Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of the metabolism of the colon carcinogen, azoxymethane, by pyrazole.

Abstract Alterations of [ 14 C]azoxymethane metabolism by pretreatment with pyrazole, an inhibitor of alcohol dehydrogenase, were studied in male F344 rats. Whereas control animals exhaled approximately 36% of the [ 14 C]azoxymethane dose (10.5 mg/kg) in 6 hr as 14 CO 2 , rats pretreated with pyrazole (40 mg/kg) exhaled approximately 3.5%. Pretreatment with pyrazole (360 mg/kg) caused a complete inhibition of exhaled 14 CO 2 for at least 6 hr. After 48 hr the amount of exhaled 14 CO 2 comprised approximately 50% of the dose in the controls, and 26 and 20% for the 40- and 360-mg/kg pyrazole-pretreated rats, respectively. [ 14 C]Methylamine, [ 14 C]urea, and [ 14 C]methylazoxymethanol were detected in the urines of control rats. Pretreatment with pyrazole (40 mg/kg) caused a 2.5-fold increase in urinary methylazoxymethanol; pretreatment with pyrazole (360 mg/kg) increased the urinary level of azoxymethane some 2.5- to 3-fold. In contrast to controls and 40-mg/kg pyrazole-pretreated rats, 360-mg/kg pyrazole-pretreated animals showed increased urinary excretion of [ 14 C]methylamine and continued excretion of [ 14 C]methylazoxymethanol and unmetabolized [ 14 C]azoxymethane during the 24- to 48-hr period after [ 14 C]azoxymethane administration. Washed liver microsomes from pyrazole-treated rats converted azoxymethane to methylazoxymethanol at the same rate as controls, but the hydroxylation could be inhibited by the addition of pyrazole to the incubation system. These results show that pyrazole inhibits the metabolism of azoxymethane at at least two steps. At 40 mg/kg, pyrazole inhibits the oxidation of methylazoxymethanol, presumably by blocking alcohol dehydrogenase. At 360 mg/kg, pyrazole blocks this reaction and inhibits the hydroxylation of azoxymethane.
The neuronal correlates of mirror therapy: an fMRI study on mirror induced visual illusions in patients with stroke

Aim To investigate the neuronal basis for the effects of mirror therapy in patients with stroke. Methods 22 patients with stroke participated in this study. The authors used functional MRI to investigate neuronal activation patterns in two experiments. In the unimanual experiment, patients moved their unaffected hand, either while observing it directly (no-mirror condition) or while observing its mirror reflection (mirror condition). In the bimanual experiment, patients moved both hands, either while observing the affected hand directly (no-mirror condition) or while observing the mirror reflection of the unaffected hand in place of the affected hand (mirror condition). A two-factorial analysis with movement (activity vs rest) and mirror (mirror vs no mirror) as main factors was performed to assess neuronal activity resultant of the mirror illusion. Results Data on 18 participants were suitable for analysis. Results showed a significant interaction effect of movement×mirror during the bimanual experiment. Activated regions were the precuneus and the posterior cingulate cortex (p<0.05 false discovery rate). Conclusion In this first study on the neuronal correlates of the mirror illusion in patients with stroke, the authors showed that during bimanual movement, the mirror illusion increases activity in the precuneus and the posterior cingulate cortex, areas associated with awareness of the self and spatial attention. By increasing awareness of the affected limb, the mirror illusion might reduce learnt non-use. The fact that the authors did not observe mirror-related activity in areas of the motor or mirror neuron system questions popular theories that attribute the clinical effects of mirror therapy to these systems.
In Situ Burning of Oil Spills

For more than a decade NIST conducted research to understand, measure and predict the important features of burning oil on water. Results of that research have been included in nationally recognized guidelines for approval of intentional burning. NIST measurements and predictions have played a major role in establishing in situ burning as a primary oil spill response method. Data are given for pool fire burning rates, smoke yield, smoke particulate size distribution, smoke aging, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon content of the smoke for crude and fuel oil fires with effective diameters up to 17.2 m. New user-friendly software, ALOFT, was developed to quantify the large-scale features and trajectory of wind blown smoke plumes in the atmosphere and estimate the ground level smoke particulate concentrations. Predictions using the model were tested successfully against data from large-scale tests. ALOFT software is being used by oil spill response teams to help assess the potential impact of intentional burning.
Overactivation of Intestinal SREBP2 in Mice Increases Serum Cholesterol

