Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic approaches to addiction: genes and alcohol.

AIMS Alcoholism is a chronic relapsing disorder with an enormous societal impact. Understanding the genetic basis of alcoholism is crucial to characterize individuals' risk and to develop efficacious prevention and treatment strategies. METHODS We examined the available scientific literature to provide an overview of different approaches that are being integrated increasingly to advance our knowledge of the genetic bases of alcoholism. Examples of genes that have been shown to influence vulnerability to alcoholism and related phenotypes are also discussed. RESULTS Genetic factors account for more than 50% of the variance in alcoholism liability. Susceptibility loci for alcoholism include both alcohol-specific genes acting either at the pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic levels, as well as loci moderating neuronal pathways such as reward, behavioral control and stress resiliency, that are involved in several psychiatric diseases. In recent years, major progress in gene identification has occurred using intermediate phenotypes such as task-related brain activation that confer the advantage of increased power and the opportunity of exploring the neuronal mechanisms through which genetic variation is translated into behavior. Fundamental to the detection of gene effects is also the understanding of the interplay between genes as well as genes/environment interactions. Whole Genome Association studies represent a unique opportunity to identify alcohol-related loci in hypothesis-free fashion. Finally, genome-wide analyses of transcripts and chromatin remodeling promise an increase in our understanding of the genome function and of the mechanisms through which gene and environment cause diseases. CONCLUSIONS Although the genetic bases of alcoholism remain largely unknown, there are reasons to think that more genes will be discovered in the future. Multiple and complementary approaches will be required to piece together the mosaic of causation.
Lossy Compression of Dynamic, Weighted Graphs

A graph is used to represent data in which the relationships between the objects in the data are at least as important as the objects themselves. Large graph datasets are becoming more common as networks such as the Internet grow, and our ability to measure these graphs improves. This necessitates methods to compress these datasets. In this paper we present a method aimed at lossy compression of large, dynamic, weighted graphs.
Development of the Ability to Distinguish Between Comprehension and Memory: Evidence From Goal-State Evaluation Tasks

Three experiments investigated developmental changes in children's ability to monitor and evaluate memorization and comprehension. First and 3rd graders rated the perceived difficulty of memorization (verbatim recall) and comprehension (block-building construction) after engaging in (a) a memory strategy (rote repetition) or a comprehension strategy (pictorial clarification of unfamiliar words; Experiment 1); (b) no strategy or repetition (Experiment 2); and (c) no strategy or clarification (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, children recognized that clarification aided construction more than recall, but not that repetition aided recall more than construction. In Experiment 2, children recognized that repetition aided recall but not construction. In Experiment 3, children recognized that clarification aided construction more than recall. Thus, by 1st grade, children are sensitive to some aspects of the comprehension-memory distinction.
South Asian diets and insulin resistance

A role of dietary nutrients in relation to insulin resistance has been suggested but conclusive evidence in human beings is lacking. Asian Indians and South Asians are prone to develop insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome. In the present paper, data pertaining to nutrient intake, insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk factors in Asian Indians and South Asians have been reviewed. In these populations, several dietary imbalances have been reported: low intake of MUFA, n-3 PUFA and fibre, and high intake of fats, saturated fats, carbohydrates and trans-fatty acids (mostly related to the widespread use of Vanaspati, a hydrogenated oil). Some data suggest that these nutrient imbalances are associated with insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia and subclinical inflammation in South Asians. Specifically, in children and young individuals, a high intake of n-6 PUFA is correlated with fasting hyperinsulinaemia, and in adults, high-carbohydrate meal consumption was reported to cause hyperinsulinaemia, postprandial hyperglycaemia and hypertriacylglycerolaemia. Dietary supplementation with n-3 PUFA leads to an improved lipid profile but not insulin sensitivity. Inadequate maternal nutrition in pregnancy, low birth weight and childhood ‘catch-up’ obesity may be important for the development of the metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Even in rural populations, who usually consume traditional frugal diets, there is an increasing prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and the metabolic syndrome due to changes in diets and lifestyle. Nationwide community intervention programmes aimed at creating awareness about the consequences of unhealthy food choices and replacing them by healthy food choices are urgently needed in urban and rural populations in India, other countries in South Asia and in migrant South Asians.
Predictable and predictive emotions: explaining cheap signals and trust re-extension

