Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence That Estrogen Suppresses Rho-Kinase Function in the Cerebral Circulation In Vivo

Background and Purpose— Premenopausal women are less susceptible to cardiovascular diseases than men or postmenopausal women. Such disease states are often associated with increased vascular RhoA/Rho-kinase activity and decreased activity of nitric oxide (NO). This study tested whether female gender is associated with lower Rho-kinase activity or higher NO activity in cerebral arteries in vivo and whether estrogen contributes to any such gender differences. Methods— Changes in basilar artery diameter were measured with the use of a cranial window preparation in anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats. Some female rats were ovariectomized (OVX) and treated subcutaneously daily for 14 days with vehicle (dimethyl sulfoxide) or 17β-estradiol. Vascular expression of RhoA or Rho-kinase was assessed by Western blotting. Results— The Rho-kinase inhibitor Y-27632 was selectively ≈3-fold more potent as a cerebral vasodilator in males versus females. Expression of total RhoA or Rho-kinase did not differ between males and females. In OVX rats, vasodilator responses to Y-27632 resembled responses in males. Treatment of OVX rats with 17β-estradiol normalized the vasodilator effects of Y-27632 to be equivalent to responses in intact female controls. The NO synthase inhibitor N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester caused ≈50% greater constriction of the basilar artery in females versus males, but responses in OVX rats treated with either vehicle or 17β-estradiol did not differ from those recorded in intact females. Conclusions— These data indicate that vascular Rho-kinase function is suppressed in females because of the effects of estrogen, whereas the higher NO activity in females is estrogen independent.
The bacA Gene of Escherichia coli Encodes an Undecaprenyl Pyrophosphate Phosphatase Activity*

The bacA gene, the overexpression of which results in bacitracin resistance, was inactivated and shown to be non-essential for growth of Escherichia coli. It was proposed earlier that the bacA gene product may confer resistance to the antibiotic by phosphorylation of undecaprenol (Cain, B. D., Norton, P. J., Eubanks, W., Nick, H. S., and Allen, C. M. (1983) J. Bacteriol. 175, 3784–3789). In the present work, this extremely hydrophobic membrane protein was overproduced and purified to near homogeneity. The analysis of its catalytic properties clearly demonstrated that the purified BacA protein exhibited undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase activity but not undecaprenol phosphokinase activity. This finding was perfectly consistent with the mechanism of action of bacitracin that consists in the sequestration of undecaprenyl pyrophosphate, the BacA enzyme substrate. The level of undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase was increased by 280-fold in cells carrying bacA on a multicopy expression plasmid. It was decreased by ∼75% but was not completely abolished in a bacA disruption mutant, suggesting that BacA is the main E. coli undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase but that other protein(s) exhibiting such an activity should exist to account for the residual activity and viability of the mutant strain. This is the first gene encoding undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase identified to date. Considering its newly identified function, we propose to rename the bacA gene uppP.
Persepsi Pelajar Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Awam Terhadap Amalan Seks

Kajian ini dilakukan bagi mengetahui persepsi pelajar terhadap amalan seks bebas dalam kalangan pelajar tahun empat Fakulti Pendidikan Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Kajian ini juga bertujuan mengenalpasti pandangan pelajar terhadap langkah-langkah yang telah diambil bagi mengatasi masalah seks bebas yang berlaku dalam kalangan pelajar IPTA serta faktor-faktor yang mendorong berlakunya masalah seks bebas. Populasi kajian adalah seramai 482 orang pelajar dari 14 kursus dan sampel dalam kajian ini merupakan keseluruhan populasi. Walau bagaimanapun, hanya 427 set soal selidik dapat dianalisis kerana 55 set tidak dikembalikan. Set soal selidik mengandungi 37 item telah diedarkan kepada responden dan dianalisis secara deskriptif untuk mendapatkan nilai kekerapan, peratusan dan min menggunakan perisian Statistical Package For Sosial Science (SPSS). Nilai kebolehpercayaan instrumen kajian ialah ? = 0.85. Analisis data dinyatakan dalam bentuk jadual. Secara keseluruhannya dapatan kajian menunjukkan persepsi pelajar terhadap amalan seks bebas adalah tinggi dengan nilai min 4.69. Manakala min bagi persepsi pelajar terhadap langkah-langkah yang telah diambil untuk menyelesaikan masalah seks bebas yang berlaku dalam kalangan pelajar IPTA pula adalah sederhana iaitu 3.34. Sementara faktor utama berlakunya amalan seks bebas dalam kalangan pelajar IPTA ialah media massa dengan nilai min 3.96.
EZH2 enhances the differentiation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

