Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Calpain and PARP Activation during Photoreceptor Cell Death in P23H and S334ter Rhodopsin Mutant Rats

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a heterogeneous group of inherited neurodegenerative diseases affecting photoreceptors and causing blindness. Many human cases are caused by mutations in the rhodopsin gene. An important question regarding RP pathology is whether different genetic defects trigger the same or different cell death mechanisms. To answer this question, we analysed photoreceptor degeneration in P23H and S334ter transgenic rats carrying rhodopsin mutations that affect protein folding and sorting respectively. We found strong activation of calpain and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in both mutants, concomitant with calpastatin down-regulation, increased oxidative DNA damage and accumulation of PAR polymers. These parameters were strictly correlated with the temporal progression of photoreceptor degeneration, mirroring earlier findings in the phosphodiesterase-6 mutant rd1 mouse, and suggesting execution of non-apoptotic cell death mechanisms. Interestingly, activation of caspases-3 and -9 and cytochrome c leakage—key events in apoptotic cell death—were observed only in the S334ter mutant, which also showed increased expression of PARP-1. The identification of the same metabolic markers triggered by different mutations in two different species suggests the existence of common cell death mechanisms, which is a major consideration for any mutation independent treatment.
Symptomatic parvovirus B19 infection caused by blood component transfusion

BACKGROUND: Although a risk of transfusion‐transmitted human parvovirus B19V (TT‐B19V) infection has been a concern, there have been very few reports of clinically relevant TT‐B19V caused by the transfusion of a B19V‐containing blood component. It has therefore been a matter of debate whether a universal B19V screening with an appropriate sensitivity is required.
Numerical study on pre-film atomization mechanism and characteristics by a coaxial swirl injector

The overall process and mechanism of the centrifugal pre-film atomization with double swirling flow were studied using the methods of large Eddy simulation and volume of fluid. The atomization process includes a centrifugal jet under the primary swirl and a pre-film atomization under the two-stage counter-rotating swirl at the venturi outlet. The fuel is ejected from the outlet of the centrifugal nozzle and undergoes the transient process of reaching the venturi throat. The breaking mechanism of liquid film in this process is the same as that of the formation mechanism of the mushroom-shaped tip of liquid jet. The numerical simulation results are highly consistent with the experimental results. For the formation and development of the liquid film on the venturi wall, collision and wave action promote the expansion of the liquid film. At the outlet position of the venturi tube, the short wave mode and the two-stage reverse swirling structure play major roles in the fragmentation process of the flake liquid film, which coincides with the flow characteristics given by the experiment. It is found that the spray cone angle increases as the fuel flow rate increases, and the numerical results are basically consistent with the predicted values of the empirical formula under different fuel flow rates. The droplet size distribution showed a Poisson distribution during the atomization of centrifugal jets and pre-film, and the peak position and variation trend of the droplet size distribution at the outlet of the venturi tube were basically consistent with experimental results.
The nature of awe: Elicitors, appraisals, and effects on self-concept

Awe has been defined as an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm current mental structures, yet facilitate attempts at accommodation. Four studies are presented showing the information-focused nature of awe elicitors, documenting the self-diminishing effects of awe experience, and exploring the effects of awe on the content of the self-concept. Study 1 documented the information-focused, asocial nature of awe elicitors in participant narratives. Study 2 contrasted the stimulus-focused, self-diminishing nature of appraisals and feelings associated with a prototypical awe experience with the self-focused appraisals and feelings associated with pride. Study 3 found that dispositional awe-proneness, but not dispositional joy or pride, was associated with low Need for Cognitive Closure, and also documented a relationship between dispositional awe and increased emphasis on membership in “universal” categories in participants’ self-concepts. Study 4 replicated the self-concept finding from Study 3 using experimentally elicited awe. Implications for future work on awe are discussed.
Salient Region Detection by Modeling Distributions of Color and Orientation

We present a robust salient region detection framework based on the color and orientation distribution in images. The proposed framework consists of a color saliency framework and an orientation saliency framework. The color saliency framework detects salient regions based on the spatial distribution of the component colors in the image space and their remoteness in the color space. The dominant hues in the image are used to initialize an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to fit a Gaussian mixture model in the hue-saturation (H-S) space. The mixture of Gaussians framework in H-S space is used to compute the inter-cluster distance in the H-S domain as well as the relative spread among the corresponding colors in the spatial domain. Orientation saliency framework detects salient regions in images based on the global and local behavior of different orientations in the image. The oriented spectral information from the Fourier transform of the local patches in the image is used to obtain the local orientation histogram of the image. Salient regions are further detected by identifying spatially confined orientations and with the local patches that possess high orientation entropy contrast. The final saliency map is selected as either color saliency map or orientation saliency map by automatically identifying which of the maps leads to the correct identification of the salient region. The experiments are carried out on a large image database annotated with ldquoground-truthrdquo salient regions, provided by Microsoft Research Asia, which enables us to conduct robust objective level comparisons with other salient region detection algorithms.
The Effect of English Extensive Reading Activities on Students' Reading Proficiency and Reading Motivation

