Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
VEGF: From Discovery to Therapy: The Champalimaud Award Lecture

Purpose Intraocular vascular diseases are leading causes of adult vision loss, and in the mid-1900s, I. C. Michaelson postulated that the retina releases a soluble, diffusible factor that causes abnormal vascular growth and leakage. What became known as “Factor X” eluded investigators for decades. Methods The field of cancer research, where Judah Folkman pioneered the concept of angiogenesis, provided the inspiration for the work honored by the 2014 Champalimaud Vision Award. Recognizing that tumors recruit their own blood supply to achieve critical mass, Dr Folkman proposed that angiogenic factors could be therapeutic targets in cancer. Napoleone Ferrara identified vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as such an angiogenic agent: stimulated by hypoxic tumor tissue, secreted, and able to induce neovascularization. VEGF also was a candidate for Factor X, and the 2014 Champalimaud Laureates and colleagues worked individually and collaboratively to identify the role of VEGF in ocular disease. Results The Champalimaud Laureates correlated VEGF with ocular neovascularization in animal models and in patients. Moreover, they showed that VEGF not only was sufficient, but it also was required to induce neovascularization in normal animal eyes, as VEGF inhibition abolished ocular neovascularization in key animal models. Conclusions The identification of VEGF as Factor X altered the therapeutic paradigms for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, and other retinal disorders. Translational Relevance The translation of VEGF from discovery to therapy resulted in the most successful applications of antiangiogenic therapy to date. Annually, over one million patients with eye disease are treated with anti-VEGF agents.
Ethnic differences in worry in a nonclinical population

The present study examined ethnic differences in worry in a college student population. No differences were found between Caucasians, African Americans, and Asian Americans in pathological worry as measured by the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) or in the frequency with which they met self‐report criteria for generalized anxiety disorder on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire for DSM‐IV (GAD‐Q‐IV). Groups differed in Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) total scores and on all WDQ domain subscales except for the Financial domain. Within ethnic groups, Caucasians and African Americans experienced variations in intensity of worry across the specific domains, but Asian Americans did not. These results suggest that ethnic groups may differ from each other in the degree to which they worry and in the breadth of their concerns. Further examination of ethnic differences and worry (and anxiety more generally) is suggested. Depression and Anxiety 15:79–82, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Participating in a community of learners: a sociocultural approach to the inclusion of students with autism in mainstream classrooms

The research examines inclusive practices for students with high functioning autism and Asperger' s Syndrome in mainstream classrooms, as well as the implementation of these practices. The theoretical background of the concept of inclusive practices has been informed by sociocultural notions of learning and development and research on Autism Spectrum Disorders, in particular the implications of the condition for learning and social interactions. The concept of inclusive practices is situated in the contexts of research on special education, the practice of labeling students with special needs in schools, and the policies, concepts and practices of inclusion in mainstream schools in North America. The primary goal of the research was to reflect on how sociocultural concepts of learning and development can help in the design of curriculum and practices that support the learning and socialization of students with autism in mainstream classrooms. The findings are evaluated also from the perspective of research on and ongoing debates concerning special education and inclusion, attempting to contribute to our understanding of issues such as the continuum of services, the principle of the least restrictive environment, and full inclusion. Two children with high functioning autism and Asperger' s Syndrome, both fully included in mainstream classrooms, were the focal students of the research. As their regular special education assistant, I conducted a longitudinal ethnographic participant observation taking notes on the challenges and changes in the participation of the focal students in their classrooms' academic and social activities and my experiences of designing and implementing inclusive practices for them. As well, I implemented academic activities (small group projects) for both students and some of their peers that implemented sociocultural concepts of learning in the form of the "community of learners" (COL) model, based on and inspired by Barbara Rogoff's research and the model of Integrated Play Groups (IPG) designed by Pamela Wolfberg. The goal of this program of action research was to examine whether, and in what ways, this learning model might be an effective inclusive practice for the focal students, and how it might be implemented in mainstream schools.
Urban Villages in China: A 2008 Survey of Migrant Settlements in Beijing

