Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A cluster randomized controlled trial of a telephone-based parent intervention to increase preschoolers’ fruit and vegetable consumption123

Background: Inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with increased chronic disease risk and represents a considerable global health burden. Despite evidence that dietary habits track from early childhood, there are few published trials of interventions attempting to increase preschoolers’ fruit and vegetable consumption. Objective: The Healthy Habits trial aimed to assess the efficacy of a telephone-based intervention for parents to increase the fruit and vegetable consumption in their 3–5-y-old children. Design: A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted involving 394 parents of children aged 3–5 y recruited through local preschools. Parents allocated to the intervention received printed resources plus four 30-min telephone calls targeting aspects of the home food environment associated with children's fruit and vegetable consumption. Parents allocated to the control group received generic printed nutrition information. Children's fruit and vegetable consumption was assessed by using the Fruit and Vegetable Subscale of the Children's Dietary Questionnaire, which was administered via telephone interview at baseline and 2 and 6 mo later. Results: Analysis of all available data showed that children's fruit and vegetable scores were significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group at 2 mo (P < 0.001) and at 6 mo (P = 0.021). Sensitivity analysis using baseline observation carried forward showed an intervention effect at 2 mo (P = 0.008) but not at 6 mo (P = 0.069). Conclusions: Telephone-delivered parent interventions may be an effective way of increasing children's fruit and vegetable consumption in the short term. Further investigation to determine whether the intervention effect is maintained in the longer term is recommended. This trial was registered at http://www.anzctr. org.au as ACTRN12609000820202.
Assessing the Affective Features of Psychopathy in Adolescence: A Further Validation of the Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits

To provide an extended assessment of the affective features of psychopathy, Frick developed the Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits (ICU), which is a multi-informant questionnaire. Previous studies have provided initial support for the self-report version. The aim of the present study is to investigate the validity of self- as well as other report versions of the ICU and examine associations with measures of psychopathic traits, empathy, antisocial behavior and prosocial attitudes, reward and punishment sensitivity, and personality traits in a Dutch community sample of 455 adolescents (56% males). The results of the present study replicate and extend previous findings on the psychometric properties and the validity of the ICU in a sample of nonreferred youth. The three ICU subscales showed distinctive patterns of associations with key external criteria. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Glucocorticoid resistance in asthma.

Glucocorticoids are highly effective in the control of asthma and other chronic inflammatory or immune diseases. The value of steroids in asthma became apparent soon after the introduction of adrenocorticotrophic hormone in 1949 (1). The efficacy of steroids was rapidly confirmed by clinical trials (2,3), and steroids quickly became established as an effective therapy, particularly in patients with severe asthma. With the recent recognition that inflammation of the airways is present even in patients with mild asthma, inhaled glucocorticoids have now become first-line ther­ apy in patients with persistent symptoms (4). Almost all patients with asthma respond to steroids, but side effects have limited the use of oral steroids. A small proportion of patients with asthma fail to respond even to high doses of oral glucocorticoids (5, 6). Glucocorticoid resistance was first highlighted in a report by Schwartz and colleagues (7) in 1968, who described six pa­ tients with asthma who failed to respond to even high doses of systemic steroids and showed a reduced eosinopenic response to steroids and only mild Cushingoid features. Resistance to the therapeutic effects of glucocorticoids is also recognized in other inflammatory and immune diseases, includ­ ing rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, transplan­ tation rejection, human immunodeficiency virus infection and eosinophilic gastritis (8-12). However, steroid resistance has been studied most carefully in asthma, as it is easier to assess the clin­ ical response to steroids in this condition. Steroid-resistant pa­ tients, although uncommon, present considerable management problems. Recognition of patients with steroid-resistant asthma is important because elucidation of the molecular mechanisms may contribute to our understanding of glucocorticoid actions in asthma and may reveal important insights into the pathophys­ iology of asthma. Recently, there have been new insights into the pathophysiology of asthma. Recently, there have been new insights into the mechanisms whereby glucocorticoids suppress chronic inflammation, and this has shed new light on the molec­ ular basis of glucocorticoid resistance in asthma (13).
A cellular automaton model for hypoxia effects on tumour growth dynamics

