Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The incidence of melanocytic naevi in adolescent children in Queensland, Australia

The aim of this study was to assess longitudinally the development of melanocytic naevi in children around the time of their puberty. In Queensland, Australia, 102 schoolchildren born mostly in 1977 or 1978, were examined annually on four occasions from 1990. All naevi on the body except for the scalp and parts covered by a bathing suit were counted by an experienced research nurse or trained assistant according to a set protocol. In addition, each subject's pigmentary characteristics were recorded and height, weight and pubertal status were assessed annually. The findings confirmed that the average number of naevi and average density of naevi (count per m2) on the whole body in boys and girls increase significantly with increasing age and increases were also seen on each of the following anatomic sites: face and neck, back and shoulders, and upper and lower limbs. Children who had a high baseline naevus count, or a large increase in skin surface area during the 3-year follow-up period had the highest absolute increases in naevus count but the smallest proportionate increases. Associations between baseline naevus counts and male sex, light brown or blonde hair, blue or hazel eyes, facial freckling and a tendency to sunburn, which have been previously reported, were also found. However, the independent relations of each of these factors to the increase in new naevi were more complex, once the effects of high naevus counts at baseline and increases in skin surface area were taken into account. No association was found between the incidence of naevi and height, body mass index or time of onset of puberty in this group of adolescent subjects. Beyond personal characteristics, period of birth may also influence the development of naevi, since there has been an apparent increase in naevi in the Australian children in this and other recent studies compared with naevus counts among Australian children of previous generations of comparable age living in similar environments.
Genome‐wide association studies identify susceptibility loci affecting respiratory disease in Chinese Erhualian pigs under natural conditions

Prevalence of swine respiratory disease causes poor growth performance in and serious economic losses to the swine industry. In this study, a categorical trait of enzootic pneumonia-like (EPL) score representing the infection gradient of a respiratory disease, more likely enzootic pneumonia, was recorded in a herd of 332 Chinese Erhualian pigs. According to their EPL scores and the disease effect on weight gains, these pigs were grouped into controls (EPL score ≤ 1) and cases (EPL score > 1). The weight gain of the case group reduced significantly at days 180, 210, 240 and 300 as compared to the control group. The heritability of EPL score was estimated to be 0.24 based on the pedigree information using a linear mixed model. All 332 Erhualian pigs and their nine sire parents were genotyped with Illumina Porcine 60K SNP chips. Two genome-wide association studies were performed under a generalized linear mixed model and a case-control model respectively. In total, five loci surpassed the suggestive significance level (P = 2.98 × 10-5 ) on chromosomes 2, 8, 12 and 14. CXCL6, CXCL8, KIT and CTBP2 were highlighted as candidate genes that might play important roles in determining resistance/susceptibility to swine EP-like respiratory disease. The findings advance understanding of the genetic basis of resistance/susceptibility to respiratory disease in pigs.
Protection of young children from influenza through universal vaccination

Influenza is a very common disease among infants and young children, with a considerable clinical and socioeconomic impact. A significant number of health authorities presently recommend universal influenza vaccination for the pediatric population, but a large number of European health authorities is still reluctant to include influenza vaccination in their national vaccination programs. The reasons for this reluctance include the fact that the protection offered by the currently available vaccines is considered poor. This review shows that although future research could lead to an increase in the immunogenicity and potential efficacy of influenza vaccines, the available vaccines, even with their limits, assure sufficient protection in most subjects aged ≥ 6 months, thus reducing the total burden of influenza in young children and justifying the recommendation for the universal vaccination of the whole pediatric population. For younger subjects, the vaccination of their mother during pregnancy represents an efficacious strategy.
Deregulation of MicroRNA-375 inhibits cancer proliferation migration and chemosensitivity in pancreatic cancer through the association of HOXB3.

BACKGROUND The expression pattern and regulatory effect of microRNA-375 (miR-375) in human pancreatic cancer was explored. METHODS Gene expression of miR-375 was compared between pancreatic tumors and non-tumorous pancreatic tissues, as well as pancreatic cancer cell lines and normal epithelial cells. MiR-375 was downregulated in pancreatic cancer cell lines, Capan-1 and PANC-1 cells, to assess possible tumor suppressive effects on cancer proliferation, migration, cisplatin chemosensitivity and in vivo growth of tumor explant. The regulation of miR-375 on its target gene, homeobox B3 (HOXB3) gene, was assessed though luciferase activity assay and qRT-PCR. HOXB3 was also downregulated in Capan-1 and PANC-1 cells to assess its functional correlation with miR-375 on cancer regulation. RESULTS MiR-375 was upregulated in pancreatic tumors and pancreatic cancer cell lines. MiR-375 downregulation had tumor suppressive effects in Capan-1 and PANC-1 cells by reducing cancer proliferation & migration, increasing cisplatin sensitivity and inhibiting in vivo tumor explant growth. HOXB3 was directly bound by miR-375, and was negatively regulated by miR-375 in pancreatic cancer cells. Subsequent HOXB3 downregulation reversed the suppression of miR-375 downregulation on cancer proliferation, migration and cisplatin chemosensitivity in pancreatic cancer. CONCLUSION MiR-375 is an oncogene in pancreatic cancer. Deregulation of miR-375 is inhibitory to the development of pancreatic cancer, and reversely regulated by HOXB3.
Integrating Agents with an Open Source Learning Environment

