased. We also detected insulin-positive cells in the ductal epithelium along with a significant increase of islet-like cell clusters in the Cdk4R24C pancreas. We conclude that Cdk4 not only promotes β-cell replication, but also facilitates the activation of β-cell progenitors in the ductal epithelium. In addition, we show that Cdk4 controls β-cell mass by recruiting quiescent cells to enter the cell cycle. Comparing the contribution of cell proliferation and islet-like clusters to the total increase in insulin-positive cells suggests a hitherto uncharacterized large non-proliferative contribution.
The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century

In order to describe the origins and initial workings of a world system, I have had to argue a certain conception of a world-system. A world-system is a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Its life is made up of the conflicting forces which hold it together by tension and tear it apart as each group seeks eternally to remold it to its advantage. It has the characteristics of an organism, in that it has a life-span over which its characteristics change in some respects and remain stable in others. One can define its structures as being at different times strong or weak in terms of the internal logic of its functioning.
Factors Associated With Cardiovascular Events in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Acute Myocardial Infarction.

CONTEXT Decreasing risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease remains a challenge to survival in type 2 diabetes. OBJECTIVE The objective was to assess the association between demographic, glycemic, and other clinical factors and CV risk in the Hyperglycemia and Its Effect After Acute Myocardial Infarction on Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus trial. DESIGN, SETTINGS, PARTICIPANTS, AND INTERVENTION: We used discrete-time survival tree analysis to examine data collected for up to 4.6 years in 1115 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus experiencing acute myocardial infarction (MI) less than or equal to 18 days before enrollment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary objective was to identify demographic, glycemic, and CV risk factors best separating survival curves over time for a composite end point: CV death, nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for acute coronary syndromes, or coronary revascularization planned after randomization. RESULTS Average change across visits in mean 2-hour blood glucose level after meals was associated with the greatest difference in event-free survival probability for the primary end point: mean time to 75% event-free survival for an average change across visits less than or equal to -0.14 mmol/L, 73.48 weeks; for visits with average change more -0.14 mmol/L, 29.10 weeks. An average change across visits in the hemoglobin A1c level less than or equal to -0.92% (-10.06 mmol/mol) and the absence of a history of stroke or acute MI increased CV event-free survival time further. Fasting blood glucose and randomized insulin treatment strategy were weak predicting factors of event-free survival. CONCLUSIONS Postprandial glycemia should be considered a potential target in trials to reduce CV morbidity and mortality in type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Evaluating the usability of visualization methods in an exploratory geovisualization environment

The use of new representation forms and interactive means to visualize geospatial data requires an understanding of the impact of the visual tools used for data exploration and knowledge construction. Use and usability assessment of implemented methods and tools is an important part of our efforts to build this understanding. Based on an approach to combine visual and computational methods for knowledge discovery in large geospatial data, an integrated visualization‐geocomputation environment has been developed based on the Self‐Organizing Map (SOM), the map and the parallel coordinate plot. This environment allows patterns and attribute relationships to be explored. A use and usability assessment is conducted to evaluate the ability of each of these visual representations to meet user performance and satisfaction goals. In the test, different representations are compared while exploring a socio‐demographic dataset.
Universal communication over unknown vector channels

Consider communication over a channel whose probabilistic model is completely unknown vector-wise and is not assumed to be stationary. Communication over such channels is challenging because knowing the past does not indicate anything about the future. The existence of reliable feedback and common randomness is assumed. In a previous paper it was shown that the Shannon capacity cannot be attained, in general, if the channel is not known. An alternative notion of “capacity” was defined, as the maximum rate of reliable communication by any block-coding system used over consecutive blocks. This rate was shown to be achievable for the modulo-additive channel with an individual, unknown noise sequence, and not achievable for some channels with memory. In this paper this “capacity” is shown to be achievable for general channel models possibly including memory, as long as this memory fades with time. In other words, there exists a system with feedback and common randomness that, without knowledge of the channel, asymptotically performs as well as any block-coding system, which may be designed knowing the channel. For non-fading memory channels a weaker type of “capacity” is shown to be achievable.
When Married Couples Part: Statistical Trends and Relationships in Divorce

A fundamental weakness of most divorce studies in which duration of marriage has significance is the use of de jure (time of decree) rather than de facto (time of separation) information. Using the scant data in the literature and an admittedly crude measurement-the average of durations of marriages ending in divorce-the interval from marriage to separation is found to vary from area to area, from time to time, and from one population class to another. Couples in their first marriage, in higher socio-economic groups generally, who live in middle-sized population areas and have children, show longer durations than the rest. Legal structure and other factors also have an influence. A study of 1957 Wisconsin divorces supports these conclusions. Moreover, Wisconsin marriages are not found to be breaking up any sooner than they were two generations ago. American couples whose marriages end in divorce very soon reach a parting of the ways, and the more refined and complete facts have always supported the popular belief that "the first year is the hardest" for them.
Executive Migration and Strategic Change: The Effect of Top Manager Movement on Product-Market Entry

This research was supported by grants from Columbia Business School's Management Institute. I thank Eric Abrahamson, Min-Jer Chen, Donald Hambrick, and Michael Tushman for ideas and thoughtful comments. This study examines how the movement of top managers across organizations (executive migration) over an 18-year period in the semiconductor industry influences strategic change, specifically, entry into new product markets. Results support the argument that executive migration brings managers into the organization with prior exposure to different products and strategies, which in turn is reflected in subsequent product-market entry decisions by the executive's new firm. Results also show that the effects of executive migration are influenced by attributes of the executive and characteristics of the top management team of the focal firm. The effects of executive migration on product-market entry are stronger when the new managers came from the functions of R&D and engineering, when they reported to the chief executive in their former organization, and when they had greater industry experience. Attributes of the focal firm's top management team also appear to moderate the influence of the new executive. Smaller top management teams and teams with shorter tenures demonstrate a stronger relationship between executive migration and strategic change. '
Hereditary Factors in Sleepwalking and Night Terrors

