Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Pain Assessment with Facial Activity Descriptors

Pain is a primary symptom in medicine, and accurate assessment is needed for proper treatment. However, today’s pain assessment methods are not sufficiently valid and reliable in many cases. Automatic recognition systems may contribute to overcome this problem by facilitating objective and continuous assessment. In this article we propose a novel feature set for describing facial actions and their dynamics, which we call facial activity descriptors. We apply them to detect pain and estimate the pain intensity. The proposed method outperforms previous state-of-the-art approaches in sequence-level pain classification on both, the BioVid Heat Pain and the UNBC-McMaster Shoulder Pain Expression database. We further discuss major challenges of pain recognition research, benefits of temporal integration, and shortcomings of widely used frame-based pain intensity ground truth.
How Do Antihypertensive Drugs Work? Insights from Studies of the Renal Regulation of Arterial Blood Pressure

Though antihypertensive drugs have been in use for many decades, the mechanisms by which they act chronically to reduce blood pressure remain unclear. Over long periods, mean arterial blood pressure must match the perfusion pressure necessary for the kidney to achieve its role in eliminating the daily intake of salt and water. It follows that the kidney is the most likely target for the action of most effective antihypertensive agents used chronically in clinical practice today. Here we review the long-term renal actions of antihypertensive agents in human studies and find three different mechanisms of action for the drugs investigated. (i) Selective vasodilatation of the renal afferent arteriole (prazosin, indoramin, clonidine, moxonidine, α-methyldopa, some Ca++-channel blockers, angiotensin-receptor blockers, atenolol, metoprolol, bisoprolol, labetolol, hydrochlorothiazide, and furosemide). (ii) Inhibition of tubular solute reabsorption (propranolol, nadolol, oxprenolol, and indapamide). (iii) A combination of these first two mechanisms (amlodipine, nifedipine and ACE-inhibitors). These findings provide insights into the actions of antihypertensive drugs, and challenge misconceptions about the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic efficacy of many of the agents.
Direct Visualization of the Formation of Single-Molecule Conjugated Copolymers

Electrochemical polymerization of two different kinds of thiophene monomers on an iodine-covered gold surface created highly assembled conjugated copolymers with different electronic structures. A scanning tunneling microscope revealed images of several linkage types: diblock, triblock, and multiblock. The single strand of conjugated copolymers exhibited an anomalous swinging motion on the surface. This technique presents the possibility of understanding the copolymerization process from the different monomers on the single-molecular scale and of building single-molecule superlattices on a surface through controlled electropolymerization.
Determinant Maximization with Linear Matrix Inequality Constraints

The problem of maximizing the determinant of a matrix subject to linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) arises in many fields, including computational geometry, statistics, system identification, experiment design, and information and communication theory. It can also be considered as a generalization of the semidefinite programming problem. We give an overview of the applications of the determinant maximization problem, pointing out simple cases where specialized algorithms or analytical solutions are known. We then describe an interior-point method, with a simplified analysis of the worst-case complexity and numerical results that indicate that the method is very efficient, both in theory and in practice. Compared to existing specialized algorithms (where they are available), the interior-point method will generally be slower; the advantage is that it handles a much wider variety of problems.
Self-presentational determinants of health risk behavior among college freshmen

Abstract This study examined adolescents' use of unhealthy and potentially dangerous behaviors for self-presentational reasons. At the start of their first semester at college, 110 freshmen (M age = 18.2) completed trait measures of self-presentational concern. At the end of the semester they were asked about their use of health risk behaviors as impression management tactics. Seventy-five percent of respondents reported performing at least 1 risky behavior for self-presentational reasons during their first college semester. The most common behaviors were smoking, drinking, driving recklessly and performing dangerous stunts. The desire to be perceived as “cool” or a “risk-taker” often prompted healdi risks. Modest correlations between the trait measures and health risk behaviors provided additional evidence that self-presentational motives sometimes play a role in adolescent health risk behavior.
Effect of psychiatric illness and labour market status on suicide: a healthy worker effect?

Study objective: To describe the association between labour market status and death by suicide with focus on admission with a psychiatric disorder. Design: Nested case-control study. Data from routine registers. Setting: Entire Danish population. Participants: 9011 people aged 25–60 years who committed suicide during 1982–1997 and 180 220 matched controls. Main results: In the general population, not being fully employed is associated with a twofold to threefold increased relative risk of death by suicide, compared with being fully employed. In contrast, fully employed people who have been first admitted to a psychiatric hospital within the past year are at increased suicide risk. Patients who are unemployed, social benefits recipients, disability pensioners, or otherwise marginalised on the labour market have a suicide risk of 0.60 (95% CI: 0.46 to 0.78), 0.41 (0.23 to 0.74), 0.70 (0.45 to 1.08), and 0.86 (0.53 to 1.41), respectively. Although a similar risk decrease is found in women, men, people younger than 30 years, people older than 45 years, and in people who become unemployed, the reversed effect attenuates with time since admission, and little association is seen when a marginal structural model is applied. Conclusions: Although the results show an increased suicide mortality associated with unemployment and labour market marginalisation in the general population, the results suggest little or an inverse association between unemployment and suicide in people with psychiatric illness. The associations seen suggest the need to consider healthy worker selection effects when studying the causal pathway from unemployment and psychiatric illness to suicide.
DNA mechanics as a tool to probe helicase and translocase activity