We have implemented a pedagogical agent system for FLE (Future Learning Environment) based on findings from a field trial with two 9 grade school classes in Norway. The findings indicate that students have difficulties choosing knowledgebuilding categories when posting notes in the FLE discussion forum. We identified three types of postings: Knowledge building proper, comments on the process (metacommenting) and social talk. A goal has been to “off-load” some of the meta-commenting onto the computer and to provide advice regarding which knowledge-building category to choose for a new posting based on the notes that have already been posted. The agent system is implemented in Java and integrated with FLE (an open source system). It reads knowledge-building information from a database, analyzes it according to a set of rules, and presents the results back to the students in the FLE user interface. The lessons learned are that it is possible to take advantage of statistical information in distributed collaborative learning environments and that categories taken from expert performance (scientific discourse) can be useful as scaffolding in a weakly structured knowledge domain (science discussion in schools).
Picrosirius red staining assessment of collagen after dermal roller application: A minimally invasive percutaneous collagen induction therapy

Background: Percutaneous collagen induction (PCI) through dermal roller breaks old collagen strands, promotes removal of damaged collagen and induces more collagen formation. Collagen fibers can be assessed by traditional stains or by polarized light assessment of Picrosirius red stain. Objective: The purpose of the current study is the clinical and histopathological evaluation of percutaneous collagen formation in atrophic acne scars after dermal roller application. Patients and Methods: Total study duration was 26 weeks in which 12 patients received seven sessions of PCI at 3-weeks interval, 3 mm punch biopsy specimens of scars were obtained before and after treatment (at 18 and 26 weeks). Microscopic examination of pre and post operative biopsies were done, using routine stains and Picrosirius red stain. Results: PCI induced notable improvement in the appearance of acne scars with significant reduction in the score from 123.3 ± 24.5 to 74.16 ± 16.49 (P = 0.00) after 26 weeks. Polarized light assessment of Picrosirius red stain clarified the gradual replacement of old thick orange-red birefringent collagen fibers by newly synthesized thin green-yellow birefringent ones postoperatively. Conclusion: Skin needling is a simple and minimally invasive procedure. The polarized light assessment of Picrosirius red stain clarified the change of the optical properties of collagen fibers according to the maturation process.
The pls Package: Principal Component and Partial Least Squares Regression in R

The pls package implements principal component regression (PCR) and partial least squares regression (PLSR) in R (R Development Core Team 2006b), and is freely available from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The user interface is modelled after the traditional formula interface, as exemplified by lm. This was done so that people used to R would not have to learn yet another interface, and also because we believe the formula interface is a good way of working interactively with models. It thus has methods for generic functions like predict, update and coef. It also has more specialised functions like scores, loadings and RMSEP, and a exible crossvalidation system. Visual inspection and assessment is important in chemometrics, and the pls package has a number of plot functions for plotting scores, loadings, predictions, coefficients and RMSEP estimates. The package implements PCR and several algorithms for PLSR. The design is modular, so that it should be easy to use the underlying algorithms in other functions. It is our hope that the package will serve well both for interactive data analysis and as a building block for other functions or packages using PLSR or PCR. We will here describe the package and how it is used for data analysis, as well as how it can be used as a part of other packages. Also included is a section about formulas and data frames, for people not used to the R modelling idioms.
On the Static Resolution of Digitally Corrected Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog Converters With Low-Precision Components

This semi-tutorial paper considers the effect of component mismatch on the static accuracy of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with digital correction. First, it is noted that the effective static resolution of flash ADCs is not much reduced by component mismatch: with proper digital correction, the loss due to mismatch is only about 1.3 bit, virtually independently of the mismatch level unless the mismatch is very small. Second, it is noted that current steering DACs may actually benefit from component mismatch. Moreover, with proper digital correction, current steering DACs can achieve an effective static resolution of m bits with as few as m+2 near-unit low-precision current sources
Personality assessment in personnel selection using the MMPI-2: A cross-cultural comparison