A team of Beijing-based urban planning specialists is joined by a noted American geographer to present the results and analyze their 2008 survey of migrant settlements in China's capital city. The paper examines the living and work conditions as well as housing consumption behavior of migrants in Chinese cities, focusing on chengzhongcun or urban villages—rural settlements that have been transformed into poor living spaces for migrant workers. It finds that although migrant workers are willing to pay the same or higher rent per unit of space, they consume much smaller dwelling spaces than local residents. Estimations of the Mincerian wage equation and of a housing demand equation show that migrants' small space consumption is a function not only of low income but also of a reluctance to spend their earnings in the city. The findings reinforce the notion that migrant workers consider the city as a place to work rather than a home in which to live. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J610, O150, R210, R230. 14 figures, 5 tables, 34 references, 1 appendix.
A Cultural, Linguistic, and Ecological Framework for Response to Intervention with English Language Learners

heralded by many as the long-awaited alternative to using a discrepancy formula for special education eligibility decisions. Use of the discrepancy formula for eligibility decisions has commonly been called a “wait to fail model” (Donovan & Cross, 2002; Fuchs, Mock, Morgan & Young, 2003; Mellard, 2004) because in this paradigm, students proceeded through long pre-referral, formal referral, and assessment processes prior to getting help in special education programs. By the time students received assistance, they were often too far behind to ever catch up, even with individualized support. RTI instead focuses on intervening early through a multi-tiered approach where each tier provides interventions of increasing intensity. It includes the practice of screening all children early in their education to identify those who are not responding to classroom instruction and providing support through the use of research-based interventions at each tier while monitoring progress frequently (Batsche, Elliott, Graden, Grimes, Kovaleski, Prasse, et. al., 2005). RTI has the potential to affect change for English language learners (ELLs) by requiring the use of research-based practices based on individual children’s specific needs. All ELLs, however, need culturally and linguistically appropriate instruction no matter the educational setting. In other words, instruction and interventions must consider a student’s cultural background and experiences as well as their linguistic proficiency (in both English and the native language) in order for instruction to be appropriate. The focus of this brief is to provide an initial framework in the use of RTI that considers students’ life experiences, including their language proficiencies in their first and second language, as well as the contexts in which they are taught.
Screening of common Plantago species in Hungary for bioactive molecules and antioxidant activity

Five species of Plantago genus , namely P. lanceolata , P. major , P. media , P. altissima and P. maritima were screened for iridoid content (CE-MEKC), total caffeoyl phenylethanoid glycoside (CPG) content and antioxidant activity (CUPRAC assay). The five species could be distinguished by TLC pattern analysis in a single run in a system commonly used for quality management of P. lanceolata leaves, as shown by cluster analysis of major bands; with the exception, that P. altissima and P. lanceolata did not show enough pattern difference to be fully separated. P. maritima was shown to have the highest antioxidant capacity (0.42 μmol ascorbic acid equivalent (AAE)/g DW), and the highest level of CPGs (4.29%). P. altissima was shown to be chemically indistinguishable from P. lanceolata with repsect to iridoid content (aucubin 0.55 ± 0.04%, 0.68 ± 0.23%, catalpol 0.66 ± 0.13% and 0.89 ± 0.22%, respectively), CPG content (2.40 ± 0.38% and 2.54 ± 0.56%, respectively) and antioxidant capacity (0.2206 ± 0.0290 and 0.2428 ± 0.0191 μmol AAEAC/g DW). The presented data show the potency of medicinal use of Hungarian wild populations of the studied five species, especially in the case of P. maritima , and that P. altissima can be a potential replacement of P. lanceolata in herbal mixtures.
The L7Ae RNA Binding Motif Is a Multifunctional Domain Required for the Ribosome-Dependent Sec Incorporation Activity of Sec Insertion Sequence Binding Protein 2

ABSTRACT The decoding of specific UGA codons as selenocysteine is specified by the Sec insertion sequence (SECIS) element. Additionally, Sec-tRNA[Ser]Sec and the dedicated Sec-specific elongation factor eEFSec are required but not sufficient for nonsense suppression. SECIS binding protein 2 (SBP2) is also essential for Sec incorporation, but its precise role is unknown. In addition to binding the SECIS element, SBP2 binds stably and quantitatively to ribosomes. To determine the function of the SBP2-ribosome interaction, conserved amino acids throughout the SBP2 L7Ae RNA binding motif were mutated to alanine in clusters of five. Mutant proteins were analyzed for ribosome binding, SECIS element binding, and Sec incorporation activity, allowing us to identify two distinct but interdependent sites within the L7Ae motif: (i) a core L7Ae motif required for SECIS binding and ribosome binding and (ii) an auxiliary motif involved in physical and functional interactions with the ribosome. Structural modeling of SBP2 based on the 15.5-kDa protein-U4 snRNA complex strongly supports a two-site model for L7Ae domain function within SBP2. These results provide evidence that the SBP2-ribosome interaction is essential for Sec incorporation.
HLA-DQ8 as an Ir gene in coeliac disease

DQ8 restricted gliadin peptide is immunogenic in the intestinal mucosa of HLA-DQ8 positive patients, representing the first demonstration that a given peptide may be of pathogenic significance only for a subset of coeliacs, and strongly suggests that DQ2 and DQ8 act as immune response (Ir) genes in this disease
Nature over nurture: temperament personality and lifespan