Cancer is one of the biggest killers in the western world; every two minutes someone is diagnosed with cancer in the UK. Tumour growth and progression is a complex biological process, normally beginning with genetic mutations in a single cell. It starts with the early or avascular phase where growth is limited by nutrient diffusion, then the vascular stage where angiogenesis occurs to stimulate blood vessel production by the secretion of tumour angiogenesis factors and finally the metastasitic phase where the tumour spreads from the site of origin to distant sites around the body. While considering these events at the cellular level, these processes involve many microenvironment parameters like oxygen concentration, hypoglycaemia, acidity, hypoxia (lack of oxygen), cell-cell adhesion, cell migration and cell-extracellular matrix interactions. In this paper, a computational model is proposed which considered hypoxia as a microenvironment constraint of tumour growth. The model is built on two dimensional cellular automata grid and artificial neural network is considered for establishing signaling network of tumour cells. Each tumour cell can take its own decision in this model. A hypoxia impact was implemented in the model by varying different oxygen concentrations. The results show that hypoxia was introduced in the tumour mass due to lack of oxygen. The model measured tumour invasion and the number of apoptotic cells to support that hypoxia has a critical impacts on avascular tumour growth. This model could inform a better understanding of the impacts of hypoxia in tumour growth from the computational point of view.
Lipid peroxidation is essential for phospholipase C activity and the inositol-trisphosphate-related Ca2+ signal

ABSTRACT Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced in enzymatic and non-enzymatic reactions and have important roles in cell signalling but also detrimental effects. ROS-induced damage has been implicated in a number of neurological diseases; however, antioxidant therapies targeting brain diseases have been unsuccessful. Such failure might be related to inhibition of ROS-induced signalling in the brain. Using direct kinetic measures of lipid peroxidation in astrocytes and measurements of lipid peroxidation products in brain tissue, we here show that phospholipase C (PLC) preferentially cleaves oxidised lipids. Because of this, an increase in the rate of lipid peroxidation leads to increased Ca2+ release from endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stores in response to physiological activation of purinoreceptors with ATP. Both vitamin E and its water-soluble analogue Trolox, potent ROS scavengers, were able to suppress PLC activity, therefore dampening intracellular Ca2+ signalling. This implies that antioxidants can compromise intracellular Ca2+ signalling through inhibition of PLC, and that PLC plays a dual role – signalling and antioxidant defence.
Molecular Signature of HPV-Induced Carcinogenesis: pRb, p53 and Gene Expression Profiling

The infection by mucosal human papillomavirus (HPV) is causally associated with tumor development in cervix and oropharynx. The mechanisms responsible for this oncogenic potential are mainly due to the product activities of two early viral oncogenes: E6 and E7. Although a large number of cellular targets have been described for both oncoproteins, the interaction with tumor suppressors p53 and retinoblastoma protein (pRb) emerged as the key functional activities. E6 degrades tumor suppressor p53, thus inhibiting p53-dependent functions, whereas E7 binds and degrades pRb, allowing the transcription of E2F-dependent genes. Since these two tumor suppressors exert their actions through transcriptional modulation, functional genomics has provided a large body of data that reflects the altered gene expression of HPVinfected cells or tissues. Here we will review the similarities and differences of these findings, and we also compare them with those obtained with transgenic mouse models bearing the deletion of some of the viral oncogene targets. The comparative analysis supports molecular evidences about the role of oncogenes E6 and E7 in the interference with the mentioned cellular functions, and also suggests that the mentioned transgenic mice can be used as models for HPV-associated diseases such as human cervical, oropharynx, and skin carcinomas.
Empirically supported treatments in pediatric psychology: pediatric obesity.

OBJECTIVE To review the efficacy of existing interventions for pediatric obesity with reference to the Chambless criteria. METHODS Chambless criteria for determining treatment efficacy were applied to 42 randomized studies involving nonschool-based programs targeting childhood and adolescent weight loss. RESULTS We summarize the following dimensions of the pediatric obesity treatment literature: description of participants, diagnostic criteria for study participation, experimental design, treatment protocol, treatment outcome, and follow-up. CONCLUSIONS There is strong evidence for the short- and long-term efficacy of multicomponential behavioral treatment for decreasing weight among children relative to both placebo and education-only treatments. Conclusions about adolescent obesity treatment programs are more tentative as they have been less frequently examined, less rigorously controlled, and usually have not conducted long-term follow-up. Current research appears to be working to identify more efficacious treatments for pediatric obesity by exploring the specific behavioral strategies that will be most effective in modifying children's eating and physical activity habits.
Six year experience of transvenous left ventricular lead implantation for permanent biventricular pacing in patients with advanced heart failure: technical aspects