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is the most widely used and researched clinical personality assessment instrument in personnel selection. This instrumental study addresses the comparability of the MMPI-2 in assessing Spanish-speaking employees to the performance of English-speaking employees. A sample of 332 Puerto Rican power plant repairers and installers, who were administered the test in Spanish, were compared with 327 English speaking employees from the U.S mainland. The overall MMPI-2 performance of both groups of participants was highly similar and well within the normal range with most scales within the standard error of measurement. A few scales, such as the Lie scale (L), showed small differences with Hispanic clients scoring higher than the Anglos, a finding that has been reported in other studies. The MMPI-2 symptom scales for Hispanics are generally similar to the Anglo scores and do not require adjustments in interpretive strategies. In personnel settings where test defensiveness is common, interpreters need to assure that the applicant's L score is within the interpretive range.
Behavioral effects of MDMA (‘ecstasy’) on adult zebrafish

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ‘ecstasy’) is a potent psychedelic drug inducing euphoria and hypersociability in humans, as well as hyperactivity and anxiety in rodents. Adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) have become a widely used species in neurobehavioral research. Here, we explore the effects of a wide range (0.25–120 mg/l) of acute MDMA doses on zebrafish behavior in the novel tank test. Although MDMA was inactive at lower doses (0.25–10 mg/l), higher doses reduced bottom swimming and immobility (40–120 mg/l) and impaired intrasession habituation (10–120 mg/l). MDMA also elevated brain c-fos expression, collectively confirming the usage of zebrafish models for screening of hallucinogenic compounds.
Neurocognitive endophenotypes for bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVES Neurocognitive deficits have been proposed as vulnerability markers or endophenotypes for the development of bipolar I disorder (BD I). However, few research studies have examined whether neurocognitive deficits also exist in first-degree relatives of individuals with BD I. METHODS This prospective study examined neurocognitive function in individuals with BD I, their first-degree relatives and a normal control group using a comprehensive battery of neurocognitive tests. RESULTS Results indicated that individuals with bipolar disorder and their unaffected relatives demonstrated neuropsychological deficits in comparison to the normal control group in the domains of visuospatial/constructional abilities, executive function, visual learning and memory, and motor speed. In general, the unaffected relatives demonstrated an intermediate level of performance in comparison to the normal control and bipolar group. After adjustment for mood symptoms, significant differences were present for the visuospatial/constructional, executive function, and motor domains. Individuals with bipolar disorder also demonstrated a differential right versus left hemisphere deficit with respect to neurocognitive tasks. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that deficits on specific neuropsychological tests, most notably Digit Symbol, Block Design and Judgment of Line Orientation, may be indicative of cognitive endophenotypes for bipolar disorder. Replication studies are needed to further identify these deficits as endophenotypes for BD I.
Predicting transmembrane helix pair configurations with knowledge‐based distance‐dependent pair potentials

As a first step toward a novel de novo structure prediction approach for α‐helical membrane proteins, we developed coarse‐grained knowledge‐based potentials to score the mutual configuration of transmembrane (TM) helices. Using a comprehensive database of 71 known membrane protein structures, pairwise potentials depending solely on amino acid types and distances between Cα‐atoms were derived. To evaluate the potentials, they were used as an objective function for the rigid docking of 442 TM helix pairs. This is by far the largest test data set reported to date for that purpose. After clustering 500 docking runs for each pair and considering the largest cluster, we found solutions with a root mean squared (RMS) deviation <2 Å for about 30% of all helix pairs. Encouragingly, if only clusters that contain at least 20% of all decoys are considered, a success rate >71% (with a RMS deviation <2 Å) is obtained. The cluster size thus serves as a measure of significance to identify good docking solutions. In a leave‐one‐protein‐family‐out cross‐validation study, more than 2/3 of the helix pairs were still predicted with an RMS deviation <2.5 Å (if only clusters that contain at least 20% of all decoys are considered). This demonstrates the predictive power of the potentials in general, although it is advisable to further extend the knowledge base to derive more robust potentials in the future. When compared to the scoring function of Fleishman and Ben‐Tal, a comparable performance is found by our cross‐validated potentials. Finally, well‐predicted “anchor helix pairs” can be reliably identified for most of the proteins of the test data set. This is important for an extension of the approach towards TM helix bundles because these anchor pairs will act as “nucleation sites” to which more helices will be added subsequently, which alleviates the sampling problem. Proteins 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cytoophidium assembly reflects upregulation of IMPDH activity