Temperaments are often regarded as biologically based psychological tendencies with intrinsic paths of development. It is argued that this definition applies to the personality traits of the five-factor model. Evidence for the endogenous nature of traits is summarized from studies of behavior genetics, parent? child relations, personality structure, animal personality, and the longitudinal stability of individual differences. New evidence for intrinsic maturation is offered from analyses of NEO Five-Factor Inventory scores for men and women age 14 and over in German, British, Spanish, Czech, and Turkish samples (N = 5,085). These data support strong conceptual links to child temperament despite modest empirical associations. The intrinsic maturation of personality is complemented by the culturally conditioned development of characteristic adaptations that express personality; interventions in human development are best addressed to these. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Sawing simulation of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) stems for production of heartwood-containing components

Naturally durable heartwood products have smaller dimensional changes and are an environmentally friendly alternative to the use of preservatives. The present study explored the potential for the production of products containing heartwood from maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.). The study was based on 30 virtual maritime pine stems that were mathematically reconstructed including description of external shape, internal knot architecture, and heartwood. Stems were used as raw material input data for simulation of bucking and sawing. The impact of raw material characteristics and final products requirements on sawing yields was studied for production of components for glued laminated boards and for windows. Log and heartwood diameters were found to be the most influencing variables on final yields. The position of the log within the stem was also important, while log length did not influence final yields (around 5% batch yield for all length groups). The highest sawing yields, 13 percent of heartwood products from log total volume, were found with 3-m logs bucked between 3- and 9-m height of 83-year-old trees. There is potential for the production of maritime pine heartwood products with additional efforts to be done in log and product sorting.
Cyclic Stretch Magnitude and Duration Affect Rat Alveolar Epithelial Gene Expression

Mechanical ventilation with large tidal volumes can increase lung alveolar permeability and initiate inflammatory responses; but the mechanisms that regulate ventilator-associated lung injury and inflammation remain unclear. Analysis of the genomic response of the lung has been performed in intact lungs ventilated at large tidal volumes. This study is the first to study the genomic response of cultured primary alveolar epithelial cells undergoing large and moderate physiologic cyclic stretch. Responses were dependent on stretch magnitude and duration. Genomic expression was validated for 5 genes of interest: Amphiregulin, Glutamate-Cysteine Ligase Catalytic subunit, Matrix Metalloproteinase 7, Protein Phosphatase 1 regulatory inhibitor subunit 10, and Serpine-1, and protein expression mirrored genomic responses. Differences between results reported from homogenized intact lungs and monolayers of alveolar epithelial cells with type-I like phenotype provide provocative evidence that the whole lung preparation may mask the response of individual cell types.
Unsupervised Feature-Rich Clustering

Unsupervised clustering of documents is challenging because documents can conceivably be divided across multiple dimensions. Motivated by prior work incorporating expressive features into unsupervised generative models, this paper presents an unsupervised model for categorizing textual data which is capable of utilizing arbitrary features over a large context. Utilizing locally normalized log-linear models in the generative process, we offer straightforward extensions to the standard multinomial mixture model that allow us to effectively utilize automatically derived complex linguistic, statistical, and metadata features to influence the learned cluster structure for the desired task. We extensively evaluate and analyze the model’s capabilities over four distinct clustering tasks: topic, perspective, sentiment analysis, and Congressional bill survival, and show that this model outperforms strong baselines and state-of-the-art models.
Clonal Isolation of Different Strains of Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus-Like DNA Sequences from Both the Breast Tumors and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas of Individual Patients Diagnosed with Both Malignancies

Purpose: In a previous study, we had detected the presence of mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-like envelope (ENV) gene sequences in both the breast tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma tissue of two of our breast tumor patients who had been diagnosed simultaneously with both malignancies. The aim of this study was to determine if MMTV-like DNA sequences are present in the breast tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas of additional patients suffering from both malignancies and if so to characterize these sequences in detail. Experimental Design: DNA was extracted from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sample blocks of breast tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas from patients suffering from both malignancies. A 250-bp region of the MMTV ENV gene and a 630-bp region of the MMTV long terminal repeat (LTR) open reading frame (ORF) that encodes the MMTV superantigen (sag) gene were amplified by PCR from the isolated DNA. Amplified products were analyzed by Southern blotting, cloned, and sequenced. Results: MMTV-like ENV and LTR sequences were detected in both the breast tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas of 6 of 12 patients suffering from both malignancies. A novel mutant of the MMTV ENV gene was identified in these patients. Characterization of the MMTV-like LTR highly variable sag sequences revealed total or nearly total identity to three distinct MMTV proviruses from two different branches of the MMTV phylogenetic tree. Conclusions: The presence of MMTV-like ENV and LTR sequences in both the breast tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas of 6 additional patients suggests a possible involvement of these sequences in these two malignancies. MMTV-like LTR sequence homology to different MMTV proviruses revealed the presence of more than one strain of MMTV-like sequences in each individual suggesting the possibility of multiple infections in these patients.
Simultaneous infections with different serogroups of Legionella pneumophila investigated by routine methods and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Simultaneous infections with different Legionella spp. have rarely been described in the literature. We now report on seven sporadic cases of legionellosis of which three were simultaneous infections caused by multiple Legionella pneumophila serogroups. Four different legionellae were involved. L. pneumophila serogroup 1, two different types of L. pneumophila serogroup 4, and L. pneumophila serogroup 10 have been identified simultaneously from a lung tissue specimen of one patient. Specimens from two other patients each revealed two different legionellae of serogroups 1 and 4. The existence of different L. pneumophila serogroups in simultaneous infections has not only been documented by identifying the incriminated Legionella spp. by classical methods. In addition, preliminary results of Legionella spp. identification with the novel physical procedure of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy have been presented to evaluate its possible applicability for routine diagnostic procedures.
Imitation of nonwords by hearing impaired children with cochlear implants: suprasegmental analyses

In this study, we examined two prosodic characteristics of speech production in 8-10-year-old experienced cochlear implant (CI) users who completed a nonword repetition task. We looked at how often they correctly reproduced syllable number and primary stress location in their responses. Although only 5% of all nonword imitations were produced correctly without errors, 64% of the imitations contained the correct syllable number and 61% had the correct placement of primary stress. Moreover, these target prosodic properties were correctly preserved significantly more often for targets with fewer syllables and targets with primary stress on the initial syllable. Syllable and stress scores were significantly correlated with measures of speech perception, intelligibility, perceived accuracy, and working memory. These findings suggest that paediatric CI users encode the overall prosodic envelope of nonword patterns, despite the loss of more detailed segmental properties. This phonological knowledge is also reflected in other language and memory skills.
Human papillomavirus type 16 E7 associates with a histone H1 kinase and with p107 through sequences necessary for transformation

The transforming function of human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) E7 has been shown to depend on activities additional to the ability to bind RB. In this paper we describe two further properties of E7 which may also contribute to transformation, an association with a histone H1 kinase at the G2/M phase of the cell cycle and an ability to bind the RB-related protein p107. The region of E7 identified previously as important for RB binding was found to be involved in the association with the kinase and complex formation with p107, although analysis of E7 point mutants within this region revealed a difference in the precise sequence requirement for RB and p107 binding. Association with the kinase activity correlated with the ability to bind RB, but the restriction of the kinase association to the G2/M phase of the cell cycle implies that this activity might not be directly mediated by RB binding. Since kinase-binding-deficient E7 mutants are also transformation defective, this may represent an independent function of E7 which plays a role in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle.
A METHOD FOR THE ASSAY OF CONJUGATED 3,4‐DIHYDROXYPHENYLGLYCOL, A MAJOR NORADRENALINE METABOLITE IN THE RAT BRAIN

We present the first published procedure for the measurement of endogenous conjugated 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylglycol (DOPEG) in the rat brain. Conjugated DOPEG is estimated from brain extracts after enzymic hydrolysis, isolation of hydrolysed DOPEG on alumina, methylation of DOPEG to 3‐methoxy‐4‐hydroxyphenylglycol (MOPEG) and gas chromatographic quantification of MOPEG. The level of conjugated DOPEG in the CNS of rats (65.7 ± 0.7 ng/g whole brain tissue corrected for recovery) almost equals the level of conjugated MOPEG. The sensitivity of the method is about 6 ng/g brain tissue. After inhibition of monoamine oxidase with clorgyline (30mg/kg) conjugated DOPEG and MOPEG both disappeared from the brain with a half‐life of about 1 h. Turnover calculations indicate that conjugated DOPEG and MOPEG are the two major noradrenaline end‐metabolites in the rat brain.
Fears of Psychological Treatment and Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Help Among Students

The rate of utilisation of the counseling and guidance services in schools is minimal in spite of the availability of these services No extensive studies have been done in Malaysia to show the relationship of factors that are related to psychological help-seeking among school students The present study is a combination of correlational and causal-comparative research The relationships of fears of psychological treatment, attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help, and the likelihood of seeking counseling were investigated besides that, the differences in terms of sex, ethnicity, prior contact With a counsellor and help seeking history With regards to the three variables mentioned earlier were also examined .