Despite normative predictions from economics and biology, unrelated strangers will often develop the trust necessary to reap gains from one-shot economic exchange opportunities. This appears to be especially true when declared intentions and emotions can be cheaply communicated. Perhaps even more puzzling to economists and biologists is the observation that anonymous and unrelated individuals, known to have breached trust, often make effective use of cheap signals, such as promises and apologies, to encourage trust re-extension. We used a pair of trust games with one-way communication and an emotion survey to investigate the role of emotions in regulating the propensity to message, apologize, re-extend trust, and demonstrate trustworthiness. This design allowed us to observe the endogenous emergence and natural distribution of trust-relevant behaviors, remedial strategies used by promise-breakers, their effects on behavior, and subsequent outcomes. We found that emotions triggered by interaction outcomes are predictable and also predict subsequent apology and trust re-extension. The role of emotions in behavioral regulation helps explain why messages are produced, when they can be trusted, and when trust will be re-extended.
BAAT: Towards Dynamically Managing Battery Aging in Green Datacenters

Energy storage devices (batteries) have shown great promise in eliminating supply/demand power mismatch and reducing energy/power cost in green datacenters. These important components progressively age due to irregular usage patterns, which result in less effective capacity and even pose serious threat to server availability. Nevertheless, prior proposals largely ignore the aging issue of batteries or simply use ad-hoc discharge capping to extend their lifetime. To fill this critical void, we thoroughly investigate battery aging on a heavily instrumented prototype over an observation period of six months. We propose battery anti-aging treatment (BAAT), a novel framework for hiding, reducing, and planning the battery aging effects. We show that BAAT can extend battery lifetime by 69%. It enables datacenters to maximally utilize energy storage resources to enhance availability and boost performance. Moreover, it reduces 26% battery cost and allows datacenters to economically scale in the big data era.
Chapter II: Characteristics of Adults Basic to Education

THIS chapter summarizing the characteristics of adults which are basic to education is based primarily on references that have appeared since 1944. It must necessarily eliminate the major contributions that formed the basis of the knowledge of adult psychology. Since Thorndike's Adult Learning was published, considerable interest has been shown in the psychological and medical adjustment of the last half of the life span. The past few years have seen two new journals devoted to the field of "the aged, the aging and the dying. " Geriatrics (3) and the Journal of Gerontology (26) from time to time included articles of psychological significance. The Journal of Gerontology included review articles as well as a fairly complete index to current periodical literature. Under Cowdry's able editorship, the revised edition of Problems of Ageing (14) was published in 1942. Of particular interest to educators are Friedenwald's chapter on the eye, Guild's on the ear, Miles' on psychological aspects of aging, and Hamilton's on personality and psychosexual phenomena. Stieglitz's (68) The Second Forty Years is a very adequate summary of adult characteristics, especially from the medical viewpoint. The recently revised edition of Geriatric Medicine (66) summarized the medical aspects of aging, and also included an excellent chapter on mental changes in normal aging by Miles and Miles (51) . This chapter surveyed age in its relation to sensory and motor activity, intelligence, learning, interest, personality, and productivity. Hunt and Cofer (32) integrated the literature on psychological deficit. Altho these authors' orientation was with the personality disorder, there was extensive reference to normal individuals. A very adequate bibliography accompanied the discussion.
Who Are the Palestinian Suicide Bombers?