The accumulation of fibroblasts/myofibroblasts in fibrotic foci is one of the characteristics of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is the catalytic component of a multiprotein complex, polycomb repressive complex 2, which is involved in the trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 27. In this study, we investigated the role and mechanisms of EZH2 in the differentiation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts. We found that EZH2 was upregulated in the lungs of patients with IPF and in mice with bleomycin‐induced lung fibrosis. The upregulation of EZH2 occurred in myofibroblasts. The inhibition of EZH2 by its inhibitor 3‐deazaneplanocin A (DZNep) or an shRNA reduced the TGF‐β1‐induced differentiation of human lung fibroblasts into myofibroblasts, as demonstrated by the expression of the myofibroblast markers α‐smooth muscle actin and fibronectin, and contractility. DZNep inhibited Smad2/3 nuclear translocation without affecting Smad2/3 phosphorylation. DZNep treatment attenuated bleomycin‐induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice. We conclude that EZH2 induces the differentiation of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts by enhancing Smad2/3 nuclear translocation.
Interactive Acoustic Transfer Approximation for Modal Sound

Current linear modal sound models are tightly coupled with their frequency content. Both the modal vibration of object surfaces and the resulting sound radiation depend on the vibration frequency. Whenever the user tweaks modal parameters to adjust frequencies the modal sound model changes completely, necessitating expensive recomputation of modal vibration and sound radiation. We propose a new method for interactive and continuous editing as well as exploration of modal sound parameters. We start by sampling a number of key points around a vibrating object, and then devise a compact, low-memory representation of frequency-varying acoustic transfer values at each key point using Prony series. We efficiently precompute these series using an adaptive frequency sweeping algorithm and volume-velocity-preserving mesh simplification. At runtime, we approximate acoustic transfer values using standard multipole expansions. Given user-specified modal frequencies, we solve a small least-squares system to estimate the expansion coefficients, and thereby quickly compute the resulting sound pressure value at arbitrary listening locations. We demonstrate the numerical accuracy, the runtime performance of our method on a set of comparisons and examples, and evaluate sound quality with user perception studies.
Cyber Profiling Using Log Analysis And K-Means Clustering

The Activities of Internet users are increasing from year to year and has had an impact on the behavior of the users themselves. Assessment of user behavior is often only based on interaction across the Internet without knowing any others activities. The log activity can be used as another way to study the behavior of the user. The Log Internet activity is one of the types of big data so that the use of data mining with K-Means technique can be used as a solution for the analysis of user behavior. This study has been carried out the process of clustering using K-Means algorithm is divided into three clusters, namely high, medium, and low. The results of the higher education institution show that each of these clusters produces websites that are frequented by the sequence: website search engine, social media, news, and information. This study also showed that the cyber profiling had been done strongly influenced by environmental factors and daily activities.
Identification of novel vibration- and deflection-sensitive neuronal subgroups in Johnston's organ of the fruit fly