Sterol Response Element Binding Protein 2 (SREBP2) transcription factor is a master regulator of cholesterol homeostasis. Treatment with statins, inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis, activates intestinal SREBP2, which may hinder their cholesterol-lowering effects. Overactivation of SREBP2 in mouse liver was shown to have no effect on plasma cholesterol. However, the influence of activating intestinal SREBP2 on plasma cholesterol is not known. We have generated a novel transgenic mouse model with intestine specific overexpression of active SREBP2 (ISR2) driven by villin promoter. ISR2 mice showed overexpression of active SREBP2 specifically in the intestine. Microarray analysis of jejunal RNA from ISR2 mice showed a significant increase in genes involved in fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis. Cholesterol and triglyceride (TG) in jejunum and liver (mg/g protein) were significantly increased in ISR2 vs wild type mice. Serum Cholesterol was significantly increased in VLDL and LDL fractions whereas the level of serum triglycerides was decreased in ISR2 vs wild type mice. In conclusion, activation of intestinal SREBP2 alone seems to be sufficient to increase plasma cholesterol, highlighting the essential role of intestine in maintaining cholesterol homeostasis in the body.
Intensification of a triple-nucleoside regimen with tenofovir or efavirenz in HIV-1-infected patients with virological suppression

Objective:To compare a quadruple-nucleoside with an efavirenz-containing regimen for treatment of HIV-1 infection. Design:A randomized, open-label study of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). Methods:Subjects receiving zidovudine/lamivudine/abacavir on ACTG 5095 with HIV-1 RNA less than 200 copies/ml were randomly assigned to intensify either with tenofovir or efavirenz. Subjects were followed for time to treatment failure, defined as either virological failure or treatment discontinuation. Analyses were intent-to-treat. Results:One hundred and seventy subjects (21% women; 56% non-white) entered the study. At baseline, 95 and 73% had HIV-1-RNA levels less than 200 and 50 copies/ml, respectively; the median CD4 cell count was 453 cells/μl. Over a median 79 weeks follow-up, 165 (97%) completed the study, three (2%) discontinued, and two (1%) died. Treatment failure occurred in 31 subjects: 18 (21%) (quadruple nucleosides) and 13 (15%) (efavirenz-containing regimen); however the failure–time curves crossed and demonstrated a non-constant treatment effect over time, characterized by more early treatment failures on the efavirenz-containing regimen and more late treatment failures on the four-nucleoside regimen. HIV-1 RNA remained suppressed in more than 88% of subjects to less than 200 copies/ml and in more than 78% to less than 50 copies/ml at weeks 24, 48, and 72, without differences by treatment arm. There were no significant differences between the regimens in CD4 cell increases, time to new grade 3/4 adverse events, or adherence. Conclusion:The safety, tolerability, and efficacy of the four-nucleoside regimen were not significantly different from the efavirenz-containing regimen. These pilot data support further investigation of the quadruple-nucleoside regimen.
Overlapping peptides of melanocyte differentiation antigen melan‐A/MART‐1 recognized by autologous cytolytic T lymphocytes in association with HLA‐B45.1 and HLA‐A2.1