The current study uses the content analysis method while focusing on identification of repeated patterns of behavior by suicide terrorists and the society within which they grow and develop. The present study presents a typology—a classification into categories, each represented by a prototype, of suicide terrorists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also identifies prerequisite factors (as without these factors, there is little opportunity for a particular prototype to emerge) and supporting factors (which may assist in the emergence of the prototype, but are not essential) for each of the suicide terrorist prototypes. The suggested typology is based on a convenient sample: details which have been published in the literature describing suicide terrorists. The typology suggests four categories of suicide bombers: religious fanatic, exploited, avenger, and nationalist fanatic. This typology is based on the main motive of the perpetrator, and different trajectories which each suicide bomber undergoes from recruitment to detonating the bomb. The major difference among the four categories lies in the prerequisite factors and their relative importance in comparison to the supporting factors.
LANTHANUM STAINING OF THE SURFACE COAT OF CELLS

Among the techniques which have been reported to stain the surface coat of cells, for electron microscopy, is lanthanum staining en bloc. Similarly, the presence of the cationic dye, Alcian blue 8GX, in a primary glutaraldehyde fixative has been reported to improve the preservation of the surface coat of cells of many types; however, the preserved coat is not very electron opaque unless thin sections are counterstained. The present paper shows that for several rat tissues lanthanum staining en bloc is an effective electron stain for the cell surface, giving excellent contrast, if combined sequentially with prefixation in an aldehyde fixative containing Alcian blue. The cationic substance cetylpyridinium chloride was found to have a similar effect to that of Alcian blue in enhancing the lanthanum staining of the surface coat material of the brush border of intestinal epithelial cells. The patterns of lanthanum staining obtained for the tissues studied strikingly resemble those reported in the literature where tissues are stained by several standard methods for demonstrating mucosubstances at the ultrastructural level. This fact and the reproduction of the effect of Alcian blue by cetylpyridinium chloride constitute a persuasive empirical argument that the material visualized is a mucopolysaccharide or mucopolysaccharide-protein complex.
Kinetic analysis of receptor-activated phosphoinositide turnover

We studied the bradykinin-induced changes in phosphoinositide composition of N1E-115 neuroblastoma cells using a combination of biochemistry, microscope imaging, and mathematical modeling. Phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) decreased over the first 30 s, and then recovered over the following 2–3 min. However, the rate and amount of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) production were much greater than the rate or amount of PIP2 decline. A mathematical model of phosphoinositide turnover based on this data predicted that PIP2 synthesis is also stimulated by bradykinin, causing an early transient increase in its concentration. This was subsequently confirmed experimentally. Then, we used single-cell microscopy to further examine phosphoinositide turnover by following the translocation of the pleckstrin homology domain of PLCδ1 fused to green fluorescent protein (PH-GFP). The observed time course could be simulated by incorporating binding of PIP2 and InsP3 to PH-GFP into the model that had been used to analyze the biochemistry. Furthermore, this analysis could help to resolve a controversy over whether the translocation of PH-GFP from membrane to cytosol is due to a decrease in PIP2 on the membrane or an increase in InsP3 in cytosol; by computationally clamping the concentrations of each of these compounds, the model shows how both contribute to the dynamics of probe translocation.
Academic Competence for Adolescents Who Bully and Who Are Bullied

School bullying has negative implications for adolescent academic competence, making it important to explore what factors promote such competence for adolescents who bully and who are bullied. Potential contextual and individual variables linked to academic competence were examined in the context of bullying. Data were derived from the Grades 5 and 6 of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, a national longitudinal investigation of adolescents in the United States that began in 2002. Longitudinal random effects hierarchical regression analyses with a subsample of 620 adolescents indicated that being a bully negatively impacted academic competence beyond demographic background, including sex and maternal education, and prior year academic competence. Concurrent random effects hierarchical regression analyses of a subsample of 250 adolescents suggested that educational expectations and school engagement interacted in fostering academic competence for bullies and victims. These findings highlight the importance of addressing academic competence in bullying interventions.
Craniocerebral injuries from dog bites.