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster responds behaviorally to sound, gravity, and wind. Johnston's organ (JO) at the antennal base serves as a sensory organ in the fruit fly to detect these mechanosensory stimuli. Among the five anatomically defined subgroups of sensory neurons in JO, subgroups A and B detect sound vibrations and subgroups C and E respond to static deflections, such as gravity and wind. The functions of subgroup-D JO neurons, however, remain unknown. In this study, we used molecular-genetic methods to explore the physiologic properties of subgroup-D JO neurons. Both vibrations and static deflection of the antennal receiver activated subgroup-D JO neurons. This finding clearly revealed that zone D in the antennal mechanosensory and motor center (AMMC), the projection target of subgroup-D JO neurons, is a primary center for antennal vibrations and deflection in the fly brain. We anatomically identified two types of interneurons downstream of subgroup-D JO neurons, AMMC local neurons (AMMC LNs), and AMMC D1 neurons. AMMC LNs are local neurons whose projections are confined within the AMMC, connecting zones B and D. On the other hand, AMMC D1 neurons have both local dendritic arborizations within the AMMC and descending projections to the thoracic ganglia, suggesting that AMMC D1 neurons are likely to relay information of the antennal movement detected by subgroup-D JO neurons from the AMMC directly to the thorax. Together, these findings provide a neural basis for how JO and its brain targets encode information of complex movements of the fruit fly antenna.
Socioeconomic disadvantages and neural sensitivity to infant cry: role of maternal distress.

Socioeconomic disadvantage such as poverty can increase distress levels, which may further make low-income mothers more vulnerable to difficulties in the transition to parenthood. However, little is known about the neurobiological processes by which poverty and maternal distress are associated with risks for adaptations to motherhood. Thus, the current study examined the associations between income and neural responses to infant cry sounds among first-time new mothers (N = 28) during the early postpartum period. Lower income was associated with reduced responses to infant cry in the medial prefrontal gyrus (involved in evaluating emotional values of stimuli), middle prefrontal gyrus (involved in affective regulation) and superior temporal gyrus (involved in sensory information processing). When examining the role of maternal distress, we found a mediating role of perceived stress, but not depressive symptoms, in the links between income and prefrontal responses to infant cry. Reduced neural responses to infant cry in the right middle frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus were further associated with less positive perceptions of parenting. The results demonstrate that perceived stress associated with socioeconomic disadvantages may contribute to reduced neural responses to infant cry, which is further associated with less positive perceptions of motherhood.
Diagnosing (not-)at-issue content

Natural language utterances typically convey more than one proposition. Mario’s utterance in (1), for example, conveys at least the following propositions: i) that Mario is indicating somebody, ii) that the person indicated by Mario is a man, iii) that Carlos had money, iv) that the man Mario is indicating stole Carlos’ money, v) that Mario has a mother, and vi) that the man Mario is indicating is Mario’s mother’s friend.
Infective endocarditis due to Staphylococcus aureus: deleterious effect of anticoagulant therapy.

BACKGROUND The use of anticoagulant therapy in patients with infective endocarditis (IE) is a controversial issue. OBJECTIVE To study the impact of anticoagulant therapy on the clinical outcome, mortality, and cause of death in a series of patients with native and prosthetic left-sided Staphylococcus aureus IE. METHODS This report is based on all consecutive cases of IE diagnosed at our hospital between 1975 to 1997. Clinical data, including the use of anticoagulant therapy at the time of diagnosis, were prospectively obtained, and antibiotic treatment and surgical indications were uniform throughout the study period. Computed tomographic scans of all clinical records were reviewed. RESULTS Of 637 consecutive patients with IE, 56 had left-sided S aureus IE affecting native valves in 35 patients and prosthetic valves in 21 patients. Of the patients with prosthetic valve IE, 19 (90%) were taking oral anticoagulant therapy at the time of diagnosis while no patient with native valve IE was receiving such treatment. There were no differences between native valve IE and prosthetic valve IE in age, sex, embolic episodes, and number of central nervous system complications. Mortality was higher in prosthetic valve IE than in native valve IE (71% vs 37%; P=.02). No patient with native valve IE died due to central nervous system complications, while 73% (11 of 15 patients) with prosthetic valve IE died due to central nervous system complications. The difference in the distribution of the type of death (stroke vs other) was significant (P<.007). CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that in left-sided S aureus IE anticoagulant therapy is closely associated with death due to neurologic damage. According to our data, as soon as the clinical diagnosis of S aureus IE is indicated the use of anticoagulant therapy should be immediately stopped until the septic phase of the disease is overcome.
A Radiation Imaging Detector Made by Postprocessing a Standard CMOS Chip