BACKGROUND Biventricular pacing has been proposed as an adjuvant to optimal medical treatment in patients with drug refractory heart failure caused by chronic left ventricular systolic dysfunction and intraventricular conduction delay. OBJECTIVE To assess the technical feasibility and long term results (over six years) of transverse left ventricular pacing with the lead inserted into a tributary vein of the coronary sinus. SUBJECTS From August 1994 to February 2000, left ventricular lead implantation was attempted in 116 patients who were eligible for biventricular pacing (mean (SD) age 67 (9) years, New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class III/IV, left ventricular ejection fraction 22 (6)%, QRS duration 185 (26) ms). RESULTS The overall implantation success rate was 88% (n = 102). A learning curve was indicated by a progressive increase in success from 61% early on to 98% in the last year. The mean pacing threshold was 1.1 (0.7) V/0.5 ms at the time of implantation and increased slightly up to 1.9 (0.9) V/0.5 ms at the end of the follow up period (15 (13) months). The rate of acute and delayed left ventricular lead dislodgement decreased from 30% in the early years to 11% after 1999. During follow up, 19 patients required reoperation for delayed lead dislodgement or increase in left ventricular pacing threshold (n = 15), phrenic nerve stimulation (n = 3), or infection (n = 3). CONCLUSIONS Transverse left ventricular pacing through the coronary sinus is feasible and safe. The rate of implantation failure and of lead related problems has decreased greatly with increasing experience and with improvements in the equipment.
Categorical Biases in Perceiving Spatial Relations

We investigate the effect of spatial categories on visual perception. In three experiments, participants made same/different judgments on pairs of simultaneously presented dot-cross configurations. For different trials, the position of the dot within each cross could differ with respect to either categorical spatial relations (the dots occupied different quadrants) or coordinate spatial relations (the dots occupied different positions within the same quadrant). The dot-cross configurations also varied in how readily the dot position could be lexicalized. In harder-to-name trials, crosses formed a “+” shape such that each quadrant was associated with two discrete lexicalized spatial categories (e.g., “above” and “left”). In easier-to-name trials, both crosses were rotated 45° to form an “×” shape such that quadrants were unambiguously associated with a single lexicalized spatial category (e.g., “above” or “left”). In Experiment 1, participants were more accurate when discriminating categorical information between easier-to-name categories and more accurate at discriminating coordinate spatial information within harder-to-name categories. Subsequent experiments attempted to down-regulate or up-regulate the involvement of language in task performance. Results from Experiment 2 (verbal interference) and Experiment 3 (verbal training) suggest that the observed spatial relation type-by-nameability interaction is resistant to online language manipulations previously shown to affect color and object-based perceptual processing. The results across all three experiments suggest that robust biases in the visual perception of spatial relations correlate with patterns of lexicalization, but do not appear to be modulated by language online.
MitoQ Blunts Mitochondrial and Renal Damage during Cold Preservation of Porcine Kidneys

Cold preservation has greatly facilitated the use of cadaveric kidneys for transplantation but damage occurs during the preservation episode. It is well established that oxidant production increases during cold renal preservation and mitochondria are a key target for injury. Our laboratory has demonstrated that cold storage of renal cells and rat kidneys leads to increased mitochondrial superoxide levels and mitochondrial electron transport chain damage, and that addition of Mitoquinone (MitoQ) to the preservation solutions blunted this injury. In order to better translate animal studies, the inclusion of large animal models is necessary to develop safe preclinical protocols. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that addition of MitoQ to cold storage solution preserves mitochondrial function by decreasing oxidative stress, leading to less renal tubular damage during cold preservation of porcine kidneys employing a standard criteria donor model. Results showed that cold storage significantly induced oxidative stress (nitrotyrosine), renal tubular damage, and cell death. Using High Resolution Respirometry and fresh porcine kidney biopsies to assess mitochondrial function we showed that MitoQ significantly improved complex II/III respiration of the electron transport chain following 24 hours of cold storage. In addition, MitoQ blunted oxidative stress, renal tubular damage, and cell death after 48 hours. These results suggested that MitoQ decreased oxidative stress, tubular damage and cell death by improving mitochondrial function during cold storage. Therefore this compound should be considered as an integral part of organ preservation solution prior to transplantation.
The FLC-like gene BvFL1 is not a major regulator of vernalization response in biennial beets

Many plant species in temperate climate regions require vernalization over winter to initiate flowering. Flowering Locus C (FLC) and FLC-like genes are key regulators of vernalization requirement and growth habit in winter-annual and perennial Brassicaceae. In the biennial crop species Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris in the evolutionarily distant Caryophyllales clade of core eudicots growth habit and bolting time are controlled by the vernalization and photoperiod response gene BTC1 and the downstream BvFT1-BvFT2 module. B. vulgaris also contains a vernalization-responsive FLC homolog (BvFL1). Here, to further elucidate the regulation of vernalization response and growth habit in beet, we functionally characterized BvFL1 by RNAi and over-expression in transgenic plants. BvFL1 RNAi neither eliminated the requirement for vernalization of biennial beets nor had a major effect on bolting time after vernalization. Over-expression of BvFL1 resulted in a moderate late-bolting phenotype, with bolting after vernalization being delayed by approximately 1 week. By contrast, RNAi-induced down-regulation of the BvFT1-BvFT2 module led to a strong delay in bolting after vernalization by several weeks. The data demonstrate for the first time that an FLC homolog does not play a major role in the control of vernalization response in a dicot species outside the Brassicaceae.
Preserved and Impaired Emotional Memory in Alzheimer’s Disease