This paper explores whether the Extensive Reading has a positive effect on students' reading motivation and proficiency. For this study 36 high school students in two separate classrooms from Gyeonggi-do, South Korea were surveyed. To control for extraneous variables in the samples, ANCOVA analysis was utilized. The result indicates that Extensive Reading activities led subjects to have higher intrinsic levels of reading motivation, and, at the same time, to have higher levels of reading proficiency.
Health-Related Financial Catastrophe, Inequality and Chronic Illness in Bangladesh

Background Bangladesh has a high proportion of households incurring catastrophic health expenditure, and very limited risk sharing mechanisms. Identifying determinants of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments and catastrophic health expenditure may reveal opportunities to reduce costs and protect households from financial risk. Objective This study investigates the determinants of high healthcare expenditure and healthcare- related financial catastrophe. Methods A cross-sectional household survey was conducted in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, in 2011. Catastrophic health expenditure was estimated separately based on capacity to pay and proportion of non-food expenditure. Determinants of OOP payments and financial catastrophe were estimated using double hurdle and Poisson regression models respectively. Results On average households spent 11% of their total budgets on health, half the residents spent 7% of the monthly per capita consumption expenditure for one illness, and nearly 9% of households faced financial catastrophe. The poorest households spent less on health but had a four times higher risk of catastrophe than the richest households. The risk of financial catastrophe and the level of OOP payments were higher for users of inpatient, outpatient public and private facilities respectively compared to using self-medication or traditional healers. Other determinants of OOP payments and catastrophic expenses were economic status, presence of chronic illness in the household, and illness among children and adults. Conclusion Households that received inpatient or outpatient private care experienced the highest burden of health expenditure. The poorest members of the community also face large, often catastrophic expenses. Chronic illness management is crucial to reducing the total burden of disease in a household and its associated increased risk of level of OOP payments and catastrophic expenses. Households can only be protected from these situations by reducing the health system's dependency on OOP payments and providing more financial risk protection.
On robust corner preserving smoothing in image processing

This Ph.D. thesis treats consistency, robustness and dicontinuity-preserving issues of M-kernel estimators in one- and two-dimensional regression. The M-kernel smoother was first introduced by Hardle and Gasser (1984) who provide a restricted valid proof of consistency for a monotone score function and show the minimax property. Chu et al. (1998) take a density as (redescending) score function. They observe a good jump-preserving property. However, as shown in this thesis, consistency cannot be achieved under the assumptions given in their paper. In this thesis, complete proofs for robustness and consistency of both monotone and redescending M-kernel smoothers are provided. Further, consistency close to a discontinuity (called 'jump-preserving' property) is shown for the redescending M-kernel smoother. In a further step the redescending M-kernel smoother is applied to images which can be regarded as two-dimensional regression functions. It is shown that the redescending M-kernel smoother even preserves sharp corners which is, in combination with qualitative asymptotic robustness, a unique property among nonparametric smoothers. To achieve a quantitative nonasymptotic robustness property, the Trimmed M-Kernel Estimator is introduced combining the corner-preserving property of the redescending M-kernel smoother and the robustness against outliers of the LTS estimator.
Semi-supervised learning for automatic conceptual property extraction

For a given concrete noun concept, humans are usually able to cite properties (e.g., elephant is animal, car has wheels) of that concept; cognitive psychologists have theorised that such properties are fundamental to understanding the abstract mental representation of concepts in the brain. Consequently, the ability to automatically extract such properties would be of enormous benefit to the field of experimental psychology. This paper investigates the use of semi-supervised learning and support vector machines to automatically extract concept-relation-feature triples from two large corpora (Wikipedia and UKWAC) for concrete noun concepts. Previous approaches have relied on manually-generated rules and hand-crafted resources such as WordNet; our method requires neither yet achieves better performance than these prior approaches, measured both by comparison with a property norm-derived gold standard as well as direct human evaluation. Our technique performs particularly well on extracting features relevant to a given concept, and suggests a number of promising areas for future focus.
Targeting the EP1 receptor reduces Fas ligand expression and increases the antitumor immune response in an in vivo model of colon cancer

