Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prion Replication Occurs in Endogenous Adult Neural Stem Cells and Alters Their Neuronal Fate: Involvement of Endogenous Neural Stem Cells in Prion Diseases

Prion diseases are irreversible progressive neurodegenerative diseases, leading to severe incapacity and death. They are characterized in the brain by prion amyloid deposits, vacuolisation, astrocytosis, neuronal degeneration, and by cognitive, behavioural and physical impairments. There is no treatment for these disorders and stem cell therapy therefore represents an interesting new approach. Gains could not only result from the cell transplantation, but also from the stimulation of endogenous neural stem cells (NSC) or by the combination of both approaches. However, the development of such strategies requires a detailed knowledge of the pathology, particularly concerning the status of the adult neurogenesis and endogenous NSC during the development of the disease. During the past decade, several studies have consistently shown that NSC reside in the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) and that adult neurogenesis occurs throughout the adulthood in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle or the Dentate Gyrus of the hippocampus. Adult NSC are believed to constitute a reservoir for neuronal replacement during normal cell turnover or after brain injury. However, the activation of this system does not fully compensate the neuronal loss that occurs during neurodegenerative diseases and could even contribute to the disease progression. We investigated here the status of these cells during the development of prion disorders. We were able to show that NSC accumulate and replicate prions. Importantly, this resulted in the alteration of their neuronal fate which then represents a new pathologic event that might underlie the rapid progression of the disease.
Tau hyperphosphorylation is associated with memory impairment after exposure to 1.5% isoflurane without temperature maintenance in rats

Background and objective There is increasing interest in studying the role of tau hyperphosphorylation associated with memory impairment. We examined the involvement of tau hyperphosphorylation in memory impairment after hypothermia following isoflurane anaesthesia in rats. Methods Adult rats were randomly divided into three groups: the control group received no treatment and others were subjected to 1.5% isoflurane anaesthesia with or without temperature control for 2 h. On the day before anaesthesia and on postanaesthetic days 1, 3 and 7, cognitive functions were assessed in a Y-maze test paradigm. To find the relationship between memory results and tau, we measured the site-specific phosphorylation of tau at Thr-205 and Ser-396 and the activity of protein phosphatase 2A within the hippocampus. Results The spatial learning and memory of animals with hypothermia were impaired at day 1 after anaesthesia, compared with nonanaesthetized rats. Anaesthesia and hypothermia led to tau hyperphosphorylation at the Thr-205 and Ser-396 epitopes in the hippocampus. There was no significant difference in the protein phosphatase 2A activity between the control and the postanaesthetic rat hippocampal samples, whereas nearly 45% protein phosphatase 2A inhibition was detected in the anaesthetized without temperature maintenance rat samples. Conclusion Our results indicate that tau phosphorylation is not a direct result of anaesthesia per se, but it is due to anaesthesia-induced hypothermia and this leads to the inhibition of phosphatase activity as well as tau hyperphosphorylation. Tau hyperphosphorylation is associated with the observed deficits in spatial learning and memory following anaesthesia in hypothermic rats.
Mannitol Utilisation is Required for Protection of Staphylococcus aureus from Human Skin Antimicrobial Fatty Acids

Mannitol (Mtl) fermentation, with the subsequent production of acid, is a species signature of Staphylococcus aureus, and discriminates it from most other members of the genus. Inactivation of the gene mtlD, encoding Mtl-1-P dehydrogenase was found to markedly reduce survival in the presence of the antimicrobial fatty acid, linoleic acid. We demonstrate that the sugar alcohol has a potentiating action for this membrane-acting antimicrobial. Analysis of cellular metabolites revealed that, during exponential growth, the mtlD mutant accumulated high levels of Mtl and Mtl-P. The latter metabolite was not detected in its isogenic parent strain or a deletion mutant of the entire mtlABFD operon. In addition, the mtlD mutant strain exhibited a decreased MIC for H2O2, however virulence was unaffected in a model of septic arthritis.
An Empirical Study of Factors That Influence the Adoption Of e-Commerce in Nigerian Business Organizations

