Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Systematic Review of Antiamyloidogenic and Metal-Chelating Peptoids: Two Structural Motifs for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an incurable form of dementia affecting millions of people worldwide and costing billions of dollars in health care-related payments, making the discovery of a cure a top health, societal, and economic priority. Peptide-based drugs and immunotherapies targeting AD-associated beta-amyloid (Aβ) aggregation have been extensively explored; however, their therapeutic potential is limited by unfavorable pharmacokinetic (PK) properties. Peptoids (N-substituted glycine oligomers) are a promising class of peptidomimetics with highly tunable secondary structures and enhanced stabilities and membrane permeabilities. In this review, the biological activities, structures, and physicochemical properties for several amyloid-targeting peptoids will be described. In addition, metal-chelating peptoids with the potential to treat AD will be discussed since there are connections between the dysregulation of certain metals and the amyloid pathway.
Phylogenetic analyses of Septoria species based on the ITS and LSU-D2 regions of nuclear ribosomal DNA

The phylogenetic relationships of 17 selected Septoria spp. (eight with a known Mycosphaerella teleomorph), Phloeospora ulmi (teleomorph M. ulmi) and 18 additional taxa (10 with a Mycosphaerella teleomorph) were inferred from ITS and D2-LSU nrDNA sequences. In total, 10 anamorph genera associated with Mycosphaerella were represented. Intraspecific variation in ITS was limited in Septoria, with the exception of three strains that all were identified as S. rubi but originated from different Rubus spp. and probably belong to different species of Septoria. The results of D2 region sequencing confirmed Mycosphaerella sense lato (including Davidiella and Eruptio) as monophyletic. The cereal pathogen Septoria tritici, which is closely related to S. passerinii as found in ITS analysis, clusters with Ramularia spp. in the D2 analyses, distant from the other Septoria spp. The pathogens S. apiicola, S. linicola and S. populicola cluster in a major clade containing Phl. ulmi, and other Septoria spp. and Cercospora spp. Short branch lengths in this clade suggest a very recent evolution. Septoria castaneicola and S. pyricola also might represent relatively distant lineages. Both analyses of the regions indicated that Septoria is not monophyletic within Mycosphaerella and that conidiomatal structure (acervulus, pycnidium) has little value for predicting phylogenetic relatedness. As a consequence, the separation between the acervular Phloeospora and pycnidial Septoria is untenable. The loss of the teleomorph most likely has occurred several times in the evolutionary history of Mycosphaerella.
Harnessing Information Technologies for More Efficient Crop Development

New crops face formidable competition from established crops. Management practices for established crops are well understood, and their productivity gains over time are often spectacular, such as the nearly linear increase in maize yields from 1955 to the present (Troyer 2004). Their long success reflects well-organized research, extension and marketing efforts. For new crops to prosper against such competition, researchers and promoters must ensure that they maximize the efficiency with which they capture and manage information relating to crop improvement, agronomy, and utilization. The need for reliable information is especially critical when moving to commercial-scale production where especially positive or negative experiences may establish the reputation of a crop for years to come. Information technologies (IT) can benefit crop development by integrating data management and utilization across disciplines and software systems. Efforts to develop new crops must progress from individual, isolated data sets and software tools to a realm where information flows smoothly from field and laboratory studies to diverse types of software capable of linking crop-specific data to information on climate, soils, production regions, markets, or other topics relevant to the interests of stakeholders. This paper argues that an integrated approach to managing and using information is essential for attaining the efficiencies required for new crop development. The foundation of efficient new crop development is research in agronomy, plant breeding, and related fields. However, efficiency includes reducing risks of disputes over intellectual property rights, satisfying regulatory concerns related to adverse environmental or health impacts, and providing producers, processors, and buyers with accurate, current information. We start by examining needs for efficient data management and defining integrated information management. Experiences developing integrated systems for lesquerella (Lesquerella spp., Brassicaceae) and vernonia (Vernonia galamensis Less., Asteraceae) are then discussed. Ecophysiological models and geographic information systems (GIS) are considered briefly to show how integrated information is used by more complex tools. Finally, we examine strategies for moving toward greater integration and use of information on new crops.
Dopamine modulates striatal response to reward and punishment in patients with Parkinson’s disease: a pharmacological challenge fMRI study