Despite studies demonstrating that inhibition of cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2)‐derived prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) has significant chemotherapeutic benefits in vitro and in vivo, inhibition of COX enzymes is associated with serious gastrointestinal and cardiovascular side effects, limiting the clinical utility of these drugs. PGE2 signals through four different receptors (EP1–EP4) and targeting individual receptor(s) may avoid these side effects, while retaining significant anticancer benefits. Here, we show that targeted inhibition of the EP1 receptor in the tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment resulted in the significant inhibition of tumor growth in vivo. Both dietary administration and direct injection of the EP1 receptor‐specific antagonist, ONO‐8713, effectively reduced the growth of established CT26 tumors in BALB/c mice, with suppression of the EP1 receptor in the tumor cells alone less effective in reducing tumor growth. This antitumor effect was associated with reduced Fas ligand expression and attenuated tumor‐induced immune suppression. In particular, tumor infiltration by CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells was decreased, whereas the cytotoxic activity of isolated splenocytes against CT26 cells was increased. F4/80+ macrophage infiltration was also decreased; however, there was no change in macrophage phenotype. These findings suggest that the EP1 receptor represents a potential target for the treatment of colon cancer.
Metabolic syndrome and arterial stiffness: the past, the present and the future.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of dyslipidemia, central obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance, is considered to raise the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) by about two and five-fold, respectively. In addition, MetS has been associated with age, male sex, postmenopause (in women), serum uric acid (SUA), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) dysfunction, postprandial triglycerides, small-dense low-density lipoprotein (LDL), cytokines, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), impaired endothelial function, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Several MetS definitions exist leading to different study results in various populations; this led to the Joint Interim Societies (JIS) MetS definition.
Plasma membrane Ca2+ release–Activated Ca2+ channels with a high selectivity for Ca2+ identified by patch‐clamp recording in rat liver cells

Repetitive waves of increased cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration play a central role in the process by which hormones regulate liver function. Maintenance of these Ca2+ waves requires Ca2+ inflow through store‐operated Ca2+ channels. The properties and mechanism(s) of activation of these channels are not well understood. Store‐operated Ca2+ channels (SOCs) in the H4‐IIE rat liver cell line were studied by whole‐cell patch clamping. Depletion of Ca2+ in intracellular stores by intracellular perfusion with either inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate (InsP3) or thapsigargin in the presence of 10 mmol/L ethylene glycol‐bis(β‐aminoethyl ether)‐N,N‐tetraacetic acid (EGTA), or with 10 mmol/L EGTA alone, activated an inward current that reversed at a membrane potential above +40 mV. In physiologic extracellular medium, this inward current was carried exclusively by Ca2+ and was blocked by a variety of di‐ and trivalent cations. In the absence of extracellular Ca2+ and Mg2+, the inward current was carried by monovalent cations. This current was 10 to 30 times larger than that observed in the presence of extracellular Ca2+, and permitted the detection of single‐channel events that corresponded to a single‐channel conductance of about 40 pS. Both the Ca2+ and Na+ inward currents were blocked by the calmodulin antagonist, N‐(6‐amino hexyl)‐5‐chloro‐1‐naphthalenesulphonamide (W7), but not by calmidazolium or calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase II fragment 290‐309. It is concluded that liver cells possess plasma membrane Ca2+ channels that have a high selectivity for Ca2+, are activated by a decrease in the concentration of Ca2+ in intracellular stores through a mechanism that is unlikely to involve calmodulin, and are involved in re‐filling intracellular Ca2+ stores during Ca2+ signaling.
comYA, a gene similar to comGA of Bacillus subtilis, is essential for competence-factor-dependent DNA transformation in Streptococcus gordonii

Tn4001 mutagenesis identified a new competence gene in Streptococcus gordonii Challis designated comYA. A comYA mutant was completely deficient in transformation and exhibited decreased levels of DNA binding and hydrolysis. The deduced 319-amino-acid ComYA protein exhibited 57% similarity and 33% identity to the ComGA transporter protein of Bacillus subtilis and contained the Walker A-box motif conserved in ATP-binding proteins as well as aspartic acid boxes Asp-1 and Asp-2 present in some components of the general secretory pathway of gram-negative bacteria. comYA appeared to be part of a putative operon encompassing a comGB homolog, designated comYB, together with sequences that could encode ComGC- and ComGD-like peptides designated ComYC and ComYD, respectively, as well as other components. The putative ComYC and ComYD peptides had leader sequences similar to the type IV N-methylphenylalanine pilins of gram-negative bacteria, but unlike other examples in this class, including B. subtilis, they contained an alanine at position -1 of the leader instead of the usual glycine residue. Northern analysis identified a single 6.0-kb comYA-containing transcript strictly dependent on exogenous competence factor for expression in ComA1 cells. An identical pattern of expression was seen in wild-type Challis cells grown under conditions of maximal competence but not in cells that were noncompetent.
The psychology of immersion and development of a quantitative measure of immersive response in games