From the peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) of melanoma patient SK29(AV) we have previously isolated 2 independent cytolytic T lymphocyte (CTL) clones (CTL7/147 and CTL13/211), which lysed autologous tumor cells in association with HLA‐B45.1. As demonstrated here, both CTL clones were directed against melanocyte differentiation antigen Melan‐A/MART‐1, which also was recognized by HLA‐A2.1‐restricted CTLs from the same patient. By generating and transfecting 3′‐deletion mutants of Melan‐A/MART‐1 cDNA, we localized its peptide‐coding regions. The HLA‐B45.1‐presented peptides were derived from a hydrophobic region of the protein and largely overlapped the peptides recognized by CTLs from the same patient in association with HLA‐A2.1. We determined the fine specificity of these CTL clones with synthetic peptides. CTL clone CTL7/147 recognized the 11‐mer peptide AEEAAGIGILT (residues 24–34) at the lowest concentrations. The absence of threonine‐34 abrogated the recognition by CTL7/147. The truncated peptide AEEAAGIGIL (residues 24–33) proved to be the optimal synthetic peptide for sensitization against lysis by CTL13/211. This indicated that C‐terminal threonine‐34 was not involved in binding to HLA‐B45.1 but, rather, was part of the epitope for CTL7/147. HLA‐B45.1‐associated peptides of Melan‐A/MART‐1 were regularly processed and presented by other melanomas and other cell types. Three of 4 independent HLA‐A2.1‐restricted SK29‐CTL clones recognized the 10‐mer peptide EAAGIGILTV (residues 26–35) at 10‐ to 100‐fold lower concentrations than the nonamer AAGIGILTV (residues 27–35), previously described as the common immunodominant peptide antigen for all known anti‐Melan‐A/MART‐1 CTLs restricted by HLA‐A2.1. Different melanoma peptide antigens currently are applied in therapeutic vaccination studies. Our findings emphasize that restricting to peptides of minimal length might exclude relevant T‐cell epitopes. Int. J. Cancer 75:451–458, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clay‐reinforced epoxy nanocomposites

Epoxy/clay nanocomposites were prepared using a conventional diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy, cured with diethyltoluene diamine (DETDA). The nanocomposites were characterized by dynamic mechanical analysis. A modest increase in glass transition temperature and significant increase in storage modulus were achieved as a result of incorporation of clay. The formation of nanocomposite was confirmed by wide-angle X-ray analysis. The higher impact strength of the nanocomposite compared the DGEBA matrix was explained in terms of with the morphology observed by SEM. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry
Increased Plasma Levels of Brain Natriuretic Peptide in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction

BackgroundBrain natriuretic peptide is a novel natriuretic peptide that is secreted predominantly from the ventricles, and its plasma levels have been shown to be markedly increased in patients with chronic congestive heart failure. This study was designed to examine the plasma levels of brain natriuretic peptide as well as atrial natriuretic peptide in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Methods and ResultsWe examined the plasma levels of brain natriuretic peptide as well as atrial natriuretic peptide in 50 consecutive patients (36 men and 14 women; mean age, 66 years) with acute myocardial infarction over the time course of 4 weeks. The plasma level of brain natriuretic peptide was significantly increased on admission in patients with acute myocardial infarction compared with controls (92±28 versus 5.2±0.5 pg/mL, p<.01) and reached the peak level of 319±58 pg/mL at 16.4±0.7 hours after admission. Thereafter, the level decreased and then again increased, forming the second peak of 277±66 pg/mL on day 5. The level then decreased gradually but was still much higher in the fourth week than that of controls (149±47 versus 5.2±0.5 pg/mL, p<.001). On the other hand, the plasma atrial natriuretic peptide level already had been increased at the time of admission compared with controls (116±14 versus 39.5±2.6 pg/mL, p<.01) and decreased thereafter, again increasing and making a small peak on day 2 to 3. The time course of the plasma brain natriuretic peptide level could be divided into two patterns: a monophasic pattern with one peak at about 16 hours after admission and a biphasic pattern with two peaks at about 16 hours and 5 days after admission. There were significantly more patients with anterior infarction, congestive heart failure, higher level of maximal creatine kinase-MB isoenzyme, and lower left ventricular ejection fraction in the biphasic group than in the monophasic group. ConclusionWe conclude that the plasma level of brain natriuretic peptide is increased markedly in patients with acute myocardial infarction and may reflect the degree of left ventricular dysfunction in these patients.
Chiral currents and static properties of nucleons in holographic QCD