It is well established that Parkinson’s disease leads to impaired learning from reward and enhanced learning from punishment. The administration of dopaminergic medications reverses this learning pattern. However, few studies have investigated the neural underpinnings of these cognitive processes. In this study, using fMRI, we tested a group of Parkinson’s disease patients on and off dopaminergic medications and matched healthy individuals. All individuals completed an fMRI cognitive task that dissociates feedback learning from reward versus punishment. The administration of dopaminergic medications attenuated blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses to punishment in the bilateral putamen, in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left premotor cortex. Further, the administration of dopaminergic medications resulted in a higher ratio of BOLD activity between reward and punishment trials in these brain areas. BOLD activity in these brain areas was significantly correlated with learning from punishment, but not from reward trials. Furthermore, the administration of dopaminergic medications altered BOLD activity in the right insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex when Parkinson’s disease patients were anticipating feedback. These findings are in agreement with a large body of literature indicating that Parkinson’s disease is associated with enhanced learning from punishment. However, it was surprising that dopaminergic medications modulated punishment learning as opposed to reward learning, although reward learning has been directly linked to dopaminergic function. We argue that these results might be attributed to both a change in the balance between direct and indirect pathway activation in the basal ganglia as well as the differential activity of D1 versus D2 dopamine receptors.
Handbook of Low and High Dielectric Constant Materials and Their Applications

Handbook of Lubrication and Tribology, Volume IIOfficial HandbookMarine Engineers' HandbookThe Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Volume 2Handbook of Low and High Dielectric Constant Materials and Their Applications, Two-Volume SetRoutledge International Handbook of Consumer PsychologyInternational Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based LearningCollected Papers on High and Low Pressure Physiology from Handbook of PhysiologyManagement's HandbookThe Mines HandbookHandbook of Vegetables and Vegetable ProcessingHandbook of Low and High Dielectric Constant Materials and Their Applications, Two-Volume SetOfficial Handbook of the Girls' Branch of the Public Schools Athletic LeagueThe Handbook of Behavioral Operations ManagementP. W. D. Handbook, BombayHandbook of Functionalized NanomaterialsThe Leader's Change HandbookThe Supplement HandbookThe Hacker's HandbookMachinery's Handbook for Machine Shop and Drafting-roomHandbook for Electrical EngineersHandbook of Low Carbon ConcreteHigh/low HandbookHandbook for Electrical EngineersThe Scything HandbookHandbook of Digital CMOS Technology, Circuits, and SystemsThe Security Risk Assessment HandbookHigh/low HandbookStandard Handbook for Mechanical EngineersHandbook on Cohesion Policy in the EUFarm Chemicals HandbookThe Oxford Handbook of Industrial Hubs and Economic DevelopmentHandbook Of Global Financial Markets: Transformations, Dependence, And Risk SpilloversThe American Fertilizer HandbookAppraisers' and Adjusters' HandbookOsborne 4 & 8-bit Microprocessor HandbookWhite House Special HandbookGirls' Athletics: Official Handbook 1916-17HealthChoice Medicare Supplement HandbookThe Mines Handbook
A Reactive Approach to Explanation

