Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Oxidative State of LDL is the Major Determinant of Anti/Prooxidant Effect of Coffee on Cu2+ Catalysed Peroxidation

Antioxidants exert contrasting effect on low density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation catalysed by metals, acting as pro-oxidants under select in vitro conditions. Through our study on the effect of coffee on LDL oxidation, we identified the parameters governing this phenomenon, contributing to the comprehension of its mechanism and discovering significant implications for correct alimentary recommendations. By measuring conjugated diene formation, we have analysed the quantitative and qualitative effects exerted by an extract of roasted coffee on LDL oxidation triggered by copper sulphate. When the relative effects of different coffee concentrations were plotted against the lag time (LT) of control LDL (C-LDL), the apparently random experimental data arranged in sensible patterns: by increasing the LT the antioxidant activity of coffee decreased progressively to become prooxidant. The critical LT, at which coffee switches from antioxidant to prooxidant, increased by increasing coffee concentration. Also the contrasting results obtained following a delayed addition of coffee to the assay, arranged in a simple pattern when referred to the LT of C-LDL: the prooxidant effect decreased to become antioxidant as the LT of C-LDL increased. The dependence of coffee effect on the LT of C-LDL was influenced by LDL but not by metal catalyst concentration. These novel findings point to the oxidative state of LDL as a major parameter controlling the anti/prooxidant effect of coffee and suggest the LT of C-LDL as a potent analytical tool to express experimental data when studying the action exerted by a compound on LDL oxidation.
The relationships between the motivational beliefs, course experiences and achievement among postgraduate students in Pakistan

While there is considerable literature concerning the relationship between student motivation and achievement, few studies have examined the relationship between student motivation, course experiences and academic achievement at the postgraduate level. This paper is based on the findings of the initial correlation analysis of the relationship between motivational beliefs and course experiences of 368 postgraduate students in five different subject areas enrolled in day and afternoon classes at a highly-ranked public university in Pakistan. A questionnaire was developed using scales from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and the Course Experiences Questionnaire to measure the motivational beliefs and course experiences of students. Academic achievement was measured using the achievement score in the courses in which the data were collected. The results of the study indicated that students' achievement scores were positively correlated with their self-efficacy for learning and negatively correlated with test anxiety, whereas the course-experience factor learning community was significantly correlated with achievement scores. Significant correlations were also found among almost all motivational beliefs and course experience factors.
Self-Portraits As Presentations of Self

Questions concerning the psychological meanings of self-portraits are discussed in terms of three current social psychological theories that emphasize self-awareness, self-presentation, and the social construction of the self. The social constructionist perspective implies that self-portraits will have different meanings at different epochs due to changing conceptions of the self and the complex relationships between social and economic conditions, ideas about appearance and the significance of portraits. Self-presentation theory implies that self-portraits will be read in terms of motives for self-presentation. Some relevant findings are discussed from a study that asked students to attempt to distinguish between portraits and self-portraits made by the same artists. Respondents were more accurate with Modern than with Baroque pictures and seemed to base their identifications on imputed artists’ intentions and the sitters’ psychological expressions.
Lit1 Distinguish Patients with Beckwith-wiedemann Syn- Drome with Cancer and Birth Defects. Am J Hum Genet 70: 604–611 to Trust or Not to Trust an Idiosyncratic Mitochondrial Data Set