Patients with early atrophy of both limbic structures involved in memory and emotion processing in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) provide a unique clinical population for investigating how emotion is able to modulate retention processes. This review focuses on the emotional enhancement effect (EEE), defined as the improvement of memory for emotional events compared with neutral ones. The assessment of the EEE for different memory systems in AD suggests that the EEE could be preserved under specific retrieval instructions. The first part of this review examines these data in light of compelling evidence that the amygdala can modulate processes of hippocampus-dependent memory. We argue that the EEE could be a useful paradigm to reduce impairment in episodic memory tasks. In the second part, we discuss theoretical consequences of the findings in favor of an EEE, according to which a compensatory mechanism in patients with AD solicits greater amygdala functioning or additional networks, even when amygdala atrophy is present. These considerations emphasize the relevance of investigating patients with AD to understand the relationship between emotion and memory processes.
Enhancement of Angiotensinogen Expression in Angiotensin II-Dependent Hypertension

Abstract—Chronic infusion of angiotensin (Ang) II leads to the development of hypertension and enhances intrarenal Ang II content to levels greater than can be explained from the circulating concentrations of the peptide. We previously reported that renal angiotensinogen (Ao) mRNA is enhanced in Ang II–dependent hypertension and may contribute to augmented intrarenal Ang II levels, but the Ao protein levels were not significantly increased. Because a high-salt diet (H/S) has been shown to suppress renal expression of Ao mRNA, we examined the effects of chronic Ang II infusion on kidney and liver Ao mRNA and protein levels in male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=12) maintained on an 8% salt diet. Ang II was administered via osmotic minipumps (40 ng/min) to 1 group (n=6) while the remaining rats were sham-operated. A H/S diet alone did not alter systolic blood pressure in sham animals (109±6 mm Hg at day 12); however, Ang II infusions to the H/S rats significantly increased systolic blood pressure (167±7 at day 12) and intrarenal Ang II content (459±107 fmol/g versus 270±42) despite a marked suppression of plasma renin activity (0.9±0.2 ng Ang I · mL−1 · h−1 versus 2.8±1.3). Ang II infusions significantly increased kidney Ao mRNA compared with the H/S diet alone by 1.9±0.1-fold. Western blot analysis of kidney protein extracts showed that the Ang II–infused rats had increased kidney Ao protein levels compared with the H/S diet alone (1.9±0.1-fold). Liver Ao mRNA and protein and plasma Ao protein were also significantly increased by Ang II infusions. These data demonstrate the effects of Ang II infusion to stimulate Ao mRNA and protein. Thus, the augmented intrarenal Ang II in Ang II–dependent hypertension may result, in part, by a positive amplification mechanism to activate renal expression of Ao.
Neurodynamics of the Prefrontal Cortex during Conditional Visuomotor Associations

The prefrontal cortex is believed to be important for cognitive control, working memory, and learning. It is known to play an important role in the learning and execution of conditional visuomotor associations, a cognitive task in which stimuli have to be associated with actions by trial-and-error learning. In our modeling study, we sought to integrate several hypotheses on the function of the prefrontal cortex using a computational model, and compare the results to experimental data. We constructed a module of prefrontal cortex neurons exposed to two different inputs, which we envision to originate from the inferotemporal cortex and the basal ganglia. We found that working memory properties do not describe the dominant dynamics in the prefrontal cortex, but the activation seems to be transient, probably progressing along a pathway from sensory to motor areas. During the presentation of the cue, the dynamics of the prefrontal cortex is bistable, yielding a distinct activation for correct and error trails. We find that a linear change in network parameters relates to the changes in neural activity in consecutive correct trials during learning, which is important evidence for the underlying learning mechanisms.
DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91125 A CRASH COURSE IN IMPLEMENTATION THEORY

These lectures are meant to familiarize the audience with some of the fundamental results in the theory of implementation and provide a quick progression to some open questions in the literature. HSS 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125, home page: http://www.hss.caltech.edu/ jacksonm/Jackson.html, email: jacksonm@hss.caltech.edu. This paper provides a written version of lectures given at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Game Theory and Resource Allocation: The Axiomatic Approach, which took place at SUNY Stony Brook in July of 1997. I thank the organizers and especially William Thomson for organizing the institute and the participants for feedback on the lectures.