This study examines the factors that influence the adoption of e-commerce in Nigerian business organizations. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from seventy (70) respondents who comprise all CEOs of selected business organizations in Lagos state, Nigeria. Multiple regression was employed to analyze the data and the result showed that that innovation culture, infrastructure, finance, knowledge and skills, compatibility and level of security independently and jointly predict e-commerce adoption (F (6, 63) = 55.042; R 2 =0.840; P<. 05). The predictor variables jointly explained 84% of the variance of e-commerce adoption.It was concluded for Nigerian business organizations to embrace e-commerce for their business operations technological infrastructures should be put in place by the government and also government should establish an empowered independence e-commerce agency to implement all policies relating to the adoption and usage of e-commerce in Nigeria.
Institute for Mathematical Physics Gravitational Anomaly and Transport Gravitational Anomaly and Transport

Quantum anomalies give rise to new transport phenomena. In particular a magnetic field can induce an anomalous current via the chiral magnetic effect and a vortex in the relativistic fluid can also induce a current via the chiral vortical effect. The related transport coefficients can be calculated via Kubo formulas. We evaluate the Kubo formula for the anomalous vortical conductivity at weak coupling and show that it receives contributions proportional to the gravitational anomaly coefficient. The gravitational anomaly gives rise to an anomalous vortical effect even for an uncharged fluid. Introduction. The effects quantum anomalies have on the hydrodynamics of otherwise conserved currents have recently received much attention. Two such effects are known: an anomalous magnetic effect [1] and an anomalous vortical effect [2, 3]. In the first an (external) magnetic field induces a current via the axial anomaly whereas the second is the generation of a current due to the presence of a vortex in the charged relativistic fluid. These effects have been argued to lead to observable event by event parity violation and a charge separation effect in non-central heavy ion collision at RHIC and LHC [4]. In the hydrodynamic constitutive relations these effects lead to the existence of a new class of transport coefficients. A first principle calculation of transport coefficients is possible via so called Kubo formulas. The Kubo formula for the anomalous magnetic conductivity has been derived and applied in [5] whereas the one for the anomalous vortical conductivity has been established recently in [6]. They are
Obesity and insulin resistance: lessons learned from the Pima Indians.

Diabetes and obesity are epidemic in the Pima Indians of the Southwestern United States, and the prevalence of diabetes is increasing. The most likely link between obesity and diabetes is tissue insulin resistance. If obesity is defined as an excess of body fat, then it can only be accurately assessed by measurements of body composition and not by approximations such as body mass index or percent of ideal weight. To compare the metabolic data of individuals of varying size, an accurate measure of metabolic size is needed. Total body weight is not an appropriate means of comparing individuals since obese subjects have a greater proportion of nonmetabolizing mass (triglyceride). Body surface area shows a sex difference, and this may distort data if both sexes are present. From studies of metabolic rate we have determined that metabolic rate is directly proportional to the fat-free mass plus 18 kg, and we suggest that this weight can be equated with metabolic size. Glucose storage in skeletal muscle appears to be important in the disposal of an intravenous glucose load. Consistent with its role in glycogen storage, glycogen synthase enzyme is activated in proportion to the ability to dispose of glucose during a hyperinsulinemic, euglycemic clamp. The role of glycogen synthase is most notable at supraphysiological plasma insulin concentrations; and since glucose uptake at these insulin concentrations is highly familial independent of the degree of obesity, we suggest that there may be a specific genetic defect expressed in skeletal muscle that reduces insulin responsiveness in some subjects. The lack of correlation between 24 hour respiratory quotient measured in a metabolic chamber (a measure of the proportion of fat derived calories) and degree of obesity indicates that in obese Pima Indians insulin resistance is not due to an inhibition of glucose metabolism by free fatty acids (glucose-fatty acid-ketone cycle). Obesity is associated with an increase in fat-free mass almost kilogram- for kilogram with fat mass when compared to the lean state. A role for this increase in fat-free tissue in producing insulin resistance has been given insufficient attention in the past. With an increase in fat-free mass, muscle cells are hypertrophied and capillaries in muscle are more widely spaced. We propose that these biophysical changes in muscle mediate, at least in part, the effects of obesity to produce a reduction in insulin sensitivity and the abnormal kinetics of insulin action found in the obese. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
A New Fluorescence-Based Method Identifies Protein Phosphatases Regulating Lipid Droplet Metabolism