We analyze static properties of nucleons in the two flavor holographic QCD model of Sakai and Sugimoto described effectively by a five-dimensional U(2) Yang-Mills theory with the Chern-Simons term on a curved background. The baryons are represented in this model as a soliton, which at a time slice is approximately the Belavin-Polyakov-Shvarts-Tyupkin (BPST) instanton with a fixed size. First, we construct a chiral current in four dimensions from the Noether current of local gauge transformations which are nonvanishing on the boundaries of the extra dimension. We examine this chiral current for nucleons with quantized collective coordinates to compute their charge distribution, charge radii, magnetic moments, and axial-vector coupling. Most of the results are better close to the experimental values than in the Skyrme model. We discuss the problems of our chiral current, nonuniqueness of the local gauge transformation for defining the current, and its gauge-noninvariance.
PNC27 anticancer peptide as targeting ligand significantly improved antitumor efficacy of Doxil in HDM2-expressing cells.

AIM To investigate the potential of PNC27 peptide, 12-26 of p53 with high affinity for HDM2 protein, as targeting ligand for Doxil to improve its antitumor activity. MATERIALS & METHODS Doxil postinserted with 25, 50, 100 and 200 PNC27 peptides per liposome. Flow cytometry and confocal analysis were performed on C26 colon carcinoma (HDM2 positive) and B16F0 melanoma (HDM2 negative) cells. In vivo studies were performed on BALB/c mice bearing C26 and C57BL/6 mice bearing B16F0 tumor models. RESULTS PNC27-Doxil showed significant cellular uptake and cytotoxicity in C26 cells compared with Doxil. PNC27-Doxil (100 PNC27 peptide) significantly improved therapeutic efficacy of Doxil without compromising its biodistribution in C26 tumor. However, these results were not observed in B16F0 cells. CONCLUSION PNC27 is a promising targeting ligand for Doxil against HDM2-positive cancers.
An English to Turkish Machine Translation System Using Structural Mapping

This paper describes the design and implementation of an English-Turkish machine translation (MT) system developed as a part of the TU-Language project supported by a NATO Science for Stability Project grant. The system uses a structural transfer approach in translating the domain of IBM computer manuals. The general design of the translation system and a detailed description of the transfer component is presented in this paper.
A Delay-Based Double-Talk Detector

When an adaptive filter is used for echo cancellation, it is essential to prevent the filter from diverging in situations when the echo signal is contaminated with near-end disturbance, i.e., during double-talk. This paper presents an extension of a previously proposed double-talk detector for improved performance. It is shown that the computational complexity of the proposed detector is lower than that of the well-used normalized cross correlation (NCC) double-talk detector, at the cost of performance. Further, it is shown that there can be a significant performance difference, in terms of detecting double-talk, between having a fixed echo cancellation filter, which is a common strategy in objective evaluation techniques, and an adaptive filter, which is more close to realistic conditions.
In vitamin B12 deficiency, higher serum folate is associated with increased total homocysteine and methylmalonic acid concentrations

In a recent study of older participants (age ≥60 years) in the 1999–2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we showed that a combination of high serum folate and low vitamin B12 status was associated with higher prevalence of cognitive impairment and anemia than other combinations of vitamin B12 and folate status. In the present study, we sought to determine the joint influence of serum folate and vitamin B12 concentrations on two functional indicators of vitamin B12 status, total homocysteine (tHcy) and methylmalonic acid (MMA), among adult participants in phase 2 of the NHANES III (1991–1994) and the NHANES 1999–2002. Exclusion of subjects who were <20 years old, were pregnant, had evidence of kidney or liver dysfunction, or reported a history of alcohol abuse or recent anemia therapy left 4,940 NHANES III participants and 5,473 NHANES 1999–2002 participants for the study. Multivariate analyses controlled for demographic factors, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, self-reported diabetes diagnosis, and serum concentrations of creatinine and alanine aminotransferase revealed significant interactions between serum folate and serum vitamin B12 in relation to circulating concentrations of both metabolites. In subjects with serum vitamin B12 >148 pmol/liter (L), concentrations of both metabolites decreased significantly as serum folate increased. In subjects with lower serum vitamin B12, however, metabolite concentrations increased as serum folate increased starting at ≈20 nmol/L. These results suggest a worsening of vitamin B12's enzymatic functions as folate status increases in people who are vitamin B12-deficient.
Television and Political Persuasion in Young Democracies: Evidence from Russia