Helicases and translocases are proteins that use the energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to move along or pump nucleic acid substrates. Single molecule manipulation has proved to be a powerful tool to investigate the mechanochemistry of these motors. Here we first describe the basic mechanical properties of DNA unraveled by single molecule manipulation techniques. Then we demonstrate how the knowledge of these properties has been used to design single molecule assays to address the enzymatic mechanisms of different translocases. We report on four single molecule manipulation systems addressing the mechanism of different helicases using specifically designed DNA substrates: UvrD enzyme activity detection on a stretched nicked DNA molecule, HCV NS3 helicase unwinding of a RNA hairpin under tension, the observation of RecBCD helicase/nuclease forward and backward motion, and T7 gp4 helicase mediated opening of a synthetic DNA replication fork. We then discuss experiments on two dsDNA translocases: the RuvAB motor studied on its natural substrate, the Holliday junction, and the chromosome-segregation motor FtsK, showing its unusual coupling to DNA supercoiling.
Neuroprotective Effects of Exogenous Activin A on Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation in PC12 Cells

Ischemic cerebrovascular disease is one of the most common causes of death in the World. Exogenous activin A (ActA) protects neurons against toxicity and plays a central role in regulating the brain’s response to injury. In the present study, we investigated the mechanisms involved in the neuroprotective effects of ActA in a model of hypoxic-ischemic brain disease. We found that ActA could effectively increase the survival rate of PC12 cells and relieve oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) damage. To clarify the neuroprotective mechanisms of ActA, the effects of ActA on the ActA/Smad pathway and on the up-regulation of inducible nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were investigated using OGD in PC12 cells. The results showed that ActA could increase the expression of activin receptor IIA (ActRIIA), Smad3 and Smad4 and that 50 ng/mL and 100 ng/mL of ActA could reduce NO levels and increase SOD activity by 78.9% and 79.9%, respectively. These results suggested that the neuroprotective effects of ActA in ischemia could be related to the activation of the ActA/Smad signaling pathway and to its anti-oxidant activities.
MicroRNAs are differentially abundant during Aedes albopictus diapause maintenance but not diapause induction

Diapause is a programmed dormancy that allows organisms to tolerate predictable periods of unfavourable conditions by temporarily halting development and reducing metabolism. Diapause is widespread amongst insects and is crucial for allowing organisms to coordinate their growth and reproduction with favourable environmental conditions. Although the adaptive significance of diapause is well understood, the molecular mechanisms underpinning diapause remain unresolved. We performed high‐throughput sequencing to investigate the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the diapause of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. We first investigated miRNAs in diapause induction by characterizing maternally provisioned miRNAs in mature oocytes of Ae. albopictus under diapause‐inducing and diapause‐averting conditions. Second, we investigated miRNAs in diapause maintenance by characterizing miRNAs in diapause and nondiapause pharate larvae. We identified 162 miRNAs, 152 previously known and 10 putatively novel. We identified no differentially abundant miRNAs in mature oocytes and seven differentially abundant miRNAs in pharate larvae. The predicted targets of differentially abundant miRNAs include genes affecting several processes related to diapause maintenance including ecdysone regulation, immune response, lipid metabolism and regulation of development. Our results suggest that Ae. albopictus does not maternally provision a unique set of miRNAs during diapause induction but miRNAs are a component of diapause maintenance in this species.
Turn It Off: An Action Research Study of Top Management Influence on Energy Conservation in the Workplace

This paper reports the results of an intervention study that aimed to encourage workplace energy conservation behavior by office-based employees. Taking a co-production approach we worked with the participating organization to design and implement an intervention that used the influence of top management commitment and prompts to encourage workplace energy reduction. Whilst past research has shown top management is related to workplace pro-environmental behavior, this study extends this work by examining a field-based intervention over a longitudinal period. The efficacy of the intervention was measured using observational and self-reported data over a period of 6 months. Results showed that there were significant changes in objective and self-reported energy conservation behavior, perceived top management commitment, organizational culture, norms, and knowledge regarding energy conservation behavior over the course of the study. The findings also demonstrated that the intervention was most successful for those behaviors where employees have individual responsibility. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Prognostic relevance of histological variants in nonspecific interstitial pneumonia

Although histological non‐specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) is concisely defined, overlap with other patterns is described. While most frequently idiopathic, NSIP is seen in various clinical contexts such as connective tissue diseases (CTDs) and chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis (cHP). This study was designed to determine if NSIP could be separated into subgroups based on minor histological features and to correlate these subgroups with clinical associations and survival.
Diet and health changes at the end of the Chinese neolithic: the Yangshao/Longshan transition in Shaanxi province.