An unpackaged microchip is used as the sensing element in a miniaturized gaseous proportional chamber. This letter reports on the fabrication and performance of a complete radiation imaging detector based on this principle. Our fabrication schemes are based on wafer-scale and chip-scale postprocessing. Compared to hybrid-assembled gaseous detectors, our microsystem shows superior alignment precision and energy resolution, and offers the capability to unambiguously reconstruct 3D radiation tracks on the spot.
Fast Approximate Hierarchical Solution of MDPs

In this thesis, we present an efficient algorithm for creating and solving hierarchical models of large Markov decision processes (MDPs). As the size of the MDP increases, finding an exact solution becomes intractable, so we expect only to find an approximate solution. We also assume that the hierarchies we create are not necessarily applicable to more than one problem so that we must be able to construct and solve the hierarchical model in less time than it would have taken to simply solve the original, flat model. Our approach works in two stages. We first create the hierarchical MDP by forming clusters of states that can transition easily among themselves. We then solve the hierarchical MDP. We use a quick bottom-up pass based on a deterministic approximation of expected costs to move from one state to another to derive a policy from the top down, which avoids solving low-level MDPs for multiple objectives. The resulting policy may be suboptimal but it is guaranteed to reach a goal state in any problem in which it is reachable under the optimal policy. We have two versions of this algorithm, one for enumerated-state MDPs and one for factored MDPs. We have tested the enumerated-state algorithm on classic problems and shown that it is better than or comparable to current work in the field. Factored MDPs are a way of specifying extremely large MDPs without listing all of the states. Because the problem has a compact representation, we suspect that the solution should, in many cases, also have a compact representation. We have an implementation for factored MDPs and have shown that it can find solutions for large, factored problems. Thesis Supervisor: Leslie Pack Kaelbling Title: Professor Thesis Supervisor: Tomas Lozano-Perez Title: Professor
Feature Learning in Deep Neural Networks - A Study on Speech Recognition Tasks

Recent studies have shown that deep neural networks (DNNs) perform significantly better than shallow networks and Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) on large vocabulary speech recognition tasks. In this paper, we argue that the improved accuracy achieved by the DNNs is the result of their ability to extract discriminative internal representations that are robust to the many sources of variability in speech signals. We show that these representations become increasingly insensitive to small perturbations in the input with increasing network depth, which leads to better speech recognition performance with deeper networks. We also show that DNNs cannot extrapolate to test samples that are substantially different from the training examples. If the training data are sufficiently representative, however, internal features learned by the DNN are relatively stable with respect to speaker differences, bandwidth differences, and environment distortion. This enables DNN-based recognizers to perform as well or better than state-of-the-art systems based on GMMs or shallow networks without the need for explicit model adaptation or feature normalization.
Relationships between the fossil colobine Mesopithecus pentelicus and extant cercopithecoids, based on dental metrics

Maxillary dental measurements from six specimens of Mesopithecus pentelicus, 64 cercopithecines, 59 African colobines, and 64 Asian colobines were analyzed by means of a “nested research design” that was specifically designed to explore the affiliation between fossils and extant cercopithecoids at different systematic levels. The results showed that the variation among taxonomic groups was mainly associated with size; however, in addition, interesting shape differences emerged, molars were shown to be important discriminators, Mesopithecus was confirmed as a colobine (as expected) and found to be closer to Asian species than to African ones, and the odd‐nosed colobines were found to share more dental similarities with Mesopithecus than other colobines. The last finding is in contrast to previous studies, in which it was proposed that M. pentelicus is morphologically closely related to the African colobus and the gray langur (Semnopithecus) in Am. J. Primatol. 62:287–299, 2004 © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bat Use of Remnant Old‐Growth Redwood Stands