Governments control media in much of the developing world. Does this have an effect on political choices of voters? We address this question using exogenous variation in the availability of the signal of the only independent from the government national TV channel in Russia during the 1999 parliamentary elections. We find that the presence of an independent source of political news on TV significantly decreased the vote in favor of the government party and increased the vote in favor of the opposition parties. We find that the difference in TV coverage significantly changed voting behavior even controlling for voters’ inclinations just one month prior to the elections. The effects we find are larger than those found in established democracies.
Size-constrained Submodular Minimization through Minimum Norm Base

A number of combinatorial optimization problems in machine learning can be described as the problem of minimizing a sub-modular function. It is known that the unconstrained submodular minimization problem can be solved in strongly polynomial time. However, additional constraints make the problem intractable in many settings. In this paper, we discuss the submodular minimization under a size constraint, which is NP-hard, and generalizes the densest subgraph problem and the uniform graph partitioning problem. Because of NP-hardness, it is difficult to compute an optimal solution even for a prescribed size constraint. In our approach, we do not give approximation algorithms. Instead, the proposed algorithm computes optimal solutions for some of possible size constraints in polynomial time. Our algorithm utilizes the basic polyhedral theory associated with submodular functions. Additionally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm through computational experiments.
Use of daptomycin for treatment of Staphylococcus aureus infections

Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus are important human pathogens. An increasing proportion of S. aureus are methicillin resistant. For decades, methicillin-resistant S. aureus infections have been treated with vancomycin, but susceptibility is decreasing, and tissue penetration and safety profile (especially nephrotoxicity) is not ideal. Consequently, there is a great need for the development of antibiotics with demonstrated efficacy and safety for infections caused by S. aureus and other Gram-positive pathogens. One such antibiotic is daptomycin, which has a unique mechanism of action and potent, rapid bactericidal activity, without causing cell lysis. Daptomycin has demonstrated significant efficacy in the treatment of complicated skin and skin structure infections, as well as methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resistant S. aureus bacteremia, including right-sided endocarditis. Other attributes include an excellent safety profile, low potential for resistance, and once-daily dosing.
Obtaining High-Quality Relevance Judgments Using Crowdsourcing

The performance of information retrieval (IR) systems is commonly evaluated using a test set with known relevance. Crowdsourcing is one method for learning the relevant documents to each query in the test set. However, the quality of relevance learned through crowdsourcing can be questionable, because it uses workers of unknown quality with possible spammers among them. To detect spammers, the authors' algorithm compares judgments between workers; they evaluate their approach by comparing the consistency of crowdsourced ground truth to that obtained from expert annotators and conclude that crowdsourcing can match the quality obtained from the latter.
The Equivalence of Contingency Structure for Intuitive Covariation Judgments About Height, Weight, and Body Fat

Abstract In a complete between-subjects design, 576 respondents judged covariations of problems framed around height, weight, and body fat. A verbal measure was used, consisting of prepositional statements representing relationships between two of the variables, as well as two types of response options: true or false, and a 7-point, bipolar, Likert-type scale. Consistent with previous findings, weight and body fat were unambiguously judged as if positively correlated; there were indications of a perceived negative correlation of height and body fat; and there was no evidence that participants regarded height and weight as positively correlated. Furthermore, there was no reliable evidence in support of framing effects. However, there were indications of influence for conditional format. These findings are discussed relative to previous and ongoing research efforts, and it is concluded that it may be inappropriate to regard variations in conditional format as parallel items. Measures involving all possible variations are considered fundamentally unbiased and consistent with I. Ajzen's (1988) principle of aggregation.