In this paper we discuss diet and health changes of millet agriculturists in Northern China, Shaanxi province, during the period 7,000-4,000 BP. An episode of intensive climatic oscillations that preceded the onset of colder climate circa the fifth millennium BP divides the period (Shi et al. [1993] Global Planet. Change 7:219-233). The onset of the cooler climate marks the decline of the egalitarian society of Yangshao and the rise of the chiefdom-like society of Longshan. Skeletal materials from the two sites of Beiliu and Jiangzhai are from the earlier phases of Yangshao culture (7,000-6,000 BP), while remains from the Shijia site were excavated from the terminal phase of Yangshao culture (6,000-5,000 BP), a phase that would be expected to show adjustments to strong climatic fluctuations. Human remains from the Longshan culture (5,000-4,000, BP) were found at the Kangjia site. In order to investigate whether the trajectory of diet and health changes persisted beyond the Longshan, a skeletal sample from the Xicun site of the Western Zhao Dynastic period (3,800-2,200 BP) is included in our analyses. All Yangshao sites in our study are characterized by low frequencies of anemia and carious lesions. Some subsistence changes probably occurred during the later phase of Yangshao culture that resulted in elevated masticatory stress and occlusal macrowear among the Shijia people. However, deterioration of community health did not begin until the Longshan, when increased occurrence of porotic hyperostosis and caries is accompanied by decreased adult stature. The transition to softer, more extensively processed food during Longshan is evident in decreased rates of occlusal wear. Increased population density and diminished food values were most likely responsible for these changes. Poor health persisted into the subsequent Dynastic period of Western Zhao.
Race differences in educational attainment of youth aged 7–18 in post-apartheid South Africa: The role of family structure, resources and school quality

ABSTRACT The present study uses seven waves of the General Household Survey by Statistics South Africa to examine the role of family structure, resources and school quality in educational inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa. Indians/Asians and whites have an education advantage over Africans and coloureds, and maintain that advantage as they age. About half of the disadvantage of Africans and coloureds is because of family background; very little is because of school characteristics that can be measured in this study. Findings show that the family institution is central in understanding racial inequalities in educational outcomes in South Africa.
Energy efficient IPMSM drive with three-level Diode Clamped Inverter using DSP

This paper presents a prototype implementation of a three-level Diode-Clamped Inverter (DCI) fed energy efficient IPMSM drive. A MOSFET based bridge inverter is chosen and the pulses are produced using Digital Signal Processor (DSP) TMS320f28335. Using the embedded coder tool box, the Simulink model is compiled and programmed with the software Code Composer Studio (CCS) which is a compiler and programmer. The pulses from the DSP are fed to the DCI Bridge with an Optocoupler isolation unit. The output of the inverter is fed to the Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (IPMSM) drive for the analysis. Hardware implementation of the proposed work is carried out on IPMSM and the results were presented.
Characterization of irvR, a Novel Regulator of the irvA-Dependent Pathway Required for Genetic Competence and Dextran-Dependent Aggregation in Streptococcus mutans

ABSTRACT Previous studies identified irvA as a normally repressed but highly inducible transcription regulator capable of repressing mutacin I gene expression in Streptococcus mutans. In this study, we aimed to identify and characterize the regulator(s) responsible for repressing the expression of irvA. An uncharacterized open reading frame (SMU.1398) located immediately adjacent to irvA and annotated as a putative transcription repressor was identified as a likely candidate. The results of mutation studies confirmed that the expression of irvA was greatly increased in the SMU.1398 background. Mutation of SMU.1398 (“irvR”) abolished genetic competence and reduced the expression of the late competence genes/operons comEA, comY, and dprA without affecting the expression of the known competence regulators comC, comED, or comX. In addition, irvR was found to be a potent negative regulator of dextran-dependent aggregation (DDAG) and gbpC expression. Each of these irvR mutant phenotypes could be rescued with a double mutation of irvA or complemented by introducing a wild-type copy of irvR on a shuttle vector. These data indicate that the repression of irvA is critically dependent upon irvR and that irvA repression is essential for the development of genetic competence and the proper control of DDAG in S. mutans.
The use of comet assay to assess DNA integrity of boar spermatozoa following liquid preservation at 5˚C and 16˚C