Most of the old‐growth redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California has been cut; regenerating forests will probably never resemble those that were harvested, and what old growth remains on private land occurs in small, isolated remnant patches. The landscapes in which these stands occur differ so markedly from their original condition that their value as habitat to many species of wildlife, including bats, is unknown. Previous research in unfragmented redwood forests demonstrated that bats use basal hollows in old‐growth redwoods as roosts. We sought to determine whether bats use similar old‐growth trees as roosts when they occur in small, remnant patches of isolated old growth on commercial forest land. We compared bat occurrence in remnant and contiguous stands by collecting guano in traps suspended in hollows and by monitoring flight activity with ultrasonic bat detectors. Hollows in trees within the remnant stands had significantly more guano deposited per tree than the trees within the contiguous forest. The mean numbers of bat passes per night were statistically indistinguishable between the two treatments, although mean flight activity in the remnant stands was greater than in the contiguous forest. Bats frequently used basal hollows in small (<5 ha) stands of remnant old growth, which may be due to the closer proximity of remnants to stream courses, to their greater interface with edge where foraging success may be greater, or to the fact that the lower density of hollow‐bearing trees in remnants than in contiguous forest favored greater use per tree. Significant use of small, residual old‐growth redwood provides reason to maintain these remnants in managed landscapes as potentially important habitat for forest bats.
The conserved Mediator subunit MDT-15 is required for oxidative stress responses in Caenorhabditis elegans

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play important signaling roles in metazoans, but also cause significant molecular damage. Animals tightly control ROS levels using sophisticated defense mechanisms, yet the transcriptional pathways that induce ROS defense remain incompletely understood. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the transcription factor SKN‐1 is considered a master regulator for detoxification and oxidative stress responses. Here, we show that MDT‐15, a subunit of the conserved Mediator complex, is also required for oxidative stress responses in nematodes. Specifically, mdt‐15 is required to express SKN‐1 targets upon chemical and genetic increase in SKN‐1 activity. mdt‐15 is also required to express genes in SKN‐1‐dependent and SKN‐1‐independent fashions downstream of insulin/IGF‐1 signaling and for the longevity of daf‐2/insulin receptor mutants. At the molecular level, MDT‐15 binds SKN‐1 through a region distinct from the classical transcription‐factor‐binding KIX‐domain. Moreover, mdt‐15 is essential for the transcriptional response to and survival on the organic peroxide tert‐butyl‐hydroperoxide (tBOOH), a largely SKN‐1‐independent response. The MDT‐15 interacting nuclear hormone receptor, NHR‐64, is specifically required for tBOOH but not arsenite resistance, but NHR‐64 is dispensable for the transcriptional response to tBOOH. Hence, NHR‐64 and MDT‐15's mode of action remain elusive. Lastly, the role of MDT‐15 in oxidative stress defense is functionally separable from its function in fatty acid metabolism, as exogenous polyunsaturated fatty acid complementation rescues developmental, but not stress sensitivity phenotypes of mdt‐15 worms. Our findings reveal novel conserved players in the oxidative stress response and suggest a broad cytoprotective role for MDT‐15.
A fast, deterministic algorithm for computing a Hermite Normal Form of a polynomial matrix

Given a square, nonsingular matrix of univariate polynomials $\mathbf{F} \in \mathbb{K}[x]^{n \times n}$ over a field $\mathbb{K}$, we give a fast, deterministic algorithm for finding the Hermite normal form of $\mathbf{F}$ with complexity $O^{\sim}\left(n^{\omega}d\right)$ where $d$ is the degree of $\mathbf{F}$. Here soft-$O$ notation is Big-$O$ with log factors removed and $\omega$ is the exponent of matrix multiplication. The method relies of a fast algorithm for determining the diagonal entries of its Hermite normal form, having as cost $O^{\sim}\left(n^{\omega}s\right)$ operations with $s$ the average of the column degrees of $\mathbf{F}$.