(2000) Epigenotype-phenotype correlations in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. J Med Ge-net 37:921–926 Fitzpatrick GV, Soloway PD, Higgins MJ (2002) Regional loss of imprinting and growth deficiency in mice with a targeted deletion of KvDMR1. (2001) Analysis of the methylation status of the KCNQ1OT and H19 genes in leukocyte DNA for the diagnosis and prognosis of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. (1999) Loss of imprinting of a paternally expressed transcript, with antisense orientation to KvLQT1, occurs frequently in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and is independent of insulin-like growth factor II imprinting. (2000) Study of DNA-methylation patterns at chromosome 15q11-q13 in children born after ICSI reveals no imprinting defects. (1999) LIT1, an imprinted antisense RNA in the human KvLQT1 locus identified by screening for differentially expressed transcripts using monochromosomal hybrids. (2001) Perinatal outcome of pregnancy after GnRH antagonist (ganirelix) treatment during ovarian stimulation for conventional IVF or ICSI: a preliminary report. (2003) Another case of imprinting defect in a girl with Angelman syndrome who was conceived by intracytoplasmic sperm injection. A maternally methylated CpG island in KvLQT1 is associated with an antisense paternal transcript and loss of imprinting in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. (2001) Tumor development in the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome is associated with a variety of constitutional molecular 11p15 alterations including imprinting defects of KCNQ1OT1. (2001) Epigenetic change in IGF2R is associated with fetal overgrowth after sheep embryo culture. To the Editor: In a recent report, Silva et al. (2002) provided partial (8.8 kb) information on the mtDNA coding region (within the region 7148–15946, in the numbering of the Cambridge reference sequence [CRS]; Anderson et al. [1981]) in 40 individuals from Brazil. On the basis of the similarity in nucleotide diversity and age estimates of the four founder haplogroups A, B, C, and D, they claimed to have added new evidence for a single early entry of the founder populations into America. However, a site-by-site audit of the data reveals that their sequences are not of high enough quality to justify such statements. The authors failed to realize that a large number of mutations associated with basal branches of the worldwide mtDNA phylogeny (Finnilä et al. 2001; Maca-Meyer et al. 2001; Torroni et al. 2001; Derbeneva et al. 2002; Herrnstadt et al. 2002; Kivisild et al. 2002) were not correctly scored in their data set.
The differentials and determinants of perinatal mortality in rural Bangladesh

Objective: In Bangladesh, the perinatal mortality is very high. This study examined the differentials and determinants of perinatal mortality in rural Bangladesh. Methods: The study was based on the prospective data on maternal morbidity collected by the Bangladesh Institute of Research for Promotion of Essential and Reproductive Health and Technologies (BIRPERHT). This prospective study was conducted during the period November 1992 to December 1993. In this study, the factors associated with perinatal deaths were examined, employing differential and multivariate analyses. Results: It was found that assisted delivery caused higher risks of stillbirth and death among live births during the first week of life. It was also observed that five or more pregnancies, prior to the index pregnancy, were positively associated with perinatal death. Conclusion: If the delivery is assisted or there are complications in delivery, then it is likely that the incidence of perinatal mortality will increase sharply. If the newborn baby was given colostrum, then perinatal mortality decreased to a great extent.
Spacecraft coordination control in 6DOF based on Neural Network

We address the problem of 6DOF spacecraft formation control in a leader-follower architecture using Robust Integral of the Sign Error (RISE) based Neural Network (NN) technique. Based on 6DOF relative dynamic model of the spacecraft formation, RISE based NN is introduced to approximate the dynamics of the follower as well as various practical disturbances. It is shown that the errors of the entire formation closed-loop are guaranteed to be asymptotical stable (AS), which takes significant advantage over the typical Uniformly Upper Bounded (UUB) property of most NN controllers in high-precision formation tasks. Numerical simulation is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Derivation and Cloning of a Novel Rhesus Embryonic Stem Cell Line Stably Expressing Tau‐Green Fluorescent Protein