Dr. Fernando Campos Gomes Pinto – Rua Bartira 1060 / 61 05009-000 São Paulo SP Brasil. E-mail: fernando.neuro@terra.com. br Dog bites are increasingly being recognized as posing a major public health problem. In the U.S., Weiss et al. reported a rate of 12.9 per 10,000 persons, for dog-bite related injuries resulting in a total of 333,687 visits to Emergency Departments. Children most commonly fall victim, where the head and neck are the most frequent sites of injury accounting for some 80% of such cases. To date, craniocerebral injury cases caused by dog bites have been little published in the medical literature. Two cases of penetrating head injury from dog bites are presented and discussed in the context of the current literature on clinical and radiological evaluation, and treatment.
Molecular Background of Leak K (cid:1) Currents: Two-Pore Domain Potassium Channels

(K 2P ) channels give rise to leak (also called background) K (cid:1) currents. The well-known role of background K (cid:1) currents is to stabilize the negative resting membrane potential and counterbalance depolarization. However, it has become apparent in the past decade (during the detailed examination of the cloned and corresponding native K 2P channel types) that this primary hyperpolarizing action is not performed passively. The K 2P channels are regulated by a wide variety of voltage-independent factors. Basic physicochemical parameters (e.g., pH, temperature, membrane stretch) and also several intracellular signaling pathways substantially and speciﬁcally modulate the different members of the six K 2P channel subfamilies (TWIK, TREK, TASK, TALK, THIK, and TRESK). The deep implication in diverse physiological processes, the circumscribed expression pattern of the different channels, and the interesting pharmacological proﬁle brought the K 2P channel family into the spotlight. In this review, we focus on the physiological roles of K 2P channels in the most extensively investigated cell types, with special emphasis on the molecular mechanisms of channel regulation.
Tumor-associated autoantibodies are useful biomarkers in immunodiagnosis of α-fetoprotein-negative hepatocellular carcinoma

AIM To determine the prevalence and diagnostic value of autoantibodies in α-fetoprotein (AFP)-negative hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS Fifty-six serum samples from AFP-negative HCC cases, 86 from AFP-positive HCC cases, 168 from chronic liver disease cases, and 59 from normal human controls were included in this study. Autoantibodies to nucleophosmin (NPM)1, 14-3-3zeta and mouse double minute 2 homolog (MDM2) proteins in AFP-negative HCC serum were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Partially positive sera were further evaluated by western blotting. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of three tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) in AFP-negative HCC and normal control tissues. RESULTS The frequency of autoantibodies to the three TAAs in AFP-negative HCC sera was 21.4%, 19.6% and 19.6%, which was significantly higher than in the chronic liver disease cases and normal human controls (P < 0.01) as well as AFP-positive HCC cases. The sensitivity of the three autoantibodies for diagnosis of AFP-negative HCC ranged from 19.6% to 21.4%, and the specificity was approximately 95%. When the three autoantibodies were combined, the sensitivity reached 30.4% and the specificity reached 91.6%. CONCLUSION Autoantibodies to NPM1, 14-3-3zeta and MDM2 may be useful biomarkers for immunodiagnosis of AFP-negative HCC.
Salicylate, a Catalytic Inhibitor of Topoisomerase II, Inhibits DNA Cleavage and Is Selective for the α Isoform