ABSTRACT Cytidine triphosphate synthase (CTPS) and inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH) (both of which have two isoforms) can form fiber-like subcellular structures termed ‘cytoophidia’ under certain circumstances in mammalian cells. Although it has been shown that filamentation of CTPS downregulates its activity by disturbing conformational changes, the activity of IMPDH within cytoophidia is still unclear. Most previous IMPDH cytoophidium studies were performed under conditions involving inhibitors that impair GTP synthesis. Here, we show that IMPDH forms cytoophidia without inhibition of GTP synthesis. First, we find that an elevated intracellular CTP concentration or treatment with 3′-deazauridine, a CTPS inhibitor, promotes IMPDH cytoophidium formation and increases the intracellular GTP pool size. Moreover, restriction of cell growth triggers the disassembly of IMPDH cytoophidia, implying that their presence is correlated with active cell metabolism. Finally, we show that the presence of IMPDH cytoophidia in mouse pancreatic islet cells might correlate with nutrient uptake in the animal. Collectively, our findings reveal that formation of IMPDH cytoophidia reflects upregulation of purine nucleotide synthesis, suggesting that the IMPDH cytoophidium plays a role distinct from that of the CTPS cytoophidium in controlling intracellular nucleotide homeostasis. Summary: The formation of IMPDH cytoophidia reflects upregulation of purine nucleotide synthesis, suggesting that the IMPDH cytoophidium plays a distinct role from that of the CTPS cytoophidium in controlling nucleotide homeostasis.
Differential Pharmacological Effects on Brain Reactivity and Plasticity in Alzheimer’s Disease

Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) are the most commonly prescribed monotherapeutic medications for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, their underlying neurophysiological effects remain largely unknown. We investigated the effects of monotherapy (AChEI) and combination therapy (AChEI and memantine) on brain reactivity and plasticity. Patients treated with monotherapy (AChEI) (N = 7) were compared to patients receiving combination therapy (COM) (N = 9) and a group of age-matched, healthy controls (HCs) (N = 13). Cortical reactivity and plasticity of the motor cortex were examined using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Cognitive functions were assessed with the cognitive subscale of the Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog), activities of daily living (ADLs) with the ADCS-ADL. In addition we assessed the degree of brain atrophy by measuring brain-scalp distances in seven different brain areas. Patient groups differed in resting motor threshold and brain atrophy, with COM showing a lower motor threshold but less atrophy than AChEI. COM showed similar plasticity effects as the HC group, while plasticity was reduced in AChEI. Long-interval intracortical inhibition (LICI) was impaired in both patient groups when compared to HC. ADAS-Cog scores were positively correlated with LICI measures and with brain atrophy, specifically in the left inferior parietal cortex. AD patients treated with mono- or combination-therapy show distinct neurophysiological patterns. Further studies should investigate whether these measures might serve as biomarkers of treatment response and whether they could guide other therapeutic interventions.
Excitation spectra of the spin- 1 2 triangular-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet

We use series expansion methods to calculate the dispersion relation of the one-magnon excitations for the spin-(1)/(2) triangular-lattice nearest-neighbor Heisenberg antiferromagnet above a three-sublattice ordered ground state. Several striking features are observed compared to the classical (large-S) spin-wave spectra. Whereas, at low energies the dispersion is only weakly renormalized by quantum fluctuations, significant anomalies are observed at high energies. In particular, we find rotonlike minima at special wave vectors and strong downward renormalization in large parts of the Brillouin zone, leading to very flat or dispersionless modes. We present detailed comparison of our calculated excitation energies in the Brillouin zone with the spin-wave dispersion to order 1/S calculated recently by Starykh, Chubukov, and Abanov [Phys. Rev. B74, 180403(R) (2006)]. We find many common features but also some quantitative and qualitative differences. We show that at temperatures as low as 0.1J the thermally excited rotons make a significant contribution to the entropy. Consequently, unlike for the square lattice model, a nonlinear sigma model description of the finite-temperature properties is only applicable at temperatures < 0.1J. Finally, we review recent NMR measurements on the organic compound kappa-(BEDT-TTF)(2)Cu-2(CN)(3). We argue that these are inconsistent with long-range order and a description of the low-energy excitations in terms of interacting magnons, and that therefore a Heisenberg model with only nearest-neighbor exchange does not offer an adequate description of this material.
Natural Steganography: cover-source switching for better steganography

This paper proposes a new steganographic scheme relying on the principle of " cover-source switching " , the key idea being that the embedding should switch from one cover-source to another. The proposed implementation, called Natural Steganography, considers the sensor noise naturally present in the raw images and uses the principle that, by the addition of a specific noise the steganographic embedding tries to mimic a change of ISO sensitivity. The embedding methodology consists in 1) perturbing the image in the raw domain, 2) modeling the perturbation in the processed domain, 3) embedding the payload in the processed domain. We show that this methodology is easily tractable whenever the processes are known and enables to embed large and undetectable payloads. We also show that already used heuristics such as synchronization of embedding changes or detectability after rescaling can be respectively explained by operations such as color demosaicing and down-scaling kernels.