Embryonic stem cells (ESC) have the ability of indefinite self‐renewal and multilineage differentiation, and they carry great potential in cell‐based therapies. The rhesus macaque is the most relevant preclinical model for assessing the benefit, safety, and efficacy of ESC‐based transplantations in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. In the case of neural cell grafting, tracing both the neurons and their axonal projections in vivo is essential for studying the integration of the grafted cells in the host brain. Tau‐Green fluorescent protein (tau‐GFP) is a powerful viable lineage tracer, allowing visualization of cell bodies, dendrites, and axons in exquisite detail. Here, we report the first rhesus monkey ESC line that ubiquitously and stably expresses tau‐GFP. First, we derived a new line of rhesus monkey ESC (LYON‐ES1) that show marker expression and cell cycle characteristics typical of primate ESCs. LYON‐ES1 cells are pluripotent, giving rise to derivatives of the three germ layers in vitro and in vivo through teratoma formation. They retain all their undifferentiated characteristics and a normal karyotype after prolonged culture. Using lentiviral infection, we then generated a monkey ESC line stably expressing tau‐GFP that retains all the characteristics of the parental wild‐type line and is clonogenic. We show that neural precursors derived from the tau‐GFP ESC line are multipotent and that their fate can be precisely mapped in vivo after grafting in the adult rat brain.
Exploring the dimensions of environmental concern. An integrative proposal

Abstract This paper proposes a theoretically integrated structure made up of four dimensions pertaining to environmental concern: apathy, anthropocentrism, connectedness and emotional affinity. These four dimensions are distributed along a gradient that reflects the inclusion of nature in the self. This proposal is empirically supported by a study conducted with 514 university students. The tool created is able to measure the respective dimensions of environmental concern and analyze their relationship with a measurement of pro-environmental behaviour. The main findings indicate that a high level of inclusion of nature in the self is expressed through high scores for connectedness and emotional affinity, whereas the relationships are inverted in the case of anthropocentrism and environmental apathy. A similar pattern is observed in relation to pro-environmental behaviour. Some of the implications are discussed with regard to cognitive/affective differentiation in the dimensions of environmental concern.
Combining asymmetric 13C-labeling and isotopic filter/edit NOESY: a novel strategy for rapid and logical RNA resonance assignment

Abstract Although ∼98% of the human genomic output is transcribed as non-protein coding RNA, <2% of the protein data bank structures comprise RNA. This huge structural disparity stems from combined difficulties of crystallizing RNA for X-ray crystallography along with extensive chemical shift overlap and broadened linewidths associated with NMR of RNA. While half of the deposited RNA structures in the PDB were solved by NMR methods, the usefulness of NMR is still limited by the high cost of sample preparation and challenges of resonance assignment. Here we propose a novel strategy for resonance assignment that combines new strategic 13C labeling technologies with filter/edit type NOESY experiments to greatly reduce spectral complexity and crowding. This new strategy allowed us to assign important non-exchangeable resonances of proton and carbon (1′, 2′, 2, 5, 6 and 8) nuclei using only one sample and <24 h of NMR instrument time for a 27 nt model RNA. The method was further extended to assigning a 6 nt bulge from a 61 nt viral RNA element justifying its use for a wide range RNA chemical shift resonance assignment problems.
Movement, Asylum, Borders: Christian Perspectives

This paper addresses from the point of view of Catholic social teaching and moral theology the questions posed by the intersection of universal human rights, especially the rights of movement, and the assertion of national sovereignty. It begins with a brief note on the theological foun? dations of Catholic understanding of exile and refuge, then examines the moral problems involved in the clash between rights of movement and the sovereign control of national borders.
External Dacryocystorhinostomy With or Without Double Mucosal Flap Anastomosis: Comparison of Surgical Outcomes

AbstractThe aim of this study was to compare surgical outcomes of external dacryocystorhinostomy with or without double mucosal flap anastomosis. A retrospective chart review was performed for 205 sides of 178 patients diagnosed with nasolacrimal duct obstruction. Double-flap anastomosis was performed on 57 sides (double-flap group) and complete flap excision on 148 sides (no-flap group). Criteria for surgical success were defined as no or minimal intermittent epiphora and no reflux on lacrimal irrigation 12 months postoperatively. Consequently, surgery was successful for 53 sides (93.0%) in the double-flap group and 138 sides (93.2%) in the no-flap group. There was no statistically significant difference in success rate between the groups (P = 0.947, the Fisher exact probability test). This study demonstrated that external dacryocystorhinostomy without flap anastomosis had a surgical outcome similar to that of double-flap anastomosis.
REGULATION OF RETINOL BINDING PROTEIN 4 EXPRESSION AND ITS RELATION TO ADIPOGENESIS IN BOVINE ADIPOCYTES