Topoisomerase II (topo II) is a ubiquitous enzyme that is essential for cell survival through its role in regulating DNA topology and chromatid separation. Topo II can be poisoned by common chemotherapeutics (such as doxorubicin and etoposide), leading to the accumulation of cytotoxic enzyme-linked DNA double-stranded breaks. In contrast, nonbreak-inducing topo II catalytic inhibitors have also been described and have more limited use in clinical chemotherapy. These agents, however, may alter the efficacy of regimens incorporating topo II poisons. We previously identified salicylate, the primary metabolite of aspirin, as a novel catalytic inhibitor of topo II. We have now determined the mechanism by which salicylate inhibits topo II. As catalytic inhibitors can act at a number of steps in the topo II catalytic cycle, we used multiple independent, biochemical approaches to interrogate the catalytic cycle. Furthermore, as mammalian cells express two isoforms of topo II (α and β), we examined whether salicylate was isoform selective. Our results demonstrate that salicylate is unable to intercalate DNA, and does not prevent enzyme–DNA interaction, nor does it promote stabilization of topo IIα in closed clamps on DNA. Although salicylate decreased topo IIα ATPase activity in a dose-dependent noncompetitive manner, this was secondary to salicylate-mediated inhibition of DNA cleavage. Surprisingly, comparison of salicylate’s effects using purified human topo IIα and topo IIβ revealed that salicylate selectively inhibits the α isoform. These findings provide a definitive mechanism for salicylate-mediated inhibition of topo IIα and provide support for further studies determining the basis for its isoform selectivity.
Approximate XML query answers

The rapid adoption of XML as the standard for data representation and exchange foreshadows a massive increase in the amounts of XML data collected, maintained, and queried over the Internet or in large corporate data-stores. Inevitably, this will result in the development of on-line decision support systems, where users and analysts interactively explore large XML data sets through a declarative query interface (e.g., XQuery or XSLT). Given the importance of remaining interactive, such on-line systems can employ approximate query answers as an effective mechanism for reducing response time and providing users with early feedback. This approach has been successfully used in relational systems and it becomes even more compelling in the XML world, where the evaluation of complex queries over massive tree-structured data is inherently more expensive.In this paper, we initiate a study of approximate query answering techniques for large XML databases. Our approach is based on a novel, conceptually simple, yet very effective XML-summarization mechanism: TREESKETCH synopses. We demonstrate that, unlike earlier techniques focusing solely on selectivity estimation, our TREESKETCH synopses are much more effective in capturing the complete tree structure of the underlying XML database. We propose novel construction algorithms for building TREESKETCH summaries of limited size, and describe schemes for processing general XML twig queries over a concise TREESKETCH in order to produce very fast, approximate tree-structured query answers. To quantify the quality of such approximate answers, we propose a novel, intuitive error metric that captures the quality of the approximation in terms of both the overall structure of the XML tree and the distribution of document edges. Experimental results on real-life and synthetic data sets verify the effectiveness of our TREESKETCH synopses in producing fast, accurate approximate answers and demonstrate their benefits over previously proposed techniques that focus solely on selectivity estimation. In particular, TREESKETCHes yield faster, more accurate approximate answers and selectivity estimates, and are more efficient to construct. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first work to address the timely problem of producing fast, approximate tree-structured answers for complex XML queries.
A survey of bacterial insertion sequences using IScan

Bacterial insertion sequences (ISs) are the simplest kinds of bacterial mobile DNA. Evolutionary studies need consistent IS annotation across many different genomes. We have developed an open-source software package, IScan, to identify bacterial ISs and their sequence elements—inverted and target direct repeats—in multiple genomes using multiple flexible search parameters. We applied IScan to 438 completely sequenced bacterial genomes and 20 IS families. The resulting data show that ISs within a genome are extremely similar, with a mean synonymous divergence of Ks = 0.033. Our analysis substantially extends previously available information, and suggests that most ISs have entered bacterial genomes recently. By implication, their population persistence may depend on horizontal transfer. We also used IScan's ability to analyze the statistical significance of sequence similarity among many IS inverted repeats. Although the inverted repeats of insertion sequences are evolutionarily highly flexible parts of ISs, we show that this ability can be used to enrich a dataset for ISs that are likely to be functional. Applied to the thousands of genomes that will soon be available, IScan could be used for many purposes, such as mapping the evolutionary history and horizontal transfer patterns of different ISs.