Explanation is an interactive process, requiring a dialogue between advice-giver and advice-seeker. Yet current expert systems cannot participate in a dialogue with users. In particular these systems cannot clarify misunderstood explanations, elaborate on previous explanations, or respond to follow-up questions in the context of the on-going dialogue. In this paper, we describe a reactive approach to explanation - one that can participate in an on-going dialogue and employs feedback from the user to guide subsequent explanations. Our system plans explanations from a rich set of explanation strategies, recording the system's discourse goals, the plans used to achieve them, and any assumptions made while planning a response. This record provides the dialogue context the system needs to respond appropriately to the user's feedback. We illustrate our approach with examples of disambiguating a follow-up question and producing a clarifying elaboration in response to a misunderstood explanation.
Distribution of virF/lcrF‐positive Yersinia pseudotuberculosis Serotype O:3 at Farm Level

The distribution and persistence of pathogenic, virF/lcrF‐positive Yersinia pseudotuberculosis were investigated in pigs and in the pig house environment during rearing to determine possible contamination routes of early infections. Based on Y. pseudotuberculosis‐positive tonsils of slaughter pigs in our previous study, Y. pseudotuberculosis‐positive animals were traced back to the farms. Eight farms were visited from 6–10 months later, and a total of 155 pooled and six individual faecal samples from pigs and 116 pooled environmental samples were collected for analysis by different culture methods. Four of the eight farms were found to be Y. pseudotuberculosis‐positive. All positive faecal samples were obtained from fattening pigs, with prevalence varying from 5% to 71% on positive farms. Sows, boars and suckling piglets were Y. pseudotuberculosis‐negative on all farms. Most Y. pseudotuberculosis‐positive farms (three of four) were on a one‐site production system, which had a higher prevalence of Y. pseudotuberculosis (5–26%) among fattening pigs than the all‐in, all‐out system (1–5%). All Y. pseudotuberculosis isolates belonged to serotype O:3 and carried the virF/lcrF gene on the virulence plasmid. Biotypes 2 and 3 were involved, the latter in one isolate and not being previously reported in pigs. Altogether 53 isolates from 16 positive samples were characterized with pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Using SpeI, NotI and XbaI enzymes, four, three and two different PFGE patterns were obtained respectively. A total of nine different genotypes were identified when the profiles of the enzymes were combined. The most common genotypes were gIV, found on three, and gXII, found on two of the four Y. pseudotuberculosis‐positive farms. The same genotypes previously detected in pig tonsils were present in pig faeces from the same farm, indicating that some Y. pseudotuberculosis strains can persist in the pig house environment.
Influence of surface morphology on the immersion mode ice nucleation efficiency of hematite particles

In this paper, the effect of the morphological modification of aerosol particles with respect to heterogeneous ice nucleation is comprehensively investigated for laboratorygenerated hematite particles as a model substrate for atmospheric dust particles. The surface-area-scaled ice nucleation efficiencies of monodisperse cubic hematite particles and milled hematite particles were measured with a series of expansion cooling experiments using the Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere (AIDA) cloud simulation chamber. Complementary offline characterization of physico-chemical properties of both hematite subsets were also carried out with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and an electro-kinetic particle charge detector to further constrain droplet-freezing measurements of hematite particles. Additionally, an empirical parameterization derived from our laboratory measurements was implemented in the single-column version of the Community Atmospheric Model version 5 (CAM5) to investigate the model sensitivity in simulated ice crystal number concentration on different ice nucleation efficiencies. From an experimental perspective, our results show that the immersion mode ice nucleation efficiency of milled hematite particles is almost an order of magnitude higher at −35.2C <T <−33.5C than that of the cubic hematite particles, indicating a substantial effect of morphological irregularities on immersion mode freezing. Our modeling results similarly show that the increased droplet-freezing rates of milled hematite particles lead to about one order magnitude higher ice crystal number in the upper troposphere than cubic hematite particles. Overall, our results suggest that the surface irregularities and associated active sites lead to greater ice activation through droplet freezing.
Log-domain decoding of LDPC codes over GF(q)