Adipogenesis is of great importance in beef cattle. Recent findings indicate that glucose, a substrate for fatty acid biosynthesis and retinoic acid enhance a dipogenesis in bovine intramuscular adipocytes. However, other recent findings indicate that Retino l-Binding Protein 4 (RBP4) interferes with glucose uptake and utilization by rodents’ adipocytes. In t his study we examined the regulation of RBP4 expression and its relation to adipogenesis in bovi ne adipocytes. Stromal vascular cells were prepared by collagenase digestion from subcutaneous and intr amuscular adipose tissues of Japanese black steers. RT-PCR revealed that RBP4 mRNA was expressed in bovine adipose tissue. Northern and Western Blot analysis showed that RBP4 was highly expressed and secreted from bovine preadipocytes. However, RBP4 expression and secretion were significantly reduced by induction of the adipogenic differentiation of preadipocytes into ma ture adipocytes. Glucose and retinoic acid have a suppressive effect on RBP4 expression and secretion from intramuscular adipocytes. Retinoic acid significantly decreased RBP4 expression in Japanese black steer subcutaneous adipocytes. Retinoic acid itself had no effect on lipid accumulation in subcu taneous adipocytes however, retinoic acid enhanced lipid accumulation in these adipocytes after additi on of acetate, a substrate for fatty acid biosynthe sis in subcutaneous adipocytes. This study indicated a neg ative correlation between adipogenesis and RBP4 expression in bovine adipocytes and suggests possib le inhibitory effect of RBP4 on adipogenesis.
First Generation Students and Post-Undergraduate Aspirations

Equal access to education is a growing concern throughout the nation. With an increasing amount of programs aimed to support the underrepresented populations on college campuses, first generation college students have grown to be a target population of particular interest. This study examined the relationships between first generation college seniors and applications to graduate or professional programs. The goal of this study was to determine if first generation students are pursuing advanced degrees at lower rates than non-first generation students and if so, attempt to uncover factors contributing to that evidence. Data were gathered from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshman data set, and variables were analyzed using a binary logistic regression. The results of the study indicate that first generation students are significantly less likely to pursue an advanced degree, even when controlling for race, gender, family income, and cumulative grade point average, suggesting a distinctive impact of first generation status on post-undergraduate aspirations. However, after controlling for the impact of self-reported undergraduate loans, the effect of first generation status was no longer significant. The findings in this study provide an important new perspective in the field of sociology.
Thermodynamics of Thermoelectric Phenomena and Applications

Fifty years ago, the optimization of thermoelectric devices was analyzed by considering the relation between optimal performances and local entropy production. Entropy is produced by the irreversible processes in thermoelectric devices. If these processes could be eliminated, entropy production would be reduced to zero, and the limiting Carnot efficiency or coefficient of performance would be obtained. In the present review, we start with some fundamental thermodynamic considerations relevant for thermoelectrics. Based on a historical overview, we reconsider the interrelation between optimal performances and local entropy production by using the compatibility approach together with the thermodynamic arguments. Using the relative current density and the thermoelectric potential, we show that minimum entropy production can be obtained when the thermoelectric potential is a specific, optimal value.
Fickle or Faithful: The Roles of Host and Environmental Context in Determining Symbiont Composition in Two Bathymodioline Mussels