Summary The families of 25 probands with sleepwalking and 27 probands with night terrors were studied. Eighty per cent of the sleepwalking pedigrees and 96 per cent of the night terror pedigrees included one or more individuals, other than the proband, who were affected by sleepwalking, night terrors, or both. Our data appear to fit a ‘two threshold’ multifactorial mode of inheritance. This finding supports the hypothesis that sleepwalking and night terrors share a common genetic predisposition, with sleepwalking being a more prevalent and less severe manifestation of the same substrate that underlies night terrors. Heritable factors predispose an individual to develop sleepwalking and/or night terrors, but expression of the trait may be influenced by environmental factors.
Green growth: economic theory and political discourse

Green growth: economic theory and political discourse / Michael Jacobs. Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, October 2012, 23 p. (CCCEP Working Paper No. 108 ; Grantham Working Paper No. 92) http://www2.lse. ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publications/WorkingPapers/Working%20Papers/90-99/WP92-green-growth-economic-theory-political-discourse.pdf The concept of green growth has burst onto the international policy scene in .
Role of gap junctions in endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor-mediated vasodilatation in rat renal artery.

AIM To investigate the effects of gap junction inhibitors on endothelium-derived but nitric oxide (NO)- and prostacyclin (PGI2)-independent vasodilatations induced by carbachol in the rat isolated renal artery. METHODS Isolated renal arteries were mounted on a wire myograph apparatus were tissues treated with the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor Nomega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride (NAME; 100 micromol/L) and indomethacin (10 micromol/L) and precontracted with phenylephrine (0.1 micromol/L). NAME and indomethacin treated carbachol (0.01-10 micromol/L)- or sodium nitroprusside (SNP; 1-300 nmol/L)-induced mediated relaxations were observed in the presence of gap junction inhibitors. RESULTS Carbachol produced a concentration-dependent relaxation in tissues treated with NAME (100 micromol/L) and indomethacin (10 micromol/L). This relaxation was not affected by hemoglobin (3 micromol/L), but was inhibited by charybdotoxin (200 nmol/L) and ouabain (30 micromol/L). The putative gap junction inhibitors, GAP 27 peptides with sequence homology to connexins 40 and 43 respectively reduced carbachol- but not SNP-induced relaxations mediated by endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF)-mediated relaxations. The inhibition by the connexin 43 inhibitor was greater than that of the connexin 40 inhibitor. CONCLUSION The results indicate the presence of gap junctions sensitive to 43GAP 27 and 40GAP 27 in the rat renal artery and each of these different types of gap junctions plays a role in the NO- and PGI2-independent relaxations induced by carbachol in this blood vessel. However, connexin 43 appears to play a more predominant role in mediating gap junction communications in the rat renal artery.
The brain's alpha rhythms and the mind : a review of classical and modern studies of the alpha rhythm component of the electroencephalogram with commentaries on associated neuroscience and neuropsychology

An introduction to the alpha rhythm More on alpha rhythm characteristics Alpha in vision and imagery Alpha, mental activity, and lateralization of hemisphere function The hemisphere lateralization controversy Further studies of alpha rhythm correlates of mental activity Structural organisation of alpha rhythm Inter-individual differences The classic studies Inter-individual differences Robinson's and Newman's thalamo-cortical models EEG alpha and the Klimesch memory model Alpha activity and perceptual gating, the scanning hypothesis, and timing in the brain Magnetoencephalogram studies of alpha activity Alpha activity in biofeedback, meditation and hypnosis Mulholland's alpha feedback paradigm and 'behavioural stillness' model Petsche's studies of 'thinking' 16 EEG generation I: particularly alpha activity EEG generation II: modern studies and models Alpha, intention, and consciousness 19 Epilogue Appendix 1: An introduction to EEG technology Appendix 2: A historical review of the term 'desynchronization'.
Non-syndromic retinitis pigmentosa due to mutations in the mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIC gene, heparan-alpha-glucosaminide N-acetyltransferase (HGSNAT)

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the most common form of inherited retinal degeneration, is clinically and genetically heterogeneous and can appear as syndromic or non-syndromic. Mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIC (MPS IIIC) is a lethal disorder, caused by mutations in the heparan-alpha-glucosaminide N-acetyltransferase (HGSNAT) gene and characterized by progressive neurological deterioration, with retinal degeneration as a prominent feature. We identified HGSNAT mutations in six patients with non-syndromic RP. Whole exome sequencing (WES) in an Ashkenazi Jewish Israeli RP patient revealed a novel homozygous HGSNAT variant, c.370A>T, which leads to partial skipping of exon 3. Screening of 66 Ashkenazi RP index cases revealed an additional family with two siblings homozygous for c.370A>T. WES in three Dutch siblings with RP revealed a complex HGSNAT variant, c. [398G>C; 1843G>A] on one allele, and c.1843G>A on the other allele. HGSNAT activity levels in blood leukocytes of patients were reduced compared with healthy controls, but usually higher than those in MPS IIIC patients. All patients were diagnosed with non-syndromic RP and did not exhibit neurological deterioration, or any phenotypic features consistent with MPS IIIC. Furthermore, four of the patients were over 60 years old, exceeding by far the life expectancy of MPS IIIC patients. HGSNAT is highly expressed in the mouse retina, and we hypothesize that the retina requires higher HGSNAT activity to maintain proper function, compared with other tissues associated with MPS IIIC, such as the brain. This report broadens the spectrum of phenotypes associated with HGSNAT mutations and highlights the critical function of HGSNAT in the human retina.