The comet assay, under neutral conditions, allows the assessment of DNA integrity influenced by sperm ageing, which is manifested in DNA double-strand breaks. Here, we attempted to use a modified neutral comet assay test (single-cell gel electrophoresis), to our knowledge for the first time, to assess DNA integrity of boar spermatozoa during liquid storage fo r 96 h at 5˚C and 16˚C. In this comet assay protocol we used 2% β-mercaptoethanol prior to the lysis procedure, to aid in removing nuclear proteins. Ejaculates from 3 boars (designated A, C and G) were diluted with a standard semen extender, Kortowo-3 (K-3), which was supplemented with lipoprotein fractions extracted from hen egg yolk (LPFh) or ostrich egg yolk (LPFo). Irrespective of the extender type, the percentage of comet-detected spermatozoa with damaged DNA increased gradually during prolonged storage at 5˚C and 16˚C. Spermatozoa stored in K-3 extender exhibited elevated levels of DNA damage at both storage temperatures. Significant differences in DNA damage among the boars were more pronounced during storage in LPF-based extenders at 5˚C: spermatozoa of boars A and G were less susceptible to DNA damage. The percent of tail DNA in comets was lower in LPF-based extenders, and there were individual variations among the boars. We observed that changes in DNA integrity were dependent on the extender type and storage temperature. A higher level of DNA instability was observed in K-3 extended semen compared with K-3/LPFh or K-3/LPFo extended semen during storage at 5˚C. No significant difference in the level of DNA damage between K-3/LPFh and K-3/LPFo was observed. It seems that a long-term storage can affect genomic integrity of boar spermatozoa. The modified neutral comet assay can be used to detect low levels of DNA damage in boar spermatozoa during liquid preservation. Therefore, screening for sperm DNA damage may be used as an additional test of sperm function that can have diagnostic value in practice.
Effect of in vitro administered 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) on DNA-binding activities of nuclear transcription factors in NIH-3T3 mouse fibroblasts

TCDD is a very toxic environmental contaminant which is known to cause a variety of toxic symptoms in many species. Because of a myriad of biochemical changes TCDD is known to induce in many test animals, it has been difficult to pinpoint the causative event common to all those symptoms in different species. One of the research avenues we have been following is identification of the pattern of TCDD-induced changes in DNA binding characteristics of nuclear transcription factors (NTFs), each of which has the property to trigger a set of coordinated changes in many gene expressions. Since in our previous work we studied animals affected by TCDD in vivo using gel mobility shift assay approached with32P labeled oligonucleotide probes, [1] we examined in the current study the possibility whether we could establish an equivalent in vitro system in NIH-3T3 mouse fibroblast cells so as to be able to learn the similarities and the dissimilarities of TCDD-induced responses of NTFs between in vitro and in vivo. The results indicated that, for a large part, this in vitro test system could reasonably reproduce the pattern of changes occurring in vivo at the early stages of TCDD's action in terms of induced changes in binding of thes NTSs to DNA. The key features were TCDD induced upregulation of NTFs binding to the response elements for AP-1, dioxin (DRE) and T3 (thyroid hormone) and down-regulation of those to response elements (REs) for c-Myc, Sp-1 and retinoic acid receptor (RARE). However, the time course required the changes in DNA binding activity was much shorter in vitro. To study the basic cause for such changes in NTF binding, we studied the effects of exogenously added EGF, forskolin, TPA (12-0-tetradecanoylphorbol acetate) and TNFα on the expression of TCDD's action on some of these NTFs. The results showed that these agents indeed greatly influence the outcome. The most influential agents were TNFα, forskolin and EGF. These results indicate that this in vitro cell model is useful in simulating the action of TCDD with respect to its basic action on NTFs.
Automated cancer diagnosis based on histopathological images : a systematic survey

In traditional cancer diagnosis, pathologists examine biopsies to make diagnostic assessments largely based on cell morphology and tissue distribution. However, this is subjective and often leads to considerable variability. On the other hand, computational diagnostic tools enable objective judgments by making use of quantitative measures. This paper presents a systematic survey of the computational steps in automated cancer diagnosis based on histopathology. These computational steps are: 1. ) image preprocessing to determine the focal areas, 2. ) feature extraction to quantify the properties of these focal areas, and 3. ) classifying the focal areas as malignant or not or identifying their malignancy levels. In Step 1, the focal area determination is usually preceded by noise reduction to improve its success. In the case of cellular-level diagnosis, this step also comprises nucleus/cell segmentation. Step 2 defines appropriate representations of the focal areas that provide distinctive objective measures. In Step 3, automated diagnostic systems that operate on quantitative measures are designed. After the design, this step also estimates the accuracy of the system. In this paper, we detail these computational steps, address their challenges, and discuss the remedies to overcome the challenges, emphasizing the importance of constituting benchmark data sets. Such benchmark data sets allow comparing the different features and system designs and prevent misleading accuracy estimation of the systems. Therefore, this allows determining the subsets of distinguishing features, devise new features, and improve the success of automated cancer diagnosis.