This study sets out to investigate the psychology of immersion and the immersive response of individuals in relation to video and computer games. Initially, an exhaustive review of literature is presented, including research into games, player demographics, personality and identity. Play in traditional psychology is also reviewed, as well as previous research into immersion and attempts to define and measure this construct. An online qualitative study was carried out (N=38), and data was analysed using content analysis. A definition of immersion emerged, as well as a classification of two separate types of immersion, namely, vicarious immersion and visceral immersion. A survey study (N=217) verified the discrete nature of these categories and rejected the null hypothesis that there was no difference between individuals' interpretations of vicarious and visceral immersion. The primary aim of this research was to create a quantitative instrument which measures the immersive response as experienced by the player in a single game session. The IMX Questionnaire was developed using data from the initial qualitative study and quantitative survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis was carried out on data from 300 participants for the IMX Version 1, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted on data from 380 participants on the IMX Version 2. IMX Version 3 was developed from the results of these analyses. This questionnaire was found to have high internal consistency reliability and validity.
Finding the Worst Voltage Violation in Multi-Domain Clock Gated Power Network

This paper proposes an efficient method to find the worst case of voltage violation by multi-domain clock gating in an on-chip power network. We first present a voltage response in an arbitrary multi-domain clock gating pattern, using a superposition technique. Then, an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation is proposed to identify the worst-case gating pattern and the maximum variation area. The ILP based method is significantly faster than a conventional method based on enumeration. The experimental results are also compared with a case where peak voltage variation is induced, which shows the latter technique largely underestimated the overall variation effect.
Benefits, Problems, and Characteristics of Home Aquarium Owners

Although tank fish are currently the most popular “pets” in the USA, literature reporting studies on the benefits, problems, and characteristics of home aquarium ownership is extremely limited. Because it seemed important to learn more about people who enjoy owning and caring for home aquaria, 50 men and 50 women were interviewed in several area stores which provide and sell living fish and adjunct products necessary for maintaining good home aquarium environments. Major problems reported by home aquarium owners were the expensive equipment, especially the tanks and controls for water temperature, circulation, and chemical balances, the tank maintenance, and tank cleanliness. Major benefits mentioned by such owners were the calming, relaxation, and stress-reduction effects of just watching fish which lessened anxieties and created a sense of serenity. These findings help to explain the current popularity of the live inhabitants of home aquaria.
Pre-Service Teachers' Knowledge, Participation and Perceptions about Environmental Education in Schools.

Despite the ever-growing body of knowledge about human impact on the environment and the need to work towards a sustainable future, participation in environmental action initiatives among the general population remains low. There is an increasingly urgent need to develop a culture of participation among young people who in turn may become future leaders. This article describes a study that was undertaken to investigate pre-service teachers’ environmental knowledge, their willingness to participate in environmental initiatives, and their perceptions about environmental education in schools. The study participants were pre-service teachers between the ages of 19 and 22. Data were collected through online surveys, followed by focus group interviews where pre-service teachers were given the opportunity to expand and comment on the survey responses. Findings from this study are consistent with previous research on pre-service teacher literacy, attitudes, perceptions and participation. However, the pre-service teachers’ perceptions about the role of schools and adults in nurturing environmental awareness and active participation among youth provides educators with new insights for the development of a more comprehensive environmental education curriculum that focuses on integration of theory and action.
Body Fat Distribution and Insulin Resistance

The burden of obesity has increased globally over the last few decades and its association with insulin resistance and related cardio-metabolic problems have adversely affected our ability to reduce population morbidity and mortality. Traditionally, adipose tissue in the visceral fat depot has been considered a major culprit in the development of insulin resistance. However, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the role of subcutaneous truncal/abdominal adipose tissue in the development of insulin resistance. There are significant differences in the functional characteristics of subcutaneous abdominal/truncal vs. intraabdominal vs. gluteo-femoral fat depots. More recently, mounting evidence has been supporting the role of adipose tissue function in the development of metabolic complications independent of adipose tissue volume or distribution. Decreased capacity for adipocyte differentiation and angiogenesis along with adipocyte hypertrophy can trigger a vicious cycle of inflammation leading to subcutaneous adipose tissue dysfunction and ectopic fat deposition. Therapeutic lifestyle change continues to be the most important intervention in clinical practice to improve adipose tissue function and avoid development of insulin resistance and related cardio-metabolic complications.