The Mediterranean Sea and adjoining East Atlantic Ocean host a diverse array of small-sized mussels that predominantly live on sunken, decomposing organic remains. At least two of these, Idas modiolaeformis and Idas simpsoni, are known to engage in gill-associated symbioses; however, the composition, diversity and variability of these symbioses with changing habitat and location is poorly defined. The current study presents bacterial symbiont assemblage data, derived from 454 pyrosequencing carried out on replicate specimens of these two host species, collected across seven sample sites found in three oceanographic regions in the Mediterranean and East Atlantic. The presence of several bacterial OTUs in both the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic suggests that similar symbiont candidates occur on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. The results reveal markedly different symbiotic modes in the two species. Idas modiolaeformis displays high symbiont diversity and flexibility, with strong variation in symbiont composition from the East Mediterranean to the East Atlantic. Idas simpsoni displays low symbiont diversity but high symbiont fidelity, with a single dominant OTU occurring in all specimens analysed. These differences are argued to be a function of the host species, where subtle differences in host evolution, life-history and behaviour could partially explain the observed patterns. The variability in symbiont compositions, particularly in Idas modiolaeformis, is thought to be a function of the nature, context and location of the habitat from which symbiont candidates are sourced.
Bag-1 expression in thyroid neoplasm: its correlation with Bcl-2 expression and carcinoma dedifferentiation.

BACKGROUND Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is one of the promnent factors in the evaluation of carcinoma characteristics. It is well-known that bcl-2 and its related proteins significantly modulate apoptosis. Bag-1 is a recently identified bcl-2-related protein and is known to be linked to the biological aggressiveness of some carcinomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS We immunohistochemically investigated bag-1 and bcl-2 expression in various thyroid neoplasms using monoclonal antibodies. RESULTS High bag-1 expression was observed in 66.7% of follicular adenoma and 75.0% of follicular carcinoma, and no statistical difference was established between them. In papillary carcinoma, 60.7% were classified with high bag-1 expression, whereas only 4.5% of anaplastic (undifferentiated) carcinoma highly expressed bag-1, and the incidence was significantly lower (p < 0.0001) than in papillary and follicular carcinomas. Furthermore, in thyroid neoplasm, bag-1 expression was directly linked (p < 0.0001) to bcl-2 expression. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that bag-1 may interact with bcl-2 to play an important role in thyroid neoplasm before anaplastic transformation, and the disruption of events mediated by bag-1 and bcl-2 may be a typical characteristic of undifferentiated carcinoma.
Harmonically Informed Multi-Pitch Tracking

This paper presents a novel system for multi-pitch tracking, i.e. estimate the pitch trajectory of each monophonic source in a mixture of harmonic sounds. The system consists of two stages: multi-pitch estimation and pitch trajectory formation. In the first stage, we propose a new approach based on modeling spectral peaks and non-peak regions to estimate pitches and polyphony in each single frame. In the second stage, we view the pitch trajectory formation problem as a constrained clustering problem of pitch estimates in all the frames. Constraints are imposed on some pairs of pitch estimates, according to time and frequency proximity. In clustering, harmonic structure is employed as the feature. The proposed system is tested on 10 recorded four-part J. S. Bach chorales. Both multi-pitch estimation and tracking results are very promising. In addition, for multi-pitch estimation, the proposed system is shown to outperform a state-of-the-art multi-pitch estimation approach.
Do implicit female negative associations with mathematics display cultural or regional biases?

Abstract Word association tasks seek to measure implicit attitudes that participants may be unwilling or unable to express explicitly, by analyzing the timing of responses to a sequence of word matching tasks. An earlier study used a computer-based sequence of word associations to measure differences in response time for pair-word associations when categories within the pairings were realigned. They found that females implicitly demonstrated a more negative attitude toward mathematics, and identified it more as a male-gender domain than their male counterparts. Since females continue to be under-represented in high paying, math-intensive career, it is important for educators to be informed about research that may lead to improving the participation of women in the study of mathematics. This study seeks to identify patterns in implicit female attitudes about mathematics and math-gender identity, based on culture, background growth environment and current physical location. While results for the total sample are consistent with earlier studies, significant variations are observed in subgroups partitioned by culture and background growth environment. Identifying these types of patterns may elucidate paths to alter the persistent lack of female participation in math intensive careers.