In virtually every cell, neutral lipids are stored in cytoplasmic structures called lipid droplets (LDs) and also referred to as lipid bodies or lipid particles. We developed a rapid high-throughput assay based on the recovery of quenched BODIPY-fluorescence that allows to quantify lipid droplets. The method was validated by monitoring lipid droplet turnover during growth of a yeast culture and by screening a group of strains deleted in genes known to be involved in lipid metabolism. In both tests, the fluorimetric assay showed high sensitivity and good agreement with previously reported data using microscopy. We used this method for high-throughput identification of protein phosphatases involved in lipid droplet metabolism. From 65 yeast knockout strains encoding protein phosphatases and its regulatory subunits, 13 strains revealed to have abnormal levels of lipid droplets, 10 of them having high lipid droplet content. Strains deleted for type I protein phosphatases and related regulators (ppz2, gac1, bni4), type 2A phosphatase and its related regulator (pph21 and sap185), type 2C protein phosphatases (ptc1, ptc4, ptc7) and dual phosphatases (pps1, msg5) were catalogued as high-lipid droplet content strains. Only reg1, a targeting subunit of the type 1 phosphatase Glc7p, and members of the nutrient-sensitive TOR pathway (sit4 and the regulatory subunit sap190) were catalogued as low-lipid droplet content strains, which were studied further. We show that Snf1, the homologue of the mammalian AMP-activated kinase, is constitutively phosphorylated (hyperactive) in sit4 and sap190 strains leading to a reduction of acetyl-CoA carboxylase activity. In conclusion, our fast and highly sensitive method permitted us to catalogue protein phosphatases involved in the regulation of LD metabolism and present evidence indicating that the TOR pathway and the SNF1/AMPK pathway are connected through the Sit4p-Sap190p pair in the control of lipid droplet biogenesis.
Advances in automatic speech summarization

This paper reports recent advances in automatic speech summarization method. In our proposed method, a set of words maximizing a summarization score is extracted from automatically transcribed speech. This extraction is performed according to a target compression ratio using a dynamic programming technique. The extracted set of words is then connected to build a summarized sentence. The summarization score consists of a word signiﬁcance measure, a conﬁdence measure, linguistic likelihood, and a word concatenation probability which is determined by a dependency structure in the original speech given by Stochastic Dependency Context Free Grammar (SD-CFG). Japanesebroadcast newsspeech transcribedusing a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) system is summarized using our proposed method and evaluated in comparison with manual summarization by human subjects. The manual summarization results are combined to build a word network, and word accuracy of each automatic summarization result is calculated comparing with the most similar word string in the network.
Role of radiotherapy in melanoma management

Role of radiotherapy in melanoma management Background. In melanoma, radiotherapy has generally been considered as a palliative treatment option indicated only for advanced cases or disseminated disease. In the 70s of the previous century, the technological advances in radiotherapy, linked to rapid development of computer sciences, resulted in restored interest for radiotherapy in melanoma management. Although a fundamental lack of well designed prospective and/or randomized clinical trials critically influenced the integration of radiotherapy into treatment strategies in melanoma, radiotherapy was recently recognized as an indispensable part in the multidisciplinary management of patients with melanoma. Altogether, approximately 23% of melanoma patients should receive at least one course of radiotherapy during the course of the disease. In this review, radiobiological properties of melanoma that govern the decisions for the fractionation patterns used in the treatment of this disease are described. Moreover, the indications for irradiation and the results of pertinent clinical studies from the literature, creating a rationale for the use of radiotherapy in the management of this disease, are reviewed and a brief description of radiotherapy techniques is given. Conclusions. Basic treatment modality in melanoma is surgery. However, whenever surgery is not radical or there are adverse prognostic factors identified on histopathological examination of resected tissue specimen, it needs to be supplemented. Also, in patients with unresectable disease or in those not being suitable for major surgery or who refuse proposed surgical intervention, other effective mode(s) of therapy need to be implemented. From this perspective, supported by clinical experiences and literature results, radiotherapy is a valuable option: it is effective and safe, in curative and palliative setting.
Neutron crystallographic evidence of lipase–colipase complex activation by a micelle

The concept of lipase interfacial activation stems from the finding that the catalytic activity of most lipases depends on the aggregation state of their substrates. It is thought that activation involves the unmasking and structuring of the enzyme's active site through conformational changes requiring the presence of oil‐in‐water droplets. Here, we present the neutron structure of the activated lipase–colipase–micelle complex as determined using the D2O/H2O contrast variation low resolution diffraction method. In the ternary complex, the disk‐shaped micelle interacts extensively with the concave face of colipase and the distal tip of the C‐terminal domain of lipase. Since the micelle‐ and substrate‐binding sites concern different regions of the protein complex, we conclude that lipase activation is not interfacial but occurs in the aqueous phase and is mediated by colipase and a micelle.
High angular resolution diffusion imaging reveals intravoxel white matter fiber heterogeneity

Magnetic resonance (MR) diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can resolve the white matter fiber orientation within a voxel provided that the fibers are strongly aligned. However, a given voxel may contain a distribution of fiber orientations due to, for example, intravoxel fiber crossing. The present study sought to test whether a geodesic, high b‐value diffusion gradient sampling scheme could resolve multiple fiber orientations within a single voxel. In regions of fiber crossing the diffusion signal exhibited multiple local maxima/minima as a function of diffusion gradient orientation, indicating the presence of multiple intravoxel fiber orientations. The multimodality of the observed diffusion signal precluded the standard tensor reconstruction, so instead the diffusion signal was modeled as arising from a discrete mixture of Gaussian diffusion processes in slow exchange, and the underlying mixture of tensors was solved for using a gradient descent scheme. The multitensor reconstruction resolved multiple intravoxel fiber populations corresponding to known fiber anatomy. Magn Reson Med 48:577–582, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Haplogroup analysis supports a pathogenic role for the 7510T>C mutation of mitochondrial tRNASer(UCN) in sensorineural hearing loss

We ascertained a large North American family, LMG309, with matrilineal transmission of non‐syndromic, progressive sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). There was no history of aminoglycoside exposure, and penetrance was complete. We sequenced the entire mitochondrial genome and identified the previously reported 7510T>C transition in the tRNASer(UCN) gene. The 7510T>C was homoplasmic in all affected members. The LMG309 mitochondrial sequence belongs to an unnamed subgroup of mitochondrial haplogroup H. We demonstrate that the previously reported Spanish family S258 carries 7510T>C on a different mitochondrial sub‐haplogroup, H1. We did not detect 7510T>C among 79 Caucasian haplogroup H control samples, including 11 from sub‐haplogroup H1 and one from the same sub‐haplogroup as LMG309. Our results provide strong genetic evidence that 7510T>C is a pathogenic mutation that causes non‐syndromic SNHL.
Motivation and gambling involvement.

It is argued that motivation is a key determinant of gambling involvement. The hypothesis--that participants who exhibit a high self-determined motivational profile (i.e., engage in gambling for fun and have a sense of choice) will report a higher degree of involvement--was supported in a study conducted in Canada, with 245 gamblers who bet on horses. Also, the male participants were more involved in gambling than the female participants were.
Comparison of Responses to Strenuous Eccentric Exercise of the Elbow Flexors Between Resistance-Trained and Untrained Men

This study compared resistance-trained and untrained men for changes in commonly used indirect markers of muscle damage after maximal voluntary eccentric exercise of the elbow flexors. Fifteen trained men (28.2 ± 1.9 years, 175.0 ± 1.6 cm, and 77.6 ± 1.9 kg) who had resistance trained for at least 3 sessions per week incorporating exercises involving the elbow flexor musculature for an average of 7.7 ± 1.4 years, and 15 untrained men (30.0 ± 1.5 years, 169.8 ± 7.4 cm, and 79.9 ± 4.4 kg) who had not performed any resistance training for at least 1 year, were recruited for this study. All subjects performed 10 sets of 6 maximal voluntary eccentric actions of the elbow flexors of one arm against the lever arm of an isokinetic dynamometer moving at a constant velocity of 90°·s−1. Changes in maximal voluntary isometric and isokinetic torque, range of motion, upper arm circumference, plasma creatine kinase activity, and muscle soreness before, immediately after, and for 5 days after exercise were compared between groups. The trained group showed significantly (P < 0.05) smaller changes in all of the measures except for muscle soreness and faster recovery of muscle function compared with the untrained group. For example, muscle strength of the trained group recovered to the baseline by 3 days after exercise, where the untrained group showed approximately 40% lower strength than baseline. These results suggest that resistance-trained men are less susceptible to muscle damage induced by maximal eccentric exercise than untrained subjects.
Effects of aging and gender on the spatial organization of nuclei in single human skeletal muscle cells

The skeletal muscle fibre is a syncitium where each myonucleus regulates the gene products in a finite volume of the cytoplasm, i.e., the myonuclear domain (MND). We analysed aging‐ and gender‐related effects on myonuclei organization and the MND size in single muscle fibres from six young (21–31 years) and nine old men (72–96 years), and from six young (24–32 years) and nine old women (65–96 years), using a novel image analysis algorithm applied to confocal images. Muscle fibres were classified according to myosin heavy chain (MyHC) isoform expression. Our image analysis algorithm was effective in determining the spatial organization of myonuclei and the distribution of individual MNDs along the single fibre segments. Significant linear relations were observed between MND size and fibre size, irrespective age, gender and MyHC isoform expression. The spatial organization of individual myonuclei, calculated as the distribution of nearest neighbour distances in 3D, and MND size were affected in old age, but changes were dependent on MyHC isoform expression. In type I muscle fibres, average NN‐values were lower and showed an increased variability in old age, reflecting an aggregation of myonuclei in old age. Average MND size did not change in old age, but there was an increased MND size variability. In type IIa fibres, average NN‐values and MND sizes were lower in old age, reflecting the smaller size of these muscle fibres in old age. It is suggested that these changes have a significant impact on protein synthesis and degradation during the aging process.
An information-theoretic framework for semantic-multimedia retrieval

This article is set in the context of searching text and image repositories by keyword. We develop a unified probabilistic framework for text, image, and combined text and image retrieval that is based on the detection of keywords (concepts) using automated image annotation technology. Our framework is deeply rooted in information theory and lends itself to use with other media types. We estimate a statistical model in a multimodal feature space for each possible query keyword. The key element of our framework is to identify feature space transformations that make them comparable in complexity and density. We select the optimal multimodal feature space with a minimum description length criterion from a set of candidate feature spaces that are computed with the average-mutual-information criterion for the text part and hierarchical expectation maximization for the visual part of the data. We evaluate our approach in three retrieval experiments (only text retrieval, only image retrieval, and text combined with image retrieval), verify the framework's low computational complexity, and compare with existing state-of-the-art ad-hoc models.
Rate‐Related and Autonomic Effects on Atrioventricular Conduction Assessed Through Beat‐to‐Beat PR Interval and Cycle Length Variability

Atrioventricular Conduction Variability. Introduction: Atrioventricular AV) conduction time varies on a beat‐by‐beat basis in response to the influences of cardiac efferent autonomic activity and rate‐dependent electrical recovery processes. The goals of this study were to distinguish these effects on AV conduction time and to compare the variability in sinoatrial and AV nodal function.