This paper introduces a log-domain decoding scheme for LDPC codes over GF(q). While this scheme is mathematically equivalent to the conventional sum-product decoder, log-domain decoding has advantages in terms of implementation, computational complexity and numerical stability. Further, a suboptimal variant of the log-domain decoding algorithm is proposed, yielding a lower computational complexity. The proposed algorithms and the sum-product algorithm are compared both in terms of simulated BER performance and computational complexity.
Lack of Skill Risks to Organizational Technology Learning and Software Project Performance

To improve the performance of software projects, a number of practices are encouraged that serve to control certain risks in the development process, including a lack of essential skills and knowledge related to the application domain and system development process. A potential mediating variable between the lack of skill risk and project performance is the ability of an organization to acquire the essential domain knowledge and technology skills through learning, specifically organizational technology learning. However, the same lack of knowledge that hinders good project performance may also inhibit learning. This study examines the relationship between information system personnel skills and domain knowledge, organizational technology learning, and software project performance with a sample of professional software developers. Indications are that the relationship between information systems IS personnel skills and project performance is partially mediated by organizational technology learning.
Individual variability in antibody response of human volunteers to infection of the upper respiratory tract by coxsackie A21 virus.

Local production and secretion of antibodies are important for protection against infection by a variety of organisms that penetrate the mucosal surfaces of the body (for a recent review, see [1]). Antibodies against a number of viruses have been detected in normal nasal secretions [2], and specific antibodies (chiefly 115 IgA) arise after infection or local immunization with various respiratory viruses [3-12]. In such cases, susceptibility to reinfection may be more closely related to the level of antibody found in the nasal secretions than to that in the serum [8]. The appearance of IgA in both serum and secretions in different molecular forms following infection by these agents adds additional complexities to the normal immune response. Coxsackie A-21 virus causes a reproducibly mild upper respiratory illness in humans [13-17] and is useful in controlled clinical trials. The virus may be inoculated into the nose by aerosol or drops [15, 18], and the course of the infection may be followed by isolation of virus from nasal washes, by the increases in circulating antibody, and from illness scores recorded by trained observers. Spickard et al. [14] infected volunteers who had low, intermediate, or high levels of serum antiviral antibody before infection. Of 13 subjects with titers of virus-neutralizing antibody in the serum of less than 4, 8 became ill and all showed a primary (delayed) antibody response. Of 6 subjects whose antibody titers were between 4 and 128, all showed a secondary (accelerated) rise in antibody. Four of the 6 volunteers showed clinical signs and symptoms, but in mild form.
Activation–threshold tuning in an affinity model for the T–cell repertoire

Naive T cells respond to peptides from foreign proteins and remain tolerant to self peptides from endogenous proteins. It has been suggested that self tolerance comes about by a ‘tuning’ mechanism, i.e. by increasing the T–cell activation threshold upon interaction with self peptides. Here, we explore how such an adaptive mechanism of T–cell tolerance would influence the reactivity of the T–cell repertoire to foreign peptides. We develop a computer simulation model in which T cells are tolerized by increasing their activation–threshold dependent on the affinity with which they see self peptides presented in the thymus. Thus, different T cells acquire different activation thresholds (i.e. different cross–reactivities). In previous mathematical models, T–cell tolerance was deletional and based on a fixed cross–reactivity parameter, which was assumed to have evolved to an optimal value. Comparing these two different tolerance–induction mechanisms, we found that the tuning model performs somewhat better than an optimized deletion model in terms of the reactivity to foreign antigens. Thus, evolutionary optimization of clonal cross–reactivity is not required. A straightforward extension of the tuning model is to delete T–cell clones that obtain a too high activation threshold, and to replace these by new clones. The reactivity of the immune repertoires of such a replacement model is enchanced compared with the basic tuning model. These results demonstrate that activation–threshold tuning is a functional mechanism for self tolerance induction.
Effect of electroacupuncture on thermal pain threshold and expression of calcitonin-gene related peptide, substance P and γ-aminobutyric acid in the cervical dorsal root ganglion of rats with incisional neck pain

Objective Acupuncture therapy effectively reduces post-surgical pain, but its mechanism of action remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate whether expression of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and the neuropeptides substance P (SP) and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in the primary sensory neurons of cervical dorsal root ganglia (DRG) are involved in electroacupuncture (EA)-induced analgesia in a rat model of incisional neck pain. Methods The pain model was established by making a longitudinal midline neck incision in 60 rats. Another 15 rats underwent sham surgery (normal group). Post-incision, 15 rats remained untreated (model group) and 45 rats underwent EA (frequency 2/100 Hz, intensity 1 mA) at bilateral LI18, LI4-PC6 or ST36-GB34 (n=15 each) for 30 min at 4 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours post-surgery, followed by thermal pain threshold (PT) measurement. 30 min later, the rats were euthanased and cervical (C3-6) DRGs removed for measurement of immunoreactivity and mRNA expression of SP/CGRP and the GABAergic neuronal marker glutamic acid decarboxylase 67 (GAD67). Results Thermal PT was significantly lower in the model group versus the normal group and increased in the LI18 and LI4-PC6 groups but not the ST36-GB34 group compared with the model group. Additionally, EA at LI18 and LI4-PC6 markedly suppressed neck incision-induced upregulation of mRNA/protein expression of SP/CGRP, and upregulated mRNA/protein expression of GAD67 in the DRGs of C3-6 segments. Conclusions EA at LI18/LI4-PC6 increases PT in rats with incisional neck pain, which is likely related to downregulation of pronociceptive mediators SP/CGRP and upregulation of the inhibitory transmitter GABA in the primary sensory neurons of cervical DRGs.
Adverse health effects of prenatal and postnatal tobacco smoke exposure on children

Parents who choose to smoke are possibly not aware of, or deny, the negative effects of passive smoking on their offspring. This review summarises a wide range of effects of passive smoking on mortality and morbidity in children. It offers paediatricians, obstetricians, specialists in preventive child health care, general practitioners, and midwives an approach to promote smoking cessation in smoking parents before, during, and after pregnancy.
Elevated serum levels of C-reactive protein are indicative of a poor prognosis in patients with esophageal cancer.

SUMMARY Despite improved results gained by the combination of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy with surgery, the prognosis for the esophageal carcinoma patient remains poor. There is a need for prognostic markers that can help improve patient selection. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) have any influence on the patient prognosis in terms of prediction of chemoradiosensibility, and overall and disease-free survival. Blood samples were obtained at the time of diagnosis in 67 patients with biopsy-proven primary carcinoma of the esophagus. Although not significantly, the mean CRP level was higher than that of 20 patients with benign esophageal pathology who served as controls. No significant correlation could be found between CRP levels and baseline characteristics such as age, gender, histology, cancer localization, tumor depth, lymph node status or metastatic spread. However, patients with CRP levels higher than 6 mg/L were more frequently non-responders to chemoradiotherapy (P = 0.035), had a shorter overall survival (P = 0.061) and a shorter disease-free survival (P = 0.016). It is concluded from these results that pretreatment measurement of serum CRP levels in patients with esophageal cancer could to be used in routine practice as indicators of chemoradiosensibility and prognosis.
Imperialist Competitive Algorithm Using Chaos Theory for Optimization (CICA)

The Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) that was recently introduced has shown its good performance in optimization problems. This novel optimization algorithm is inspired by socio-political process of imperialistic competition in the real world. In this paper a new Imperialist Competitive Algorithm using chaotic maps (CICA) is proposed. In the proposed algorithm, the chaotic maps are used to adapt the angle of colonies movement towards imperialist’s position to enhance the escaping capability from a local optima trap. The ICA is easily stuck into a local optimum when solving high-dimensional multi-model numerical optimization problems. To overcome this shortcoming, we use four different chaotic map incorporated into ICA to enhance the exploration capability. Some famous unconstraint benchmark functions are used to test the CICA performance. Simulation results show this